Catherine Satterwhite, PhD, MSPH, MPH

Executive Director, Center for Population Health and Equity

Catherine Satterwhite, PhD, MSPH, MPH, serves Kansas City University as the executive director of the Center for Population Health and Equity. Her primary responsibilities include developing new programs to support Center initiatives, engaging with community organizations working to promote well-being and advancing scholarly work in fields of public health, public policy, population health and equity.

Dr. Satterwhite joined KCU from the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health, where she was the senior federal public health official in the region, serving Kansas, Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska. There, she led diverse public health-related efforts, informing HHS policies and programming to best address the needs of the population.

Prior to HHS, Dr. Satterwhite was a tenured associate professor in the Department of Population Health and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC), where she taught medical students. Her research at KUMC focused on reproductive health, with other projects related to infectious disease and quality improvement in the clinical sector. Dr. Satterwhite also worked with the Kansas City, Missouri, Health Department as the senior epidemiologist during their successful accreditation process.

Additionally, Dr. Satterwhite worked for over a decade at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). While at the CDC, she earned multiple awards for excellence in the practice of epidemiology.

Dr. Satterwhite earned three graduate degrees from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta, Ga.: a PhD in epidemiology, a Master of Science in Public Health (MSPH) in informatics and a Master of Public Health (MPH) in epidemiology. She received her Bachelor of Arts from New York University (politics and French).