Executive Leadership and Expert Bios

Linda L. Dahlberg, PhD

Senior Advisor to the Director, Division of Violence Prevention

  Areas of Expertise

• Youth violence prevention
• Global violence prevention
• Injury surveillance
• Firearm violence
• Efficacy/effectiveness research

Linda Dahlberg, PhD, is the Senior Advisor to the Director in the Division of Violence Prevention (DVP) within CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. In this role, she provides senior executive leadership in the design, conceptualization, and implementation of initiatives aimed at preventing violence and in the application of scientific findings into practice to improve the nation’s health. She is also an expert consultant on global research, surveillance, and programmatic initiatives.

Dr. Dahlberg joined CDC in 1990 as a research sociologist in the Division of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV/AIDS where she served as a co-investigator of a study on risk factors for bacterial and viral STDs among adolescent females and provided research support and technical assistance to CDC’s national efforts to prevent STDs and HIV.

Dr. Dahlberg has worked more than twenty years in the area of violence prevention. She joined CDC’s violence prevention division in 1992 when rates of homicide among the nation’s youth were near their highest recorded levels in history and helped launch CDC’s violence prevention program. In 1996, she became a Senior Behavioral Scientist on the Youth Violence Prevention Team where she conducted domestic and international studies on firearm violence and helped advance CDC’s effectiveness research to prevent youth violence and surveillance efforts in the areas of firearm violence and non-fatal injury. From 2000-2002, while on a temporary duty assignment in Geneva, Switzerland, Dr. Dahlberg served as the Executive Scientific Editor of the World Report on Violence and Health. In 2002, she became the division’s Deputy Associate Director for Science. In 2006, she became the Associate Director for Science, and, in 2015, the Senior Advisor to the Director. In addition to providing senior leadership and guidance to the Division’s surveillance and strategic science investments, Dr. Dahlberg has served as a consultant on a number of international scientific planning committees and advisory boards and has assisted countries in Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.

Dr. Dahlberg received her BA degree in sociology from the University of Northern Colorado and her master’s degree and PhD in sociology from Indiana University (IU)-Bloomington. She also has a doctoral minor in evaluation research from IU’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs and a doctoral minor in organizational theory from IU’s School of Business.

During her career, she has been an invited plenary speaker at world conferences and has keynoted addresses sponsored by other federal agencies. She has authored or coauthored more than 125 peer-reviewed publications, chapters, reports, and presentations and received awards of excellence in both teaching and research.