Kathleen "Katie" G. V. Melville, PhD

Kathleen "Katie" G. V. Melville, PhD has an 18-year career working in health, risk, and crisis communication for state, local, and federal public health agencies and serving as consultant on various public health projects. Katie is passionate about supporting those who are interested in pursuing careers in the field of public health. She knows first-hand the challenges and rewards of working in public health and loves to share what she knows with those who are both new and seasoned professionals.

As a public information officer for public health agencies, she developed, implemented, and evaluated risk communication activities for food-borne illness outbreaks, infectious disease outbreaks, zoonotic outbreaks, and health impacts from wildfire smoke.

From 2020 to 2023, she worked as a federal contractor within CDC’s COVID-19 Joint Information Center supporting emergency risk communication activities. Through that work, she supported research examining the public’s trust in public health agencies and was a co-author on a peer-reviewed article published in Health Affairs. Katie works at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a health communications specialist supporting communications for the Public Health Infrastructure Center.

For the past 9 years, she has taught graduate students crisis and disaster communication online at Tulane University. In 2023, she was selected to serve as a subject matter expert on risk and crisis communication for the Region 6 South Central Public Health Training Center. Her forthcoming textbook from Cambridge University Press "Risk Communication in Public Health Emergencies" is designed for public health practitioners, hospital communicators, emergency management officials, and masters of public health students focusing the practical application of emergency risk communication principles and theoretical frameworks to real-world public health emergencies.

Katie has also served as a Director of Communications and supervisory manager for 3.5 years at a non-profit agency. In 2022, Katie completed her coach training through Coactive Training Institute and was certified by the International Coaching Federation in 2023. Her coaching website is FullSelfCoaching.com.