Staff Bio
Althea Grant-Lenzy, PhD, MSS (RDML, USPHS) is the director of the Office of Science (OS) at CDC.
Role at CDC
As director of OS, RDML Grant-Lenzy is critical to helping ensure OS advances its strategic and programmatic priorities to support the agency's science.
Previous experience
RDML Grant-Lenzy joined CDC and the US Public Health Service in 2002 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer assigned to the Division of Reproductive Health. After completing EIS, she served as an epidemiologist in the division's Maternal and Infant Health Branch.
She later served as the epidemiology and surveillance team lead in the Division of Blood Disorders in the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. In 2010, RDML Grant-Lenzy became the division's chief of the Epidemiology and Surveillance Branch. From 2014–2020, she served as senior advisor for science for CDC's Deputy Director for Non-Infectious Diseases.
In 2020, she became the career management officer for the CDC's Commissioned Corps Activity. Subsequently, she served as deputy director of science at the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) in 2021 and as director of the Office of Science within NCIRD in 2023.
In 2024, RDML Grant-Lenzy joined the Office of Science as the principal deputy director.
Education
RDML Grant-Lenzy holds an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Rutgers University and a doctoral degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from Emory University. She completed her postdoctoral training in cell biology at Yale University and an Association of Public Health Laboratories Emerging Infectious Disease Postdoctoral Fellowship at CDC. RDML Grant-Lenzy is a Six Sigma Black Belt and is a distinguished graduate of the US Army War College, where she earned a Master of Strategic Studies.