Cathy Slemp, MD, MPH
Coach & Advisor, Leadership Academy for the Public’s Health
PHI Center for Health Leadership & Impact
Dr. Cathy Slemp currently enjoys her own public health consulting practice with current projects primarily focusing on community resiliency and leadership development. From 2018 to 2020, Dr. Slemp served as Commissioner and State Health Officer with the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, Bureau for Public Health overseeing the full scope of the state’s public health activities and partnerships as well as launching the state’s response to COVID19. Similarly, she served from 2002-2011 as West Virginia’s State Health Officer, then overseeing immunization programs, outbreak and disease control programs, emergency preparedness and response efforts, and agency quality improvement activities. Concurrently, she served as the state’s Emergency Preparedness Director, founding and directing preparedness programs, managing multi-million-dollar grants, and leading public health agency responses, including the 2009 influenza pandemic, floods, hurricane Katrina, 9/11 and other emergencies. Prior to these roles, she was the founding director of the state’s Division of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and epidemiologist for the WV Cancer Registry. Throughout her career, Dr. Slemp has worked closely with public health agencies, health care facilities, and cross-sector partners to build both epidemiology and emergency preparedness infrastructure within communities. Prior to her medical and public health career, she trained as a family practitioner and volunteered internationally in community development.
Dr. Slemp has and continues to serve on numerous boards, advisory committees, workgroups, and projects in a variety of leadership positions. In 2008-09 she chaired ASTHO’s Directors of Public Health Preparedness. Currently, she serves on the CDC’s Board of Scientific Counselors, Center for Preparedness and Response, co-chairing their Polio Containment Working Group. She recently served on the National Biodefense Science Board for the US Department of Health and Human Services. Locally, she presents on a variety of topics to community groups and works with initiatives to advance community health, development, and resiliency.
Dr. Slemp is board certified in both Public Health / Preventive Medicine and in Family Practice. She undertook her medical training at Duke University, her preventive medicine residency and MPH at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health, and her family practice residency at St. Margaret Memorial Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and has undertaken leadership training through both the Southeast and National Public Health Leadership Institutes. She and her husband live in West Virginia and are the proud parents of two recent college students as well as caregivers for several older relatives they are excited to have nearby
