Staff Bio
Charlotte Kent, PhD, MPH
Dr. Charlotte K. Kent, PhD, MPH, is the director of the Office of Science Dissemination (OSD) in the Office of Science.
Role at CDC
Dr. Kent is also Editor-in-Chief of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) Series, where she has applied her skills and experience in leadership roles for the "voice of CDC" since 2014. To increase public health impact, MMWR focuses on publishing science designed to inform policy, guide clinical and public health practice, and effectively communicate it for action.
Previous experience
Dr. Kent has more than 30 years of experience directing the development, implementation, and evaluation of surveillance, epidemiologic, and health services research, and managing public health programs at the local and federal levels. From 2011-2014, Dr. Kent served as chief of the Research, Surveillance, and Evaluation Branch in the Division of Community Health, National Center for Chronic Disease and Prevention and Health Promotion where she supervised the design of complex evaluation studies and managed contracts valued between $35‒$42 million each year. She joined CDC in 2007, as chief of the Health Services Research and Evaluation Branch in the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention where she focused on increasing research relevance and mentoring students from under-represented populations.
Dr. Kent’s previous experience includes serving as chief of the Epidemiology Unit, STD Prevention and Control Services at the San Francisco Department of Public Health for 15 years. From 1990-1991, she was the director of the AIDS Epidemiology Unit for the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health in Bern, Switzerland.
Achievements
Dr. Kent and her teams have received numerous awards, including the HHS Secretary’s Award for Meritorious Service, CDC Director’s Award for Public Health Impact, the CDC & ATSDR Honor Award for Excellence in Quantitative Sciences, The Kaafee Billah Memorial Award, honoring excellence in economic research, and the Charles C. Shepard Science Award.
Dr. Kent has also authored more than 115 published papers, with a high impact as measured by an h-index of 51.