The institute focuses on fusing key disciplines to develop outreach, education, and research capabilities designed to preserve the region's health and economy, as well as to prevent or contain new and re-emerging diseases.

In 2007, Dr. J. Glenn Morris was recruited from the University of Maryland, Baltimore to serve as the founding director of the EPI.

This was the first time that the University of Florida has ever received direct funding from this foundation, and the grant was provided to help researchers develop tools to fight malaria.

Given the speed with which pathogens can move globally, work in the EPI has had a strong international focus, with collaborations in place with investigators in over 50 countries.

[4] Other areas of research have included development of mathematical models predicting spread of the virus in Florida in successive pandemic waves,[5] the critical role of aerosols in transmission of the virus[6][7][8] and the transmission of coronaviruses of animal origin into humans.