Ileana Arias, a longtime official in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was in 2015 named director of the Division of Community Health Investigations, which is part of CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. She is also principal deputy director of the CDC.

Arias is from New York City. She earned a B.A. from Barnard College and went to the State University of New York at Stony Brook, earning an M.A. and in 1984 a Ph.D. in psychology.

She stayed at Stony Brook for a short time as a research associate, but then went to the University of Georgia, first as an assistant professor and eventually as director of clinical training and professor of clinical psychology.

Arias’ field of expertise is violence among intimate partners and family. She moved to CDC in 2000 and was chief of the Etiology and Surveillance Branch in National Center for Injury Prevention and Control’s Division of Violence Prevention. By 2004 she was acting director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control and was named director the following year.

Arias’ husband, Steve Beach, is a clinical psychologist at the University of Georgia. They have two sons.

-Steve Straehley

To Learn More:

Official Biography (pdf)