Diane Elizabeth Bennett

Diane Elizabeth Bennett, MD, MPH, a retired Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) epidemiologist, died on September 10, 2020, at the age of 72, in Atlanta, GA. She was born on March 18, 1948, in Fort Knox, Kentucky to Margaret and Robert J. Bennett. She is survived by her only brother, James (Jim) Bennett, of San Francisco, CA.
Diane had a talent for friendships. She was a brilliant multifaceted person with a love of travel, music, theater, art, hiking, and international cuisine. In addition, she was a voracious reader and a creative generous gift giver. She played recorder in Lauda Musicam, an early music group in Atlanta; spent several weeks each summer in the UK participating in the Dartington Music Summer School; and attended the music and literature summer festival at Ernen, Switzerland, for several years.
As a child, because her father was in the military, the family moved frequently. Although she hated having to change schools and meet new people every two years, as an adult she gravitated towards work that involved frequent travel, and during her vacations she often traveled. She worked or traveled on every continent except Antarctica.
She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard/Radcliffe in Cambridge, MA, in 1971 in education, and then went on in 1975 to receive a MEd, studying at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. She lived in a commune in Somerville, MA, and later in Cambridge, MA; demonstrated against the Vietnam War; and worked in an alternative school. She was deeply involved in feminist and socialist causes, volunteering with the Red Book Store collective and the Coalition to Stop Institutional Violence.
At the age of 30 she entered University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, MA, graduating in 1981; she then went on to get her Master's of Public Health at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, MD, and in 1984 she joined the Epidemiology Intelligence Service of the Public Health Service. She devoted the rest of her career to public health. She worked at NIOSH in Cincinnati, OH, a job that involved visiting workplaces around the country, where workers reported health and safety issues. Her next job was with the Indian Health Service in Arizona, traveling around the state to oversee outbreaks in various tribes, with issues ranging from diabetes to suicide. In 1986 she moved to Sierra Leone in West Africa to direct the Lassa Fever Project. She then moved to Geneva, Switzerland and worked with the WHO Global Program for AIDS, travelling throughout Africa, before returning to the US to continue that work at CDC. From 1993-1997 she lived in London to work with CDSC on tuberculosis, which also involved regular travel to Wales.
In 1997 she returned to work with the CDC in Atlanta, GA to be nearer her mother following her father’s death. She worked on tuberculosis, coordinating standards for TB testing in Russia. In 2002, she resumed work on HIV, specifically surveillance of drug resistant HIV-AIDs. In conjunction with the World Health Organization Global AIDS Program in 2006-2009 she was based again in Geneva, Switzerland, and traveled around both Africa and Asia continuing this work before returning to Atlanta.
She retired in Jan 2013 because of health issues. She is missed and mourned by her family and friends and by the caregivers who helped her in the last years of her life.
Donations in her memory can be made to the following groups:
WHO Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund, committed to developing treatments and vaccines for Covid-19 and seeing that it is distributed equitably and to areas of greatest need. https://www.covid19responsefund.org
The Grammy Foundations, MusiCare Program, which provides a safety net of critical assistance for music people in times of need or personal emergency, including COVID-19 relief. https://www.grammy.com/musicares/donations