Associate Director for Research Integration |Office of the Director
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health |CDC | Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Full Bio

Dr. Felknor is the Associate Director for Research Integration at NIOSH where she leads the strategic alignment and collaboration among occupational safety and health research communities.  Dr. Felknor established the NIOSH Office of Research Integration (ORI) in 2019 to connect research communities and optimize impact by leveraging innovation and collaboration to advance the NIOSH mission. ORI leads core activities to expand research partnerships and integrate NIOSH research to priority goals. In 2021, Dr. Felknor led the launch of the NIOSH Strategic Foresight Unit to connect research communities to strategic foresight and provide an organizational home for foresight activities. From 2011 to 2019, Dr. Felknor provided oversight of the NIOSH Office of Extramural Programs where she worked to integrate intramural and extramural program efforts to reduce the risk of worker injuries, illnesses and fatalities through basic and applied research.  Prior to joining NIOSH in 2011, Dr. Felknor was Associate Professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health (UTSPH) in Houston for 24 years, and Director of the Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental Health.  She was an active investigator on national and international occupational health research and training grants and worked extensively in injury prevention programs in the healthcare and petrochemical industries. While at UTSPH, she served as Chair of the NIOSH Board of Scientific Counselors and the NIOSH National Workforce Assessment Task Force.  Dr. Felknor holds a professional certificate in Strategic Foresight from the University of Houston, a doctorate in public health from the UTSPH, a master’s degree in organization development from American University in Washington DC, and bachelor’s degrees in political science and Spanish from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.