Dr. Michael Fraser serves as the Executive Director of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. ASTHO is the national nonprofit organization representing the public health agencies of the United States, the U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia, as well as the more than 100,000 public health professionals these agencies employ. ASTHO members, the chief health officials of these jurisdictions, are dedicated to formulating and influencing sound public health policy and to ensuring excellence in state‐based public health practice. Under his leadership, ASTHO has received multiple Power of “A” Awards from the American Society of Association Executives for ASTHO’s outstanding performance and the contributions the ASTHO team has made to advance the work of our members. ASTHO has grown in influence and organizational capacity since his arrival, including increasing the size and diversity of ASTHO team and grow the organization’s budget with significant new investments from both federal agencies and national and global philanthropies. 

Michael is a dynamic leader in the health care and public health fields and brings to this position experience leading both public health associations and medical societies. He has been featured in interviews with the Washington Post, New York Times, Politico, The Hill, CNN, Bloomberg, MSNBC, and other national and regional media outlets. Michael is a co-editor and author of A Public Health Guide to Ending the Opioid Crisis published by the Oxford University Press in early 2019 and is currently an editor and author of Leading Systems Change in Public Health: A Field Guide for Practitioners. Michael is an Affiliated Faculty in the Department of Global and Community Health and the Department of Health Administration and Policy at the George Mason University College of Health and Human Services.

Prior to joining ASTHO, he served as the executive vice president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Medical Society in Harrisburg, PA. Michael has been a distinguished leader in public health for twenty years. He served as CEO of the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP) from 2007 to 2013, where his leadership was recognized nationally by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s Director’s Award in 2014. In addition, the American Public Health Association’s MCH Section awarded AMCHP the Outstanding Leadership and Advocacy Award. Prior to joining AMCHP, he was the deputy executive director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials from 2002 to 2007, and served in several capacities at the US Department of Health and Human Services, including positions at the Health Resources and Services Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Spring 2015, he was admitted as a Fellow in the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, one of just a handful on non-physician Fellows in the nation’s oldest professional society.

Michael received his doctorate and masters degrees in sociology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a masters of science in management with a concentration on management, strategy and leadership from the Eli Broad School of Management at Michigan State University. He received his B.A. in sociology from Oberlin College in 1991. 

Since coming to ASTHO, Mike has crisscrossed the nation to meet with members, partners, and public health leaders to further advance ASTHO’s mission as an advocate, voice and resource for state and territorial public health.  He has served on several national boards and advisory committees throughout his career. He is the Founding Treasurer of PHPAC – the Public Health Political Action Committee, is active in the American Society of Association Executives, serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice and serves as expert review for multiple scholarly publications on public health practice.