MDH Hires New Head of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention and Control Division

April 6, 2023

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has hired Jessica Hancock-Allen as its new director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention and Control Division (IDEPC). The division is the MDH unit chiefly responsible for monitoring infectious diseases and for developing strategies to prevent and control them to protect Minnesotans. 

Hancock-Allen, who will start at MDH next month, is replacing Kris Ehresmann, who retired in February 2022. Since her retirement, the post has been filled on an interim basis by Emily Emerson, who will return to her previous role as assistant division director when Hancock-Allen joins the department. 

Hancock-Allen is a nurse practitioner with extensive experience in high-profile public health services. She most recently worked at St. Paul-Ramsey County Public Health, where she managed the tuberculosis control program and clinic. In this role, she focused on improving patient-centered operations, improving communication across teams and implementing community engagement efforts. From 2020 to 2021, she led COVID-19 prevention and control efforts for Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, which serves thousands of people experiencing homelessness. Earlier she established and ran the medical respite program at Higher Ground in St. Paul for Catholic Charities. 

Before arriving in Minnesota, Hancock-Allen served as an epidemic intelligence service officer with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stationed in Colorado. In this role, she led a range of outbreak investigations and served in deployments to Sierra Leone and The Gambia during the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak. Early in her career, she was a nurse in the cardiac intensive care unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and with The Denver Hospice. 

Hancock-Allen earned master’s degrees from the Harvard School of Public Health and Simmons College in Boston. Prior to that, she served as a health, water and sanitation Peace Corps Volunteer in rural Ghana. She has undergraduate degrees from Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and from Wake Forest University.