Margaret “Margo” Riggs, PhD, MPH, MS is an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health. She retired as a Captain in the US Public Health Service in April 2022 after serving at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as an epidemiologist. Most recently she was the CDC Liaison and Healthy Communities Director with Shaping Our Appalachian Region (SOAR), a regional nonprofit that champions local projects, programs, and advocacy in Eastern Kentucky to fill economic gaps.
Dr. Riggs has been working in domestic and international public health throughout her career building public health capacity in underserved areas. She was an Associate Director at CDC Zambia supporting the establishment of the first Zambia National Public Health Institute. As a CDC Epidemiology Field Officer supervisor, she oversaw the work of 30 senior epidemiologists across the US. She also was assigned to the Kentucky Department for Public Health responding to natural disasters or outbreaks and building environmental health capacity. Dr. Riggs began her career with CDC in 2005 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Cincinnati, OH.
She is the recipient of several national honors and awards including a Distinguished Service Medal in 2022, Meritorious Service Medal 2021, and the US Embassy Mission Meritorious Service Award 2019. Dr. Riggs is inspired by serving local communities to reduce health disparities and to change misperceptions by confronting systems and policies that hinder improvement. She served in the Army for 5 years after high school and continues to serve veterans as Quartermaster with the local VFW Post in addition to being a board member of the Commissioned Officers Association Board of Directors and Commissioned Officers Foundation Board of Trustees as well as serving as a Rotarian.
Dr. Riggs received her MS in Animal Science, MPH in Epidemiology and a PhD in Immunology from the University of Florida and was a post-doctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health.
