Staff Bio
Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, PhD, MPH
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Dr. Kittner provides leadership and direction for scientific, policy, and programmatic strategies to prevent tobacco use and help people quit using tobacco.
Role at CDC
Dr. Kittner is the director of the Office on Smoking and Health (OSH) at CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. In this position, she provides leadership and direction for scientific, policy, and programmatic strategies to prevent tobacco product initiation, encourage smoking cessation, reduce secondhand smoke exposure, and identify tobacco-related health disparities to advance health equity.
Previous experience
Dr. Kittner has more than 20 years of public health experience, with a focus on global tobacco control, tobacco and health behavior surveillance, and health policy for eliminating health disparities. Before joining CDC in 2021, Dr. Kittner served as deputy director of Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) Office of Science at the Center for Tobacco Products, where she advised the director on tobacco regulatory science; oversaw the regulatory science research program, which assessed the potential public health impact of tobacco products and tobacco regulatory actions; and led the health equity work group.
Dr. Kittner's extensive experience also includes director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids' International Research unit, senior scientist at Pinney Associates (2010–2015), and epidemiologist at the National Institute of Health's (NIH's) National Cancer Institute (NCI, 2000–2010), where she led research initiatives to improve tobacco surveillance and eliminate health disparities. She was NIH's first Mansfield Fellow (2005–2007), through which she developed proficiency in Japanese, and has served on workgroups and committees for FDA's Emerging Sciences Council, NIH's Tobacco Research Network on Disparities, Johns Hopkins University's Global Tobacco Control Online Course, NCI's Office of International Affairs, and the US-Japan Cooperative Cancer Research Program.