McPheeters appointed to CDC Foundation board
August 23, 2023
The CDC Foundation recently announced the appointment of Melissa McPheeters, PhD ’03 (epidemiology), MPH ’96 (maternal and child health), as one of three new members on its board of directors.
Dr. Melissa McPheeters
“I am thrilled to support the future of public health in this board position,” said McPheeters. “My training at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health provided an exceptional foundation in epidemiology and public health, creating opportunities that prepared me for this role. One of the areas we will be thinking about as a board is ensuring a continued and solid public health workforce and I know that UNC grads will continue to be an important part of our community!”
In this role, McPheeters and the other members of the board will advise and help guide the work of the CDC Foundation, an independent nonprofit created by Congress to mobilize philanthropic and private-sector resources to support the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s critical health protection work.
“We are pleased to have Melissa, Bernie and Mysheika as new board members,” said Judy Monroe, MD, president and chief executive officer of the CDC Foundation. “Their new perspectives and extensive leadership and experience will be instrumental to the CDC Foundation as we continue to support and extend the work of CDC’s and the nation’s public health protection community to save and improve lives.”
With more than two decades of epidemiological experience with expertise in health services research, clinical and public health informatics, medicine and data science, McPheeters focuses on building multidisciplinary teams to address complex problems across health and public health and modernizing data systems and processes.
She continues to hold the position of senior director for Analytics at RTI International and adjunct research professor in the department of biomedical informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and has held many other relevant roles across her career — including co-director at the Center for Improving the Public’s Health Through Informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and director of the Office of Informatics and Analytics at the Tennessee Department of Health.
McPheeters, who holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin and Master of Public Health and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from the Gillings School, follows former CDC Foundation board chair, Leah McCall Devlin, DDS, MPH ’84 (health policy and administration), professor of the practice of health policy and management at the Gillings School and former N.C. health director.
The appointments of Bernard J. Milano, a leader in corporate social responsibility, and Mysheika Roberts, MD, MPH, health commissioner for the City of Columbus, OH, were also announced.
About the CDC Foundation
The CDC Foundation helps the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention save and improve lives by unleashing the power of collaboration between the CDC, philanthropies, corporations, organizations and individuals to protect the health, safety and security of America and the world. Since 1995, the CDC Foundation has raised over $2 billion and launched more than 1,300 programs impacting a variety of health threats from chronic disease conditions including cardiovascular disease and cancer, to infectious diseases like rotavirus and HIV, to emergency responses, including COVID-19 and Ebola. The CDC Foundation managed hundreds of CDC-led programs in the United States and in more than 90 countries last year. For more information, visit www.cdcfoundation.org.
