Director, Division of Policy and Performance Management
Acting Director, Division of Strategic Communications
Dr. Adrienne Smith is Director of the Division of Policy and Performance Management and Acting Director of the Division of Strategic Communications in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office on Women's Health. Her work advances women's and girls' health through program development, strategic partnerships, performance measurement and evaluation, and health communications and public engagement.
With more than 25 years of public health experience, Dr. Smith began her career as a nutritionist with the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Her leadership and expertise span the field of women's health, with particular focus on breastfeeding and maternal health promotion, as well as the prevention of violence against women, sexual assault, and human trafficking. Her portfolio has included initiatives addressing trauma, eating disorders, paid family leave, mental health, college sexual assault, sleep, HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, incarceration, nutrition, lupus, sarcoidosis, female genital cutting/mutilation, and sarcopenia.
Dr. Smith has advanced women's health through leadership in HHS initiatives, committees, and workgroups, as well as interagency and public-private collaborations. Her work has included leading the Surgeon General's Women's Mental Health Project during the tenure of Dr. Richard Carmona, the 17th U.S. Surgeon General; co-chairing the HHS Violence Against Women Steering Committee; managing the HHS (Sexual Assault) Survivors' Bill of Rights Act Working Group; and supporting the Assistant Secretary for Health in their role as co-chair of the HHS Task Force to Prevent and End Human Trafficking.
Dr. Smith earned a BS in Biology from Norfolk State University as a graduate of the Dozoretz National Institute for Mathematics and Applied Sciences (DNIMAS), an MS in Nutritional Science from Hampton University, and a PhD in Public and Community Health from the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) and a graduate of the Federal Executive Institute's (FEI) Leadership for a Democratic Society Program.