Trust for America’s Health
Dr. Jeanette Kowalik
Director of Policy Development
After a nationwide search, NPAG is pleased to announce that Dr. Jeanette Kowalik has been selected as Director of Policy Development of Trust for America’s Health. She will assume her role on October 13th.
Dr. Kowalik is currently the Commissioner of Health for the City of Milwaukee. As such, she has overseen a multi-faceted public health agency, led the local response to the COVID-19 pandemic and managed a wide array of public health issues from tobacco control to obesity to infant and maternal mortality.
Dr. Kowalik has had a long history of dedicated leadership in the promotion of racial justice and health equity. As Commissioner, she played a central role in Milwaukee’s 2019 declaration of racism as a public health emergency, the first city in the nation to take such action. Her commitment to racial equity was also reflected in her department’s COVID-19 response, where she took early steps to track incidence and prevalence by race and ethnicity and meet the needs of Black and Latinx residents.
Prior to becoming the City’s health commissioner, Dr. Kowalik was the Associate Director of Women’s and Infant Health at the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP) in Washington, DC. Earlier, she held positions as the Director of Campus Health Initiatives and Prevention Services at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and as Director of STI Surveillance at the Chicago Department of Public Health.
She has been a leader within the American Public Health Association, most recently as the Chair of the Health Administration Section.
Dr. Kowalik is a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She attended the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for both her undergraduate and her doctoral degrees. Her doctoral dissertation was focused on job satisfaction within the public health workforce. She earned a Master of Public Health from Northern Illinois University and a public health management certificate from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.