Leadership

Scientific Education and Professional Development Program Office

Sarah B. Smith, MPA
Principal Management Officer

Sarah Smith is the Scientific Education and Professional Development Program Office’s Principal Management Officer. She most recently worked as acting deputy division director of the Career Development Division (CDD), Office of Workforce and Career Development. From 2007-2009, she served as branch chief for CDD’s Leadership and Management Programs group, working closely with the Emerging Leaders Program, Presidential Management Fellowship, and HHS Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program. Ms. Smith came to OWCD from a position in CDC’s Office of the Director where she worked from January 2003–2007.

While in the OD, she served as the special policy assistant to CDC’s Chief Operating Officer, developing speeches and presentations, tracking policy and high priority business services issues, and serving as the CDC Management Council’s Executive Secretariat. She completed an assignment in the CDC Washington office in the spring of 2005 and served as an assignee to the World Health Organization (WHO) through a posting with CDC’s Global Immunization Division in 2006. In this capacity, she supported sub-regional operations for WHO’s Inter-country Programme based in Nairobi, Kenya, staffed administrative and financial functions for the office, and participated in two emergency measles and polio campaigns in the Northern and Coastal Provinces of Kenya.

Ms. Smith began her CDC career in the Office of the Director, Public Health Practice Program Office as a Presidential Management Fellow in June of 2001. As part of the fellowship program, she was involved in workforce development and succession planning efforts for the office and completed a 4-month rotation at the Atlanta Human Resources Center, where she was involved in CDC’s “get to green” initiative for the President’s Management Agenda and agency recruitment outreach efforts.

In 1999, she earned her Bachelor of Arts degrees in history and political science from Presbyterian College in South Carolina and in 2001, a master’s in public administration from the University of Georgia.