Lauren Smith, MD, MPH, is the chief health equity and strategy officer for the CDC Foundation. In this newly created role, Smith brings more than 25 years working at the intersection of health care delivery and management, public policy and public health fields.
As chief health equity and strategy officer, Smith partners with the CDC Foundation’s other senior leaders to develop and drive strategic efforts to embed health equity across the Foundation’s COVID-19 response activities with an explicit focus on addressing systemic racism and its impact on vulnerable populations’ resiliency amidst the pandemic.
Smith joins the Foundation from FSG, a social impact consulting firm, where she served as co-CEO and led the firm’s U.S. health practice, partnering with community, social sector, public sector, health care, public health and philanthropy leaders.
Her previous leadership roles have included serving as the medical director and then interim commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the senior strategic advisor for a national innovation and improvement network focused on reducing infant mortality and the medical director of the pediatric inpatient service at Boston Medical Center. She also held federal and state government roles as a policy analyst in the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and as a W.T. Grant Health Policy Fellow in the office of the Massachusetts Speaker of the House.
Smith holds a BA with honors in biology from Harvard College, an MD from University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, and an MPH from University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health. She completed her pediatrics residency and chief residency at Children’s Hospital Boston and her general pediatrics fellowship at Boston Medical Center, Department of Pediatrics.