Lieutenant Commander Colleen Scott

Lieutenant Commander Colleen Scott, DrPH, MPH, NREMT, CHES (Gonzaga ’01) 

Lieutenant Commander (LCDR) Colleen Scott began her journey combating public health inequities before even learning what “public health” meant. Leveraging her Jesuit education and focus on service and social justice, she joined the AmeriCorps Learn & Serve program as a volunteer for sexual assault advocacy and community outreach at Gonzaga University. Colleen worked alongside a team of AmeriCorps volunteers using theatre performance as an educational outreach tool to ensure 18- to 22-year-old people across Spokane, Washington received knowledge and support services for sexual assault. Honoring her passion for service, she later spent 2.5 years as a health education and development Peace Corps volunteer in rural Zambia helping build village-level capacity to identify and prioritize health needs with local health clinics. During her time in Zambia, Colleen discovered the public health field dedicated to the science of protecting and improving the health of people and their communities. Driven to learn and develop the skills necessary to pursue a career in public health, she went back to school to earn both a Master’s and Doctorate of Public Health degrees.  

Dedicated to improving the health of communities while also protecting the most vulnerable among us, Dr. Scott holds a Certificate in Complex Humanitarian Emergencies and completed her Master’s practicum working with health educators to improve HIV prevention and testing services in Kakuma and Dadaab Refugee Camps in Kenya. To continue serving communities across the globe and at home, Colleen applied and was selected to commission as a United States Public Health Service (USPHS) Officer: one of the eight Uniformed Services protecting our Nation and the only branch committed to the service of health. As a USPHS Officer, Colleen strives to protect, promote, and advance the health and safety of the nation. She has deployed 16 times, responding to public health emergencies including two deployments responding for the 2022 monkeypox outbreak, eight times for the COVID-19 pandemic, three times for hurricanes Irma, Harvey, and Maria, and twice for Ebola.  

When not responding to public health emergencies,  LCDR Scott works daily to halt the global HIV/AIDS pandemic at The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as the Scientific Integrity Protocol Unit Lead for the Division of Global HIV and tuberculosis, her duty station for the last nine years. LCDR Scott supports HIV research and program activities in 44 countries ensuring scientific integrity, excellence, and ethics/human subjects protections in support of both CDC and The United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) missions combating the global HIV and tuberculosis pandemics.