Lynn Gibbs Scharf, MPH

Lynn Gibbs Scharf facilitates the center’s partnership activities and leads efforts to improve public health’s capacity to implement interoperable information systems through the Public Health Information Network (PHIN). This includes defining public health requirements for data exchange, technical assistance to state, territorial, and local public health agencies, and communication and outreach activities.

Ms. Gibbs Scharf was the Deputy Director of the Division of State and Local Readiness and the Acting Branch Chief of the Outcome Monitoring branch within the Coordinating Office of Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response (COTPER). In these roles, she oversaw the distribution and effective use of approximately $900,000,000 in funding to state, territorial, and local public health agencies for upgrading their ability to respond to public health threats and emergencies. In addition, she was responsible for developing a comprehensive evaluation program for state and local preparedness to respond to bioterrorism, infectious disease outbreaks, and other public health threats and emergencies.

Prior to joining COTPER in 2003, Ms. Gibbs Scharf was Acting Deputy Branch Chief in the Public Health Practice Program Office where she worked on a variety of assessment and evaluation activities including being a primary author of the Public Health Preparedness and Response Capacity Inventories. Ms. Gibbs-Scharf joined CDC in 1997 as part of the Public Health Prevention Service after working for approximately four years as an epidemiologist in the Louisiana Office of Public Health.