Associate Director for Policy

Staff Bio

Andrea Anason, MPH, is as the Associate Director for Policy for the Public Health Infrastructure Center at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ms. Anason most recently served as the Deputy Associate Director for Policy and Strategic Partnerships Lead in the Public Health Infrastructure Center.

Andrea Anason, MPH
Acting Associate Director for Policy, Andrea Pernack Anason, MPH

Role at CDC

Ms. Anason leads and coordinates external partner engagement opportunities to advance the center’s priorities. Prior to the 2023 CDC reorganization, Ms. Anason served in a similar role in CDC’s former Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services.

Previous experience

Previously, Ms. Anason served as the Program Management Officer in the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity (DNPAO) in the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion at CDC. In this role, she managed and oversaw the administrative and financial operations of the division and advanced division strategic priorities through program execution. Ms. Anason also served as the CDC Liaison to the CDC Foundation. She worked closely with CDC and CDC Foundation staff to advance partnership opportunities involving the CDC Foundation. She managed the CDC Conflict of Interest Review Panel for two years.

During her CDC career, Ms. Anason also served as the Associate Director for Policy in the Division of Scientific Education and Professional Development (DSEPD) in CSELS. She managed policy activities for DSEPD's portfolio of public health workforce, fellowship, and training programs. In another policy role at CDC, Ms. Anason was the Deputy Associate Director for Policy in the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response (OPHPR). She provided strategic and operational oversight of public health preparedness policy, planning, and evaluation activities at CDC. She served in a several policy roles in OPHPR over five years.

Prior to joining CDC, Ms. Anason was a program officer at the Institute of Medicine (IOM), now known as the National Academy of Medicine, where she served as the study director for the IOM committee that reviewed the Vaccine Safety Datalink data sharing program and was one of the lead program staff for the IOM committee that reviewed the national smallpox vaccination program. Ms. Anason worked in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human services for several years prior to joining IOM. She came to ASPE through the Presidential Management Intern program (known today as the Presidential Management Fellows program).

Education

Ms. Anason received her MPH in chronic disease epidemiology from the Yale School of Public Health and her B.A. in biological sciences with a concentration in evolutionary biology from Northwestern University.