Dr. Degutis, a native of Chicago, received her Bachelor of Science degree from DePaul University, and her MSN and DrPH from Yale University. She is a consultant in injury and violence prevention and policy, public health preparedness, and public health policy. Some of her current work focuses on suicide prevention in veterans, and firearm violence prevention, as well as public health practice. She is former Executive Director of Defense Health Horizons, a program of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, based at the Uniformed Services University. In addition, she was the Chief Science Officer for The Avielle Foundation. She chaired the Board of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE), is past president of the Society for the Advancement of Violence and Injury Research (SAVIR), and a member of the Advisory Board of the College of Science and Health of DePaul University.

 

She currently chairs the board of the Stop Abuse Campaign. Previously, she was the Director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the CDC. At Yale, she was Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Public Health and was the Director and Co-PI of the Yale Center for Public Health Preparedness, which designed and implemented education in disaster preparedness, response and recovery. She served as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow in the Office of the late Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN). She is a Past President of the American Public Health Association (APHA), the oldest and largest public health association in the world. Dr. Degutis, a member of the National Academy of Medicine, received a the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship Alumni, has received the Distinguished Career and Public Service Awards from the Injury Control and Emergency Health Services Section of APHA, and was named an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health. Her work has focused on public health policy, injury and violence, gun violence prevention, suicide prevention substance abuse and policy, as well as disaster preparedness and mitigation.