What to know
The Advisory Committee to the Director advises and recommends ways to advance CDC’s priorities, improve results, and address health disparities. Committee members are knowledgeable in areas pertinent to the CDC mission, such as public health, global health, health disparities, biomedical research, and public health preparedness.
Chair
David Warren Fleming, M.D.
Clinical Associate Professor
Seattle, Washington
Term: 10-01-2021 – 06-30-2025
Dr. Fleming is a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Washington, School of Public Health. He has served as the Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for PATH, the Director and Health Officer for Public Health – Seattle and King County, the Director of Global Health Strategies at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Deputy Director for Science and Public Health at CDC, and the State Epidemiologist for the Oregon Health Division.
Currently, he provides public health expertise to a number of organizations, including the Group Health Foundation, the Low Income Investment Fund, the Ruckelshaus Center, and the Trust for America's Health.
Members
Bechara Choucair, MD
Executive Vice President and Chief Health Officer
Kaiser Permanente
Oakland, California
Term: 08-02-2024 – 06-30-2027
Dr. Bechara Choucair, a board-certified family physician, serves as executive vice president and chief health officer for Kaiser Permanente, one of America's leading integrated health systems with more than 12.5 million members. He leads the organization's community health and social health portfolios. This includes creating the nation's largest network designed to meet the social health needs of Kaiser Permanente's members and managing over $3 billion to support medical financial assistance and charitable health coverage programs, as well as grants to community health programs throughout the organization's footprint. Dr. Choucair oversees the organization's Medicaid line of business covering 1.5 million members, and advances initiatives to increase access to care and improve health outcomes for those enrolled in both Medicaid and Medicare.
In addition, his accountability includes leading enterprise clinical business development opportunities focusing on care delivery models, technologies, and products. He also leads Kaiser Permanente's environmental stewardship work, which resulted in the organization becoming carbon neutral in 2020, and he oversees the organization's goal to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
From January through November 2021, Dr. Choucair served as the White House national COVID-19 vaccinations coordinator. During his tenure, nearly 500 million doses of the vaccine were administered nationwide.
Daniel E. Dawes, J.D.
Senior Vice President, Global Health
Executive Director, Global Health Equity Institute
Founding Dean, School of Global Public Health
Meharry Medical College
Nashville, TN
Term: 09-28-2021 – 06-30-2025
Currently, Daniel Dawes, J.D., serves as the senior vice president of Global Health; executive director of Global Health Equity Institute; and the founding dean of the School of Global Public Health at Meharry Medical College in Nashville. Previously, Professor Dawes served as the executive director of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine and a professor of health law, policy, and management. He is a health equity scholar, health policy expert, educator, and researcher whose work focuses on health reform, health equity, mental/behavioral health inequities, social and political determinants of health, and health system transformation.
He is the author of two groundbreaking health policy books, 150 Years of ObamaCare and The Political Determinants of Health, both published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Professor Dawes is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and an elected fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine.
Helene D. Gayle, M.D. M.P.H
President
Spelman College
Atlanta, Georgia
Term: 12-11-2023 – 06-30-2027
Helene D. Gayle, M.D., M.P.H., began serving as the 11th president of Spelman College on July 1, 2022. A pediatrician and public health physician with expertise in economic development, humanitarian, and health issues, she previously worked in leadership roles at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and was the president and CEO of the international humanitarian organization, CARE, and the Chicago Community Trust.
Dr. Gayle serves on public companies and nonprofit boards, such as The Coca-Cola Company, Organon, Palo Alto Networks, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Brookings Institution. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, and Council on Foreign Relations among others. She is a tenured Full Professor in the Department of Environmental and Health Sciences at Spelman College and has received 18 honorary degrees.
Dr. Gayle is married to Dr. Stephen Keith, the First Gentleman of Spelman College, and a proud Spelman dad.
Rachel R. Hardeman, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Blue Cross Endowed Professor of Health and Racial Equity
Founding Director, Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity
Associate Professor, Division of Health Policy and Management, University of Minnesota School of Public Health
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Term: 09-28-2021 – 06-30-2025
Dr. Hardeman is a tenured Associate Professor in the Division of Health Policy & Management at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health, the Blue Cross Endowed Professor in Health and Racial Equity, and the Founding Director of the Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity. A reproductive health equity researcher, she applies the tools of population health science and health services research to elucidate a critical and complex determinant of health inequity—racism. Her work aims to link structural racism to health, identify opportunities for intervention, and dismantle the systems that allow inequities to persist.
Spero M. Manson, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor of Public Health and Psychiatry, Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health
The Colorado Trust Chair in American Indian Health, University of Colorado Denver's Anschutz Medical Center
Elbert, Colorado
Term: 07-06-2024 – 06-30-2027
Spero M. Manson, Ph.D. (Little Shell Chippewa), Distinguished Professor of Public Health and Psychiatry, directs the Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health, and occupies The Colorado Trust Chair in American Indian Health at the University of Colorado Denver's Anschutz Medical Center.
His program includes 10 national centers that pursue research, program development, and training with 225 Native communities. A medical anthropologist, Dr. Manson has acquired $293 million in sponsored research to support this work and published 350+ articles on the assessment, epidemiology, treatment, and prevention of health problems over the developmental life span of Native people.
He has served on the National Advisory Councils of 3 NIH institutes, Advisory Committee to the NIH Director, and received 35 awards from the NIH, CDC, APHA, NAM, and numerous other professional organizations. Dr. Manson is acknowledged as one of the nation's leading authorities on American Indian and Alaska Native health.
Octavio N. Martinez, Jr., M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., F.A.P.A.
Executive Director, Hogg Foundation for Mental Health
Senior Associate Vice President, Division of Diversity and Community Engagement
Clinical Professor, Steve Hicks School of Social Work
Professor of Psychiatry, Dell Medical School, The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas
Term: 09-28-2021 – 06-30-2025
Dr. Martinez is the executive director of the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health. He is also Senior Associate Vice-President in the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement at UT-Austin, professor of Psychiatry at Dell Medical School, and clinical professor at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work. Martinez served on the Biden-Harris COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force and is on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Health and Medicine Division's Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity.
Rhonda M. Medows, M.D.
President
Providence Population Health
Renton, Washington
Term: 09-27-2021 – 06-30-2025
Dr. Medows is President of Population Health Management at Providence, one of the largest nonprofit health systems in the United States, and CEO of Ayin Health Solutions, a population health management company launched by Providence. Dr. Medows has extensive healthcare industry background in both the private sector and government health programs.
Dr. Medows served as Commissioner for the Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH), as the State Health Officer for Georgia, as Secretary of the Florida Agency for Health Care Administrative (AHCA), and the chief medical officer for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Southeast Region. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Julie Morita, M.D.
Executive Vice President
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Princeton, New Jersey
Term: 09-29-2021 – 06-30-2024
Dr. Morita is executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, where she has overseen programming, policy, research and communications activities since 2019. Dr. Morita began her medical career as a pediatrician in Tucson, Ariz., before moving into public health as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer at the CDC. Later, she helped lead the Chicago Department of Public Health for nearly two decades, first as the Immunization Program medical director, then as chief medical officer. In 2015, she was appointed commissioner.
Nirav R. Shah, M.D., M.P.H.
Senior Scholar
Stanford University School of Medicine
Palo Alto, California
Term: 09-27-2021 – 06-30-2025
Dr. Shah is Senior Scholar at Stanford University’s School of Medicine. He is a distinguished healthcare leader with experience as an operator, scientist, innovator, and regulator. He serves as Chair of the Health Policy Workgroup for the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI), Senior Fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), independent director of STERIS plc [NYSE:STE], and trustee of the John A. Hartford Foundation. Previously, he served as Chief Operating Officer of Kaiser Permanente in Southern California, and as Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health.
Joshua M. Sharfstein, M.D.
Professor of the Practice in Health Policy and Management
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Baltimore, Maryland
Term: 03-31-2022 – 06-30-2026
Dr. Sharfstein is Professor of the Practice in Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he also serves as Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement and as Director of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative. A pediatrician by training, he is a former health commissioner of Baltimore, Principal Deputy Commissioner of the U.S. FDA, and health secretary of Maryland. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
Jill Taylor, Ph.D.
Senior Advisor for Scientific Affairs
Association of Public Health Laboratories
Silver Spring, Maryland
Term: 09-28-2021 – 06-30-2025
Dr. Taylor has spent her scientific career serving multiple roles in public health, most recently as Director of the Wadsworth Center, New York State's Public Health Laboratory, from which she retired in September 2020. Currently, at the Association of Public Health Laboratories, she is working to increase the breadth and effectiveness of the public health laboratory response, within a re-imagined national laboratory system.
Monica Valdes Lupi, J.D., M.P.H.
Managing Director for the Health Program
The Kresge Foundation
Troy, Michigan
Term: 09-27-2021 – 06-30-2025
Ms. Valdes Lupi is the Managing Director for the Health Program at The Kresge Foundation where she leads efforts to build equity-focused systems of health that create opportunities for all people to achieve optimal health. She partners with other Kresge teams on efforts to lead with equity and expand access to safe and affordable housing, create equitable food policy systems, strengthen communities to be climate resilient, and increase economic mobility. She spent most of her career in governmental public health at local, state and national levels; most recently, she served as the Executive Director of the Boston Public Health Commission, the health department for the City of Boston.
Designated Federal Officer
Debra Houry, M.D., M.P.H.
Debra Houry, MD, MPH, is the chief medical officer and deputy director for program and science at CDC. She serves as the designated federal officer for the Advisory Committee to the Director. Prior to this role, Dr. Houry served for nearly two years (2021-2023) as CDC’s acting principal deputy director and as director for the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (2014-2021).