As Chief Veterinarian, RDML Kis Robertson Hale will advise the Office of the Surgeon General and the Department of Health and Human Services on issues central to the strength of the Veterinary Category and the assignment and deployment of Commissioned Corps veterinary officers. She will also provide leadership and career counseling to over 70 nationally dispersed Commissioned Corps veterinarians who are committed to using their highly versatile training in animal health, comparative medicine, and infectious disease to advance the Nation’s public health. 

RDML Hale serves as the Deputy Assistant Administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service’s (FSIS) Office of Public Health Science and serves as the agency’s Chief Public Health Veterinarian. In these roles, she oversees the science behind FSIS’ regulatory mission of ensuring safe meat, poultry, and egg products, and she represents the agency in One Health engagements. Her history with FSIS started in 2003 when she worked in the Office of Field Operations as an Enforcement, Investigation, and Analysis Officer. In 2008, she joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer and in 2010, she was assigned to the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene as a CDC Preventive Medicine Fellow. As a flag officer in the USPHS Commissioned Corps, she serves as an Assistant Surgeon General.

RDML Hale has been involved in USPHS activities throughout her career, serving as a voting member of the Veterinary Professional Advisory Committee (VetPAC) in 2013-2016, Chair of the VetPAC Recruitment Subcommittee in 2013-2014, and VetPAC Chair in 2015. As a violinist in the USPHS Music Ensemble, she had the privilege of performing at U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s swearing-in ceremony during President Obama’s second term. Her most recent USPHS deployment included service on a strike team that provided life-sustaining medical care to COVID-19 patients at an alternative care facility. In 2021, in support of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, she led the mobilization of approximately 30 FSIS veterinarians to serve as vaccinators at mass clinics nationwide. This campaign was the first federal response that used veterinary personnel to administer vaccines to people.

RDML Hale’s educational background includes a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the Georgia Institute of Technology, a Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine from Tuskegee University, and a Masters in Public Health from the University of Minnesota. She is a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Preventive Medicine.