Dr. Lawrence Purpura

Dr. Lawrence Purpura is an Infectious Diseases Attending Physician at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, where he also holds an academic appointment as an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases since 2022. Prior to this, he served as an instructor in medicine at the same institution from 2021 to 2022.

Dr. Purpura has extensive work and uniformed service experience. He completed his MD and MPH&TM degrees at Tulane University School of Medicine and Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, respectively. He served as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA, from 2015 to 2017. He was also a US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps Officer with the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Dr. Purpura went on to complete his post-doctoral training in infectious diseases as a doctoral clinical fellow at the Department of Medicine at Columbia University, where he was later designated as a non-ACGME Doctoral Clinical Fellow. Dr. Purpura also completed a Global HIV Implementation Science NIH T32 Fellowship at ICAP, Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, from 2017 to 2020.

Dr. Purpura has been recognized with numerous honors and awards throughout his career, including the CDC NCEZID Director’s group award for the Seoul virus outbreak response and the CDC Nakano Citation for Scientific Excellence for a Lancet manuscript. He is a member of several professional organizations, including the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Officers Association, and the Epidemic Intelligence Service Alumni Association.

Dr. Purpura has made significant contributions to medical education, serving as an attending physician for the CUIMC infectious diseases consult service and the general medicine infectious disease service, where he directly teaches medical students, residents, and infectious diseases fellows. Additionally, he has reviewed articles for several prestigious medical journals, including Clinical Infectious Diseases, Emerging Infectious Diseases, AIDS and Behavior, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, and Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.

Dr. Purpura has authored or co-authored more than 25 publications and is dedicated to advancing research and treatment in the field of infectious diseases.