Greta Massetti

Dr. Greta Massetti is Professor and Chair of the Department of Population Health Sciences at Georgia State University. Her research focuses on violence epidemiology and the role of gender-based violence as a driver of infectious and chronic diseases. Dr. Massetti has led research on the prevention and consequences of violence against children, women, and girls, leading efforts to strengthen the availability of global data and use data to inform evidence-based initiatives that promote the safety and health of communities.

Prior to joining the School of Public Health at GSU, Dr. Massetti spent 18 years at CDC, where she led global health initiatives and research on violence, overdose, and suicide prevention. Dr. Massetti was the lead of CDC’s Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys (VACS), which assessed the magnitude, epidemiology, and health impacts of violence in multiple countries. Dr. Massetti built and strengthened partnerships with global partners, including WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank, PEPFAR, and Together for Girls, to increase the availability of scientific data on violence against children, gender-based violence, and related health consequences.Dr. Massetti was also involved in several of CDC’s emergency responses. During CDC’s COVID-19 Emergency Response, Dr. Massetti served as a principal deputy incident manager and as co-lead of the Community Interventions and Critical Populations Task Force, where she led the development of guidance on prevention and mitigation measures designed to protect public health and reduce COVID-19 spread in communities. She is one of CDC’s leading experts on COVID-19 prevention in pediatric populations, K-12 schools, and higher education. She was also deployed in several other public health emergency responses, including the 2014 Ebola epidemic.

Dr. Massetti is a leader in public health prevention science and the intersection of science, practice, and policy. Dr. Massetti is one of the top 30 authors of intervention research productivity in school psychology and has published more than 130 scientific publications and reports. Dr. Massetti’s contributions to the field of public health have been recognized with numerous awards, including the CDC Honor Award for Excellence in Epidemiology, International, for extraordinary leadership in accelerating the application of epidemiological data to prevent childhood violence, the CDC Director’s Award for Service to the Agency for her role on emergency responses, and the award for Innovation and Leadership in the Development of Behavioral and Social Scientists.