Catherine Smallwood

Dr Catherine (Katie) Smallwood currently leads public health surveillance at the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence, part of the WHO Emergencies Preparedness and Response Programme. Since 2010, Catherine has held diverse roles at the World Health Organization at Global, Regional and country levels, primarily focused on outbreak and emergency response in Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. From 2019-2024, as WHO/Europe’s senior emergency officer, Catherine oversaw WHO’s response operations across Europe and central Asia, leading WHO’s responses to COVID-19 (2020-2024), mpox (2022), and the earthquakes in Turkiye and northwest Syria (2023). Catherine has also led WHO responses in humanitarian and conflict-affected settings, including in Syria, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, and Ukraine.