October 2012 VSTH Meeting Speakers

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Speakers' Biographies

Ruth Shults, PhD, MPH

Senior Epidemiologist, Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention in the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control

Ruth Shults, PhD, MPH, is a senior epidemiologist in the Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention in the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Her area of concentration is motor vehicle crash prevention.

During her 11-year tenure on the Motor Vehicle Team, Dr. Shults has led Centers for Disease Control and Prevention research and program activities in the areas of alcohol-impaired driving, safety belt use, and teen driving. In this role, she coordinates systematic reviews of interventions to increase seat belt use and reduce alcohol-impaired driving for the Guide to Community Preventive Services. Her other research interests include understanding the contribution of the community-level influences in reducing alcohol-impaired driving.

Dr. Shults received her doctorate degree in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina.

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Katherine Gonzales, MPH

Epidemiologist, Michigan Department of Community Health

Katherine Gonzales, MPH, is a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-funded alcohol epidemiologist with the Michigan Department of Community Health. Her interests include expanding alcohol-related public health surveillance, providing epidemiologic support to local coalitions and advocacy groups, and monitoring alcohol-related marketing and advertisements.

Gonzales is a member of the Alcohol and Other Drug Indicator Subcommittee and Alcohol Subcommittee of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. She is also a member of the Michigan Epidemiological Outcomes Workgroup.

Gonzales received her master’s degree in public health from the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

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