Katherine Weno, a dentist and lawyer who heads the bureau of oral health at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, has been selected as the new director of the division of oral health at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga.
She is scheduled to take the new post Oct. 6.
“We’ll definitely miss having her here as KDHE’s director of oral health,” said agency spokesperson Miranda Steele. “She’s done a wonderful job in Kansas.”
Weno has been the bureau director at KDHE for the past seven years.
She received her degree in dentistry in 1991 from the University of Iowa. She earned a law degree at the University of Iowa in 1999. She was in private dental practice from 1991 through 2000 and began her legal career working for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Missouri in 2001. She joined KDHE in 2006.
She has been a member of the Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors (ASTDD’s) Board of Directors for two years and currently serves as the group’s treasurer.
At CDC, she will replace William Bailey, who has been acting director of the division the past two years while also serving as chief dental officer for the U.S. Public Health Service.
KDHE officials said they haven’t yet starting looking for Weno’s replacement.
The CDC division she will lead has an annual budget of about $14.4 million. The division works with states to promote oral health. Among its duties is maintenance of a national flouridation reporting system.
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