Catherine Troisi, PhD is an infectious disease epidemiologist and Associate Professor in the Divisions of Management, Policy, and Community Health and Epidemiology at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health and serving as coordinator for the Leadership Theory and Practice Certificate, Dr. Troisi also plays a major leadership role in the newly instituted Texas Public Health Institute, heading the training, public health reserve, and rapid assessment of potential outbreak core areas. She previously practiced public health as Assistant Director at the Houston Health Department, where she served as Incident Commander for Public Health for the Houston Katrina response and the H1N1 pandemic among others. She holds a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Michigan and completed the National Public Health Leadership Training. Dr. Troisi was elected to the APHA Executive Board and is a member of the APHA Science Board as well as a Board member of the International Network of Epidemiology in Policy and many local and state public health advisory boards. She is the recipient of the 2018 ASPPH Academic Public Health Practice Excellence Award. She has had over 20 reader essays published in Texas newspapers and given over 500 media interviews on public health issues.