Kathleen A. Ethier, PhD

Director, Division of Adolescent and School Health, National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention

Dr. Kathleen Ethier is Director of CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health in the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention.

Prior to her appointment as Director of DASH, she served in a variety of capacities across the agency, including as the Director of the Program, Performance and Evaluation Office in the CDC Office of the Director (2010-2016), Associate Director for Public Health Practice in the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (2009-2010), and Adolescent Health Goal Team Leader for the agency (2007-2009). Her work in these positions has focused on developing strategic direction for agency priorities, best practices for using data for decision-making and improving program evaluation.

Dr. Ethier first came to CDC in 1999 and joined the Division of Sexually Transmitted Disease Prevention to lead the development and evaluation of interventions to prevent HIV, STDs and pregnancy among adolescents. Prior to joining CDC, she spent six years on the research faculty at Yale University studying HIV, STD and unplanned pregnancy prevention among women and adolescents.

Dr. Ethier’s research has included psychosocial, behavioral, organizational and clinical factors related to women’s health, maternal health, and adolescent sexual and reproductive health. Her special focus has been the development of social context level interventions for adolescents and the role of parents, schools, health care providers and communities in promoting adolescent health. Her work has been published widely in peer-review publications, including the American Journal of Public Health, Health Psychology, Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Journal of Adolescent Health, and Sexually Transmitted Infections, among others. She has co-authored chapters in edited books, including Women and AIDS: Coping and Care, the Handbook of Health Psychology and Behavioral Interventions for Prevention and Control of STDs.

Dr. Ethier earned her PhD in social psychology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), where her dissertation examined identity acquisition and change among women during and following their first pregnancy.