Kristine Gebbie
Public Health Nurse
Elizabeth Standish Gill Professor of Nursing Director, Center for Health Policy (1995– )

She is a visionary public-health professional and public-health policy expert of national stature who has worked in public-health capacity building, workforce development and services research for over 35 years. She recognized the importance of, and worked to promote, a strong public-health infrastructure decades before the concept became popular. She was instrumental in the specification of essential services of public-health and inclusion of public health infrastructure objectives in Healthy People 2010—the nation's health-policy agenda. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine, where she recently contributed to two important reports on public health systems planning. She is a former state health director (WA & OR) and past president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. She was an early adopter of information technology in public health and a seminal developer of standardized terminology in nursing. She served as HIV policy advisor to President Clinton and continues to be a strong voice for an progressive national HIV policy. As director of the Center for Health Policy at the School of Nursing she engages in public-health services research of national importance. As acting director of the doctoral program at the school she fosters a strong programmatic focus on health policy, and as an outstanding mentor she promotes and guides inclusion of policy and services foci in pre- and postdoctoral research.

Submitted by Jacqueline Merrill, School of Nursing 1998, School of Public Health 2001, School of Nursing 2006, who is solely responsible for the content.