DGHP - Alison Johnson, MPA

Alison Johnson, MPA, is Deputy Director for Management and Operations in CDC’s Division of Global Health Protection. Alison has more than 20 years of experience in public administration and leads the division’s management and operational functions for headquarters and country program offices. As deputy director, Alison works alongside the director and principal deputy director to provide leadership and management for five branches and directly supervise the principal management official. Alison has been integral to the success of many of the division’s programs. Among her accomplishments since 2014 are establishing CDC country offices in the three West Africa Ebola-affected countries, hiring more than 50 staff to address the Ebola response and Global Health Security Agenda, and committing more than 100 million dollars in emergency funding request actions.

Before joining the division, Alison served as deputy director of CDC’s Procurement and Grants Office (PGO). In this role, she provided strategic leadership, management, and oversight of PGO’s day-to-day operations. She has held several other leadership positions at CDC, having served as deputy director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, director for the Division of State and Local Readiness in the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, deputy director of the Immunization Services Division at the National Immunization Program, and deputy director of the Division of Laboratory Sciences in the National Center for Environmental Health.

Alison joined CDC in 1992 as a presidential management intern, working in the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health as a budget analyst. In 1995, she joined the National Immunization Program to assist in the implementation of the Vaccines for Children program and worked with the National Vaccine Advisory Committee. Alison was part of the CDC team that responded to the anthrax attacks in 2001. During the smallpox vaccination program in 2002, she represented CDC at congressional hearings and briefings in Washington DC.

Alison holds a Masters in Public Administration from Eastern Kentucky University and a Bachelor of Science in Finance from West Virginia University. She has served in the US Army Reserve as a medical laboratory technician, preventive medicine specialist, certified leadership trainer, and personnel specialist, and she acted as the noncommissioned officer in charge at the 912th MASH Medical Laboratory and Blood Bank during Operation Desert Storm. Alison is a seasoned presenter and has published articles in several professional journals including the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.