Alexis Peterson, PhD

Health Scientist, Division of Injury Prevention (DIP)

Areas of Expertise

• Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Surveillance

Alexis Peterson, PhD, is a health scientist on the Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Team in the Division of Injury Prevention (DIP) at CDC’s Injury Center. As a health scientist, her role on the TBI team is to promote the accurate reporting of TBI incidence and burden to inform the general public and stakeholders. She is also responsible for the development of projects and scientific manuscripts addressing multiple aspects of TBI, including sports- and recreation-related TBI.

Alexis began her career at CDC as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer assigned to the Injury Center’s Transportation Safety Team. In this role, she led studies on motor vehicle safety focusing on impaired driving.

Dr. Peterson received her bachelor of arts degree in psychology from St. John’s University. She completed her doctoral degree at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, where she also served as a pre-doctoral fellow in the Department of Biomedical Sciences Neuroscience Program. Dr. Peterson has multiple first author and co-authored publications and presentations. Among multiple awards that she has won are three Injury Center awards for Excellence in Frontline Public Health Service, Excellence in Epidemiology-Domestic, and Excellence in Program Delivery and one CDC/ATSDR Honor Award for Excellence in Emergency Response-Domestic.