Craig Blakely

Dr. Craig Blakely, Dean of the School of Public Health and Information Sciences at the University of Louisville, has a long history of federal and state funded research, a great deal of which has been data driven efforts to influence policy. His early exposure began at Michigan State University in the late 1970’s, where he earned a doctoral degree in Ecological Psychology,based social change. .

He then spent his initial post-doctoral study years at a policy research shop in Michigan that initiated a study of a prenatal care pilot program in Michigan, funded at $1M by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan that culminated in legislative change making prenatal care a basic health service in the state. He then relocated to the Stanford Research Institute where he managed components of several national studies of the Reagan block grant in education (ECIA Chapters 1 and 2). Following his relocation to Texas A&M in 1987, he built the Public Policy Research Institute and spent two years as a visiting scholar at SAMHSA. He returned to Texas A&M where he helped establish the new school of public health, first as a department head, later as Associate Dean for Research and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and finally as Dean.

In 2013 he moved to the University of Louisville where he is now Dean of the School of Public Health and Information Sciences. He has been instrumental in starting up two major research platforms at the school—securing $4 million in start-up funding from KentuckyOne Health to establish the Commonwealth Institute of Kentucky, a health policy think tank that three years later had $14 million in project funds active and helping land an NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center at the University of Louisville.

Craig has served on a number of advisory boards dedicated to advancing public health, including the U.S. Department of Defense Health Board, the Board of the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, the Louisville metro Board of Health, the Board of the National Association of Public Health Examiners, and the Board of the Louisville Health Enterprise Network.