North American Association of Central Cancer Registries Announces New Executive Director
SPRINGFIELD, Ill., July 17, 2024 (Newswire.com) - The Board of Directors of the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries is pleased to announce Karen L. Knight, MS as its new Executive Director. Following a nationwide search, Ms. Knight was selected based on her outstanding experience in cancer surveillance and registration, making her uniquely qualified for this leadership position.
Ms. Knight earned a Master of Science degree in Applied Mathematics with a concentration in Statistics from Clemson University and completed graduate work in biostatistics, public health informatics, and organizational development. She has over 22 years of progressive leadership experience in public health statistics at the state and federal levels. She served as Assistant Director and Director of the North Carolina Central Cancer Registry in the late 1990s and early 2000s and served as Treasurer to the NAACCR Board during that time. She was promoted to Director of the North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics in 2010 and oversaw the Central Cancer Registry, Birth Defects Registry, Vital Statistics, Vital Records, health surveys, health services analysis and mapping services. Before joining NAACCR in 2022, she was Branch Chief of the Data Acquisition, Classification and Evaluation Branch in the Division of Vital Statistics at the National Center for Health Statistics. She has overseen multi-million-dollar grants and contracts and successfully collaborated with internal and external partners on key initiatives in public health statistics. As Chief of Registry Development, she has successfully contributed to the National Childhood Cancer Registry, Virtual Pooled Registry, other NCI and CDC-funded projects, informatics initiatives, strategic planning, and coordination of key projects with cancer surveillance partners.
Ms Knight, who will assume the role of Executive Director on September 2, 2024, will replace Betsy A. Kohler, MPH, who is retiring from the role after 16 years of service. Ms. Kohler has led the Association through a period of unprecedented growth contributing to the improvement of cancer data on the national and international levels. Ms. Kohler was honored recently at the Association’s annual conference in Boise, ID in June “in recognition of more than 40 years of dedicated service to cancer surveillance, impacting the lives of countless patients and their families around the world now and for many years to come.”
“We would like to sincerely thank Betsy and express our deep gratitude and appreciation for all she has accomplished in the advancement of cancer surveillance. We look forward to a long and bright future working with Karen Knight in her new role, working together to make every cancer count,” said Wendy Aldinger, President of NAACCR.
Established in 1987, NAACCR is a collaborative umbrella organization for cancer registries, governmental agencies, professional organizations, and private groups in North America interested in enhancing the quality and use of cancer registry data. Its goal is to set standards and build consensus for the collection of uniform cancer data across the continent. All state and provincial central cancer registries in the United States and Canada are members.
Source: North American Association of Central Cancer Registries
