Organization Chart

Dr. Crawford is the Deputy Director for CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP). He supports the center’s coordinated, collaborative approach to investing its resources, working across divisions and programs and with grantees and partners to offer a more comprehensive, seamless approach to advancing population health.‎ Before joining NCCDPHP, Dr. Crawford was Deputy Director in the Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services’ Division of Laboratory Systems (DLS). He led DLS’s efforts to obtain approval for a cost-recovery model for CDC’s biorepository to ensure samples, specimens, and services meet quality standards and customer demands. He also provided oversight and management of DLS’s $31 million budget, including a major interagency agreement with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and a $105 million cooperative agreement with the Association of Public Health Laboratories that’s used CDC-wide. Dr. Crawford started his CDC career in 2001 at the National Center for Environmental Health, where he served in dual capacities as a Health Scientist and a Public Health Advisor. In 2006, he was selected as the Deputy Chief for the Air Pollution and Respiratory Health Branch in the Division of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects. Dr. Crawford also served in other leadership and management positions at CDC, including as the Deputy Director for the Office of Grants Services (OGS) in CDC’s Office of Financial Resources (2013 to 2020). In OGS, he was responsible for all financial aspects of the $21 billion annual budget. Along with the Director of OGS, he oversaw more than $5 billion in awards to state and local health departments, territories, community-based and tribal organizations, and international organizations.

Ms. Wetterhall is the Management Officer in CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP). She is responsible for planning, organizing, and directing the day-to-day administrative operations of NCCDPHP and serves as principal advisor to the Director on all matters related to administrative program planning and resources management. Previously, Ms. Wetterhall was Deputy Director in the Division of Reproductive Health, where she helped guide the division’s promotion of optimal and equitable health across its three priority areas of women’s reproductive health, infant health, and pregnancy health. During her more than 30 years with the agency, Ms. Wetterhall has provided expertise to a number of CDC programs, particularly in the areas of fiscal and human resources management, administration, and operations.

Mr. Cucchi is the Associate Director for Planning, Evaluation, and Legislation for CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP). He is responsible for the policy agenda for the center, which has nine divisions and offices and a budget of about $1 billion. Mr. Cucchi most recently worked as the Legislative and Partnership Team Lead in the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Legislation. Before joining CDC, he was the Chief of Planning and Fiscal Policy for the Georgia Department of Community Health, managing health policy and the budget for the agency responsible for Georgia’s Medicaid, State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and state employee health benefit programs. He also served as Policy Coordinator in the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget, with responsibility for developing policy and budget recommendations for Medicaid, Public Health, and Mental Health programs for Georgia’s governors. Mr. Cucchi has an MHA from the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Ms. Promoff is the Associate Director for Communication Science in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP), a position she assumed in 2016. She oversees the communication portfolio for NCCDPHP, which has nine divisions and offices, more than 1,000 staff members, and a budget over $1 billion. Ms. Promoff sets the strategic direction for the center’s internal and external communication efforts. Ms. Promoff joined CDC in 2005, working in NCCDPHP’s Office on Smoking and Health (OSH). She served as OSH’s Associate Director for Policy, providing expertise and strategic direction on tobacco control policy. Ms. Promoff led the earned media efforts around OSH’s Tips From Former Smokers®, the first-ever paid national tobacco education campaign, which profiles real people who live with serious long-term health effects from smoking and secondhand smoke, and led the release of several seminal Surgeon General Reports on tobacco. Ms. Promoff has actively supported CDC’s assistance in public health emergencies, including providing communications support for the agency’s Ebola, EVALI, and COVID-19 responses. Before joining CDC, Ms. Promoff worked at Golin, providing social marketing expertise for tobacco prevention and control movements to more than 10 states, as well as for the Truth Initiative’s truth® campaign. Ms. Promoff received an MA from George Washington University School of Political Management and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Emory University.

Ms. Green-Phillips is the acting diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging officer in the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP). She oversees the center’s efforts to develop and support an empowered and high-performing workforce that thrives in a culture of mutual acceptance and trust, where every employee recognizes and embraces our differences and experiences satisfaction, inclusion, and belonging. Ms. Green-Phillips is NCCDPHP’s deputy management officer and will continue to assist the Management Activity Office with employee relations and labor relations activities as well as other high-level administrative services. Ms. Green-Phillips previously served as Deputy Director for the Division of Diabetes Translation and as Deputy Director for the Division of Community Health. In her diverse, 32-year career at CDC, she has served as a policy and partnerships team lead, a policy analyst, and a project officer, the latter of which provided the transformative opportunity to work with and travel to communities in the U.S.-affiliated jurisdictions in Micronesia. Ms. Green-Phillips joined CDC in 1991 as a Presidential Management Intern (PMI). She credits her PMI developmental experiences, as well as CDC’s supportive environment of PMIs, with helping prepare her for later professional opportunities and challenges. Ms. Green-Phillips earned her MPA from the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Ethier is the Director of CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) in CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Preventions and Health Promotion. Dr. Ethier brings a wealth of public health experience and leadership in addressing health issues of youth and women, with a focus on HIV, STDs, and teen pregnancy, as well as supporting program improvement, strategic programs, and monitoring and evaluation. She most recently served as the Director of CDC’s Program Performance and Evaluation Office, where she contributed to advancing CDC program strategy, performance measurement, and evaluation. Prior to joining CDC, Dr. Ethier spent 6 years on the research faculty at Yale University working on studies of HIV, STDs, and unplanned pregnancy prevention among women and adolescents. In 1999, she joined CDC as a Senior Scientist in the Division of STD Prevention to lead the development and evaluation of interventions to prevent HIV, STDs, and teen pregnancy. She has served in a variety of leadership and management roles at CDC, including Acting Director of the Financial Management Office and the Division of Oral Health, as well as lead for the Adolescent Health Goal Team. Dr. Ethier’s research has included psychosocial, behavioral, organizational and clinical factors related to women’s health, maternal health and adolescent sexual and reproductive health. She has authored or coauthored numerous articles and book chapters for peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Ethier earned her PhD in social psychology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Ms. Jordan is the Deputy Director of CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) in CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP). Ms. Jordan started her career at CDC in 1991 as a Disease Intervention Specialist (DIS) field assignee in Lauderhill, Florida. She further worked as a DIS in Chicago, Illinois, and a Special Projects Coordinator in Washington, DC, before being transferred to CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD) in 1998. Over the next 20 years, she worked in various centers, including some whose names may have changed: the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, National Immunization Program, Office of Workforce and Career Development, Coordinating Office of Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response, Financial Management Office, and NCCDPHP in varying roles to include a project officer, team lead, branch chief, program director, and acting division deputy. Throughout that time, she was involved in several programs such as Healthy Communities, Communities Putting Prevention to Work, and Community Transformation Grants. She also helped coordinate the first Sexual Violence Prevention Conference in 2000. In 2005, Ms. Jordan led the Public Health Prevention Specialist fellowship program. Eventually, she made her way back to NCBDDD in the Disability and Health Promotion Branch, where she worked with major partners like the Special Olympics. She attended the Special Olympics Games in Seattle, Washington, and was able to help with basic vision screening. Ms. Jordan earned a BA in psychology from Clark Atlanta University and a certificate in public health from Johns Hopkins University. She is currently completing her PhD in public health at Walden University.

Dr. Richardson is the Director of the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control (DCPC) in CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, where she provides leadership and direction for all scientific, policy, and programmatic issues related to four national programs. Her public health service includes the following: medical director for the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (1997–1998); medical officer in CDC’s Division of Blood Disorders (1998–2000) and later the division director; faculty member at the University of Florida in Medical Oncology working with the Florida Cancer Data System funded by CDC’s National Program of Cancer Registries (2000–2004); medical officer in the DCPC’s Epidemiology and Applied Research Branch (2004); and Team Lead for the Scientific Support and Clinical Translation Team supporting the National Comprehensive Cancer Control Program (2006–2009). From 2010 to 2013, Dr. Richardson was DCPC’s Associate Director for Science and helped set scientific priorities to maintain integrity in public health activities. Dr. Richardson received her MD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her MPH from the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

Ms. Apedoe is responsible for the development of emerging initiatives, providing operational and managerial leadership, and assisting with the implementation of strategic priorities of the division.

Dr. Parajón is the Principal Deputy Director for the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. She serves as the chief scientific and program advisor to the director and other senior staff across the center, where she provides executive leadership, strategic direction, and oversight of complex scientific programs. Dr. Chanchien Parajón’s professional journey has given her a breadth of experience that spans continents, cultures, and health systems. From the remote villages of Nicaragua to the bustling communities of New Mexico, her work has always broken new ground, bringing to life the principles of equity, empowerment, and education. In her role as the New Mexico Department of Health’s deputy secretary of health and state health officer, Dr. Chanchien Parajón managed and oversaw the department’s Epidemiology Response Division, Public Health Programs Division, and Scientific Laboratory Division and served as the acting state epidemiologist and acting epidemiology response division director. She is also an associate professor in the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center’s Department of Family and Community Medicine, with a secondary appointment at the College of Population Health. During her career as a public health leader, Dr. Chanchien Parajón has been involved in many topics relevant to NCCDPHP, ranging from data modernization to community health workers. Her role in developing community-based participatory research and evidence-based interventions reflects her commitment to leading-edge science. Dr. Chanchien Parajón earned her MPH from the University of New Mexico’s School of Public Health and her MD from the university’s School of Medicine. She is board certified in family medicine, and she is the lead author on scholarly publications across a broad range of fields. Her long list of professional honors includes, most recently, an Excellence in Leadership and Community Service award from the New Mexico Department of Health (2022) and the Jerry Montoya Health Equity Award (2021).

Ms. De Jesus is the Associate Director for Public Health Practice for CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP), where she helps develop, direct, and coordinate high-priority NCCDPHP programmatic efforts. In her regular role as PPHF Coordinator, Ms. De Jesus manages the PPHF portfolio, which supports pilot projects focused on data modernization and social determinants of health. She also leads the Islands Program, which supports activities to prevent and control chronic diseases and associated risk factors in the five US territories and three freely associated states. In 2002, Ms. De Jesus joined the Division of Reproductive Health (DRH), where she spent 13 years before she came to the Office of the Director. While in DRH, she coordinated global maternal and child health activities across CDC, worked on maternal mortality reduction in sub-Saharan Africa and Haiti, and provided technical assistance to governments and humanitarian relief organizations to improve reproductive health services for women affected by armed conflict and natural disasters. Ms. De Jesus was also a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Eastern Caribbean and worked with Dominican the Ministry of Health on nutrition issues that included breastfeeding, young child feeding, and chronic disease.

CAPT Jennifer Wiltz, MD, MPH, FAAP, FAHA, is the acting director of the Office of Medicine and Science of CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP) and the center’s acting medical director. In these roles, she works to advance public health science and strengthen links between health care and public health. CAPT Wiltz has served CDC for 14 years, most recently as the center’s deputy medical director. She is a board-certified pediatrician and medical responder for CDC and US Public Health Service (USPHS), and a leader in government and with external partners improving population health. She serves on the HHS Data Council and CDC’s Information Technology and Data Governance Board and is the USPHS liaison to the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Uniformed Services; CDC liaison to American Heart Association Atherosclerosis, Hypertension, and Obesity in Youth Committee; and CDC liaison to the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund Advisory Panel and the PCORnet National Stakeholder Group. Among her numerous public health leadership roles, CAPT Wiltz has served as the White House data fellow writing the first Federal Data Strategy for the US President’s Management Agenda, senior advisor for data policy in the CDC Office of Science, director of the Paul Coverdell National Acute Stroke Program, and fellow at the Brookings Institution. Before coming to CDC as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer in 2009, CAPT Wiltz completed her academic pediatric fellowship at Golisano Children’s Hospital in Rochester, New York, where she also served on the pediatric faculty.

Dr. Carney is the Associate Director for Informatics for CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP). He is responsible for the strategic direction of technology in the center and for oversight, operations, development, and security of information systems that support programs and grantees. Previously, he was the Director of Health Policy Research, Data Science and Analytics at the Satcher Health Leadership Institute in the Morehouse School of Medicine and before that the Senior Director, Data Analytics and Public Health Informatics at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

Dr. Carney has practiced in the field of informatics for over 15 years. Current informatics research and applied informatics practice areas include Leveraging Health IT for Health Equity/Health Disparities; Chronic Disease Surveillance; Public Health Intelligence; Computational Modeling of Social and Organizational Systems; Network Analysis; Electronic Clinical Decision Support; CBPR-Community-based Knowledge Exchange Networks; IT Needs, Capabilities, and Readiness Assessment Design; and Public Health Situational Awareness. His informatics efforts focus on the evaluation of health information technology as an agent of change in intelligent and adaptive learning health systems. Dr. Carney completed a PhD in Health Informatics from Indiana University, an MPH in Health Systems Management from Tulane University, and an MBA in Information Science and Project Management from Devry-Keller Graduate School of Management.

Dr. Kaufmann is the Associate Director for Science for CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP). She oversees scientific quality and integrity for NCCDPHP’s programs in population health, cancer control and prevention, diabetes translation, heart disease and stroke prevention, reproductive health, physical activity and nutrition, oral health, and tobacco use. Before joining NCCDPHP in 2016, Dr. Kaufmann served in similar roles for CDC’s Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services, CDC’s Epidemiology and Analysis Program Office, and NCCDPHP’s Office on Smoking and Health. Prior to that, Dr. Kaufmann was an epidemiologist in the Division of Reproductive Health and the Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch. She has also worked at the World Bank and the Rhode Island Department of Health and in academic settings. Her research has covered a wide range of issues, including cancer, reproductive health, heart disease, tobacco use, illicit drug use, lead poisoning, arsenic poisoning, indoor air pollution, health services, waterborne disease, and Ebola virus disease. Dr. Kaufmann has an MPH and PhD in epidemiology from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Jack was appointed Editor in Chief of Preventing Chronic Disease, a journal of CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP), in October 2016. Previously, he was Director of NCCDPHP’s Division of Community Health (2013-2016). Before returning to CDC, from 2009-2012, he served as Associate Dean for Research; Director of the Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and Education; the Endowed Chair of Minority Health and Health Disparities Research; Professor in the Division of Clinical and Administrative Sciences, College of Pharmacy; and Professor and Founding Chair of the Department of Public Health Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences, at Xavier University of Louisiana. Dr. Jack held the Jim Finks Endowed Chair of Health Promotion and was Professor of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center’s School of Public Health (2007-2009). Dr. Jack served as Lead of the Applied Behavioral Research, Epidemiology, and Systems Team and Chief of the Community Intervention Section in NCCDPHP’s Division of Diabetes Translation (2000-2006). He currently holds two adjunct appointments as Professor in the Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at Xavier University of Louisiana. Dr. Jack completed his MSc and PhD in Behavioral Sciences at The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Jack has received numerous awards and recognitions for his contributions in advancing the discipline of behavioral health, behavioral science, health education, and health promotion.

Dr. Tuff is the acting senior advisor for health equity and the social determinants of health (HE/SDOH) in the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP). As an integral part of the center’s senior leadership team, Dr. Tuff works closely with center leaders and staff to provide leadership and strategic, innovative direction on policies, programmatic activities, partnerships, analytic approaches, and overall operations for HE/SDOH. Since 2022, Dr. Tuff has served as one of the co-chairs of the NCCDPHP Health Equity Council, coordinating actions across divisions to advance health equity in alignment with NCCDPHP’s strategic vision and related priorities. Dr. Tuff’s career has been dedicated to addressing chronic and infectious disease disparities, particularly in heart disease, obesity, breast cancer, HIV, and Zika, focusing on people from diverse racial and ethnic groups, such as American Indian and Alaska Native, Black and African American, and Hispanic and Latino populations. Currently with NCCDPHP’s Office of Informatics and Information Resources Management, Dr. Tuff has provided oversight of the center’s first cloud-based, low-code platform for post-award grants management. The platform supports our divisions, the Office of the Director, and 4,500 internal and external users, including project officers, leaders, and award recipients. A two-time CDC/ATSDR Honor Awardee (for Science & Program and Management & Operations), Dr. Tuff promotes health equity science as a member of the editorial board of Preventing Chronic Disease. Dr. Tuff holds a PhD in health promotion and behavior from the University of Georgia College of Public Health and an MPH in social and behavioral science from the Morehouse School of Medicine.