A top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will step down soon, she and the agency confirmed on Oct. 27.
Dr. Jennifer Shuford, the CDC’s deputy director and chief medical officer, will be leaving on Nov. 13, the CDC and Shuford told news outlets in statements.
Shuford said she was departing to spend more time with her family and that she was thankful to President Donald Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the opportunity.
“It has been an amazing experience and I will be forever grateful for it,” she said.
Dr. Erica Schwartz, the CDC’s director, said she was thankful for Shuford’s leadership, “especially as she has navigated an exceptionally demanding, high-profile, and constantly evolving environment over the past several months.”
The CDC has had several leadership transitions during Trump’s second term. It was led on an acting basis through the summer of 2025, when the Senate confirmed Susan Monarez as director. Trump fired her after one month, after she and Kennedy split on how to handle guidance from the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel.
Following the termination, the CDC had several acting directors, and the principal deputy director brought into the agency left in February just months after being appointed, citing unforeseen family obligations.
In April, Trump announced he was nominating Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general and chief medical officer of the Coast Guard. He also announced Shuford as deputy director and chief medical officer, and health care executive Sean Slovenski as principal deputy director and chief operating officer, and said the new leadership team would work to “restore the gold standard of science at the CDC, which was an absolute disaster focused on ‘mandates’” during the Biden administration.
Prior to joining the CDC, Shuford’s positions included the chief state epidemiologist and the health commissioner in Texas.