In development for over 14 years, ESSENCE is a disease surveillance system utilized by public health stakeholders at city, county, state, regional, national and global levels. The system was developed by a team from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) with substantial collaborations with the U.S. Department of Defense Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System (DoD GEIS), U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and numerous public health departments. This team encompassed a broad range of individuals with backgrounds in epidemiology, mathematics, computer science, statistics, engineering and medicine with significant and constant influence from many public health collaborators.