Karen Smith, MD, MPH
Former California State Public Health Officer and Director of the California Department of Public Health
Karen Smith, MD, MPH, is a physician specializing in infectious disease and public health. She was appointed in 2015 by Governor Jerry Brown as the California State Public Health Officer and Director of the California Department of Public Health, a position she held through July of 2019.During her tenure at the State, Dr. Smith’s work focused on cross sector, innovative approaches to community and population health improvement including the application of public health informatics and data interoperability to complex health issues such as the opioid epidemic. Dr. Smith has worked to develop local, state, and national policy directed at increasing health equity and improving the health and wellbeing of the public through the creation of healthy and resilient communities.
From 2004 to 2015 Dr. Smith served as public health officer and deputy director at the Napa County Health and Human Services Agency and as a member of the medical staff for infectious disease at Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa from 2012 to 2015. Prior to her work in Napa County, Dr. Smith served as Deputy Health Officer and Tuberculosis Control Office for Santa Clara County where she was also clinical faculty at the Santa Clara County Valley Medical Center Division of Infectious Diseases and at the Santa Clara County Tuberculosis Clinic.
Dr. Smith has been a faculty consultant for the Francis J. Curry International Tuberculosis Center at the University ofCalifornia, San Francisco. She has also served as a subject matter expert on Public Health Emergency Preparedness and has been a liaison to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, and for the Board of Scientific Counselors of the CDC Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response.
Dr. Smith is a founding partner of Healthy Community Partners, Inc, a consulting collaborative that integrates strategic design thinking with innovative financial strategies to help communities create equity-building, sustainable health initiatives that empower their residents, adapt to their changing needs, and enable capital investment.
Dr. Smith completed her medical training and infectious diseases fellowship at Stanford University after earning a Master of Public Health degree at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public health. Prior to her public health and medical training, she served in the Peace Corps as public health laboratory director for the Marrakesh Province inMorocco, and at the Wichienburi Regional Hospital in Thailand.
