“Together Our Impact Is Greater: Leveraging Partnerships to Tackle Health Challenges”
Nov 28, 2017
Judith Monroe MD, Pres & CEO, CDC Foundation
“Together Our Impact Is Greater: Leveraging Partnerships to Tackle Health Challenges”

Judith Monroe’s professional focus has centered on the intersection of primary care and public health. Her career has taken her from private medical practice to academia, hospital administration and public health protection. In Feb, 2016, she was named Pres and CEO of the CDC Foundation, whose mission to help the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) do more, faster by forging effective partnerships between CDC and philanthropic and private sector organizations and individuals to build public health programs that make our world healthier and safer.

Prior to joining the CDC Foundation, Monroe was a CDC deputy director and served as director of the Office for State, Tribal, Local and Territorial Support (OSTLTS).  Under her leadership, OSTLTS launched the National Public Health Improvement Initiative (NPHII) and developed and expanded the Public Health Associate Program (PHAP). PHAP began with 10 associates per year and grew to nearly 350 associates serving 44 states, one territory, and the District of Columbia at state, tribal, local, territorial, federal, and non-governmental public health organizations.

Before joining CDC, she served as the state health commissioner for Indiana and was president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) where she conceptualized and launched the first ASTHO President’s Challenge, for state health officials to focus attention on a critical national health issue.

Monroe began her clinical career as a member of the National Health Service Corps at the Morgan County Medical Center in rural Tennessee, confronting the ill health that poverty-stricken and remote populations face. As a clinician educator, she joined the faculty in the Department of Family Medicine at Indiana University and led the department’s work in rural communities. She then joined St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis in a dual administrative role as director of the Family Medicine Residency Program and the Primary Care Center.

Monroe has served on many national advisory committees and boards, such as the Public Health Accreditation Board, Global Health Leadership Council, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Public Health Leadership Forum, the Institute of Medicine’s Roundtable on Population Health, and the National Advisory Committee for the Indiana Univ Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health. Among her numerous awards, she received the Womenetics POW! Award, which recognizes excellence in leadership, the ASTHO National Excellence in Public Health Award and the Governor’s Distinguished Service Medal from then Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels.

Monroe received her M.D. from the Univ of Maryland and B.S. from Eastern Kentucky Univ. She completed her residency in family medicine at the Univ of Cincinnati, a rural faculty development fellowship at East Tennessee State Univ, and a fellowship in obstetrics through the Univ of Wisconsin. She also participated in the Harvard, Kennedy School of Government, State Health Leadership Initiative and received an Honorary Doctorate from Purdue.

INTRODUCTION: Mike Skrynecki
​INVOCATION: Jennie Blake