Staff Bio
José T. Montero, MD, MHCDS, is the Director of the Office of Recipients Support and Coordination in CDC’s Public Health Infrastructure Center.
Role at CDC
Dr. Montero leads the work of the Office of Recipients Support and Coordination. His office serves as CDC's connection to health officials and leaders of public health agencies, as well as other government leaders who work with health departments.
Previous experience
Prior to joining CDC's Public Health Infrastructure Center, Dr. Montero served as the Director of CDC's former Center for State, Tribal, Local, and Territorial Support. Under Dr. Montero's leadership, the center worked to enhance public health systems to help state, tribal, local, and territorial public health agencies deliver high-quality services to the people and communities they serve. The center's staff collaborated with partners to strengthen public health services; build a diverse, expert public health workforce; and promoted evidence-based practices. The group focused on addressing health disparities to advance health equity, joining with all of CDC to integrate health equity into the fabric of the agency's work.
Before joining CDC, Dr. Montero served as vice president of population health and health system integration at Cheshire Medical Center/Dartmouth-Hitchcock Keene. Dr. Montero was the director of the Division of Public Health Services at the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. In that role, he led the delivery of high-quality, evidence-based services and prompt response to public health threats and emerging issues in the state. Dr. Montero was credited with maintaining New Hampshire's reputation as one of America's healthiest states.
Dr. Montero has held many national and regional committee leadership positions, including serving as President of the Board of Directors of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. He has also served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the National Academy for State Health Policy, the National Academies of Medicine, Sciences, and Engineering Roundtable on Population Health Improvement, Dartmouth Medical School's Leadership Preventive Medicine Residency Advisory Committee, and the Foundation for Healthy Communities. He worked closely with CDC as a member of the Board of Scientific Advisors for the Office of Infectious Diseases, as a member and then chair of the Social Determinants of Health Think Tank, a subgroup of the State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial Subcommittee to the Advisory Committee to the Director of CDC.
Education
Dr. Montero holds a medical degree from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. He specialized in family medicine and completed his residency at the Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia. He holds an epidemiology degree from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia; a certification of field epidemiology from the Colombia Field Epidemiology Training Program; and a Master of Healthcare Delivery Science from Dartmouth College.