From CGD to WHO
CGD’s first Aluminary of 2015 is Katie Kampf, who is now chief of staff to the assistant secretary for global affairs at the US Department of Health and Human Services. From 2009 to 2011, she was a program coordinator on CGD’s global health team. She worked most closely with Rachel Nugent and Amanda Glassman on the working groups on drug resistance and the 2010 leadership transition at the United Nations Population Fund and on the PopPov program focused on population, reproductive health, and economic development.
Katie credits her experience at the Center with introducing her to the DC development policy world and says that her time at CGD was instrumental in finding her current position. In 2011, the Office of Global Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services was looking for someone to fill in while their senior advisor was on maternity leave. They found Katie through a recommendation from Rachel Nugent, and the rest is history: her three-month temp job turned into a three-and-a-half-year (and counting) career federal job.
In her current position, Katie serves as a key advisor to the assistant secretary. She contributes to planning and decision-making on policy, priority projects, and management. She also manages the Office of Global Affairs’ relationship with the immediate office of the secretary.
Last summer, Katie spent four weeks working at the World Health Organization in Geneva to support its response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Her work varied considerably, from coordinating with member states sending medical teams to the affected countries to liaising back with the US government on a daily basis; from pulling together tonnage estimates for needed personal protective equipment in the affected countries to coordinating with the African Union on their personnel deployment.
The WHO has received a lot of flak for their slow response to the Ebola outbreak. According to Katie, while they certainly were too slow, so was the entire world. She was at WHO during a period of intense change—new staff in new positions, a reorganization of the WHO Ebola team, a reorganization of the entire UN response with the creation of UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), and the appointment of a special envoy. She says she left the WHO with increased confidence in its ability to serve as the world’s health organization; but it must focus on some important reforms that are long overdue to regain the world’s trust and demonstrate the crucial value it adds.
Both in Geneva and back here in Washington, she and her colleagues have been working to tie the immediate Ebola response to the longer-term need for improved global health security. Katie believes the global health community needs to take what they’ve learned from this current crisis and make sure they’re ready to apply it to the next. There’s no question if another outbreak will happen, but when.
As many of our alumni say, Katie’s favorite thing about CGD is the people. She’s met—and continues to meet—simply extraordinary individuals who are changing the world. Although she spent only 18 months at CGD, some of her closest friends are ones she met here. She’s sure all CGD alums will work with other current or former CGDers one day. Once a CGDer, always a CGDer.
Katie lives in Washington and is married to David Kampf, Director of Communications at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.