Wanda Barfield, MD, MPH, FAAP is Director of the Division of Reproductive Health (DRH) within the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dr. Barfield leads efforts to provide optimal and equitable health to women and infants through improved surveillance and applied public health research during the critical junctures of population health– pregnancy, infancy, and adolescence.  Through building and strengthening strategic partnerships with multiple organizations, her division leads several programs to monitor maternal and infant mortality and morbidity; the impact of emerging threats to pregnant/postpartum women and their infants (opioids, disasters, COVID-19); and issues in women’s reproductive health, from contraception and teen/unintended pregnancy, to infertility and assisted reproductive technology.

Dr. Barfield received her medical and public health degrees from Harvard University, completed a pediatrics residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and a neonatal-perinatal medicine fellowship at Harvard. She is a retired Rear Admiral (Assistant Surgeon General) in the U.S. Public Health Service, and a Professor of Pediatrics at the Uniformed Services University.  She continues to practice neonatology, providing clinical care to critically ill newborns.