National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) – Acting Director

Role at CDC

Dr. Carolyn Greene became acting director for NCHS in January 2026, after joining the center as principal deputy director three years earlier. Dr. Greene provides executive leadership and strategic direction for the center's statistical programs and policies and serves as the acting statistical official for the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Previous experience

Before joining NCHS, Dr. Greene spent one year detailed to the Office of the Surgeon General, where she served as deputy director of science and policy. In that role, Dr. Greene leveraged scientific research, stakeholder input, and expert analyses to contribute to Surgeon General's Advisories, commentaries and policies related to COVID-19, youth mental health, social connection, health worker burnout, and other public health priorities.

In prior years, Dr. Greene served as acting deputy director, associate director for influenza preparedness and response, and as Field Site Support Unit (FSSU) lead within the Influenza Division, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, CDC. As FSSU lead, Dr. Greene oversaw influenza regional field programs in China, Thailand, Vietnam, India, South Africa, and Kenya. Dr. Greene spent 2020 focused on CDC's COVID-19 response, working first within CDC's International Task Force and then as the representative for CDC's Community Intervention and Critical Population's Task Force within the unified government COVID-19 response in Washington, DC.

From 2014 to 2018, Dr. Greene served as influenza program director in CDC's China office in Beijing, leading a team that worked closely with China CDC and other local partners to enhance prevention, detection and control of seasonal and novel influenza viruses in China. Prior to moving to Beijing, Dr. Greene served as deputy commissioner for the Division of Epidemiology in New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, where she oversaw the Bureau of Vital Statistics, the Bureau of Epidemiology, the Bureau of Public Health Training, and the World Trade Center Health Program. Dr. Greene began her career in public health at CDC, first as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer and medical epidemiologist in the Respiratory Diseases Branch and then within the Global AIDS Program in Ethiopia.

Education

Dr. Greene completed internal medicine residency at University of California at San Francisco, medical school at Brown University, and undergraduate studies at Yale University. Dr. Greene served as a Yale-China teaching fellow at Huazhong Normal University, Wuhan, from 1990 to 1992.