Dr. Caswell A. Evans is director of the National Oral Health Initiative within the office of the U.S. Surgeon General. In this role, he provides guidance and assistance to state and local initiatives responsive to Oral Health in America: A Report of the U.S. Surgeon General (2000), and to the subsequent National Call To Action (2003) reports, which he directed and edited. The report can be accessed at www.surgeongeneral.gov/topics/oralhealth/.

Dr. Evans has served as director of public health programs and services for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and as director of the County Division of the Seattle-King County Department of Public Health in Washington state.

Elected to the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Evans is past president of the American Public Health Association and is the founder of its Faith Community Caucus. He has served on the board of the National Association of County and City Health Officials. He is a diplomate and immediate past president of the American Board of Dental Public Health, and serves as chair of the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Pipeline grants recently awarded to dental schools. He also serves on the Board of Visitors for the National Museum of Dentistry in Baltimore.

Dr. Evans received his doctor of dental surgery degree from Columbia University's School of Dental and Oral Surgery. He earned his master of public health from the University of Michigan School of Public Health. He is a visiting professor of dentistry at the Columbia University School of Dental and Oral Surgery, and served as a Distinguished Minority Visiting Professor at Boston University Health Sciences Center.

Dr. Evans has received awards from the California State Department of Health Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Association of Public Health Dentistry, and the U.S. Surgeon General's office.