Leadership

Laboratory Science, Policy and Practice Program Office

Deborah Gould, PhD (Special Advisor to the Associate Director for Science)

Dr. Gould directs and oversees a broad range of programmatic activities including program planning and evaluation, organizational design, strategic planning, and special projects as determined by the DBS Director. Dr. Gould is the PHSPO point of contact for all oil spill related activities and serves as the lead for the standalone Gulf coast survey monitoring the mental health status of populations in the affected counties.

Dr. Gould has worked as a behavioral scientists and health educator in a number of programs at CDC over the last 15 years. She began her federal career in 1995 in the Division of Health Education in the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), where she served as the co-lead for the Psychosocial Effects project which examined the effects of psychological stress occurring among community members living near hazardous waste sites (i.e. Superfund sites). From there she moved to CDCs National Center for Environmental Health where she served as the Co-Principal Investigator for Project CHOICES, an intervention study aimed at preventing alcohol-exposed pregnancies. Dr. Gould later became the health education specialist for the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Branch in the CDC Epidemiology Program Office where she planned and coordinated the development and delivery of programs of instruction for EIS Officers. More recently, Dr. Gould served as the Associate Director for Workforce Development in CDC's Office for Public Health Preparedness and Response (OPHPR). Under her leadership, the Workforce Development Office provided a portfolio of workforce development programs including analytical workforce planning studies, leadership training and succession planning for senior staff; a web based new employee orientation and the annual OPHPR employee satisfaction survey.

Dr. Gould has been a member of the CDC responder pool since 2001 where she has participated in a number of public health emergency responses including the 2001 anthrax attacks, 2004 SARs outbreak, 2005 Tsunami, 2009 H1N1 pandemic, and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon incident.

Dr. Gould received her doctoral and master's degree in applied psychology from the University of Georgia and a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of South Alabama.