Kristine Gebbie

Kristine Elizabeth Moore Gebbie (June 26, 1943 – May 17, 2022) was an American academic and public health official who served as the first AIDS Policy Coordinator (or "AIDS Czar") from 1993 to 1994. A nurse and epidemiologist, she had previously been director of the Oregon Department of Health and Secretary of the Washington State Department of Health, and was later a professor of nursing and Dean of the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing at Hunter College.

Early life and education Gebbie was born in Sioux City, Iowa, the daughter of Irene (Stewart), who worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Thomas Moore, a career officer in the Army. Her father's career took the family to Panama, the Philippines, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, and she spent part of her childhood in Miles City, Montana, with her grandparents.

Inspired by an aunt to become a nurse, Gebbie worked as a nurse's aide in high school. she was working on her doctoral dissertation, on the evolution of Washington State statutes, when appointed AIDS Policy Coordinator.

Career Gebbie was the director of the Oregon Department of Health from 1978 to 1989 and the Secretary of the Washington State Department of Health from 1989 to 1993.

As the HIV/AIDS epidemic unfolded in the United States in the 1980s, Gebbie became a member of the AIDS task force of the American Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. and subsequently served on the National Commission on AIDS and as chairman of the advisory panel on H.I.V. prevention at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

She and her husband retired in Adelaide, Australia, where she was a faculty member at the Torrens Resilience Initiative of the Flinders University School of Nursing & Midwifery and at the University of Adelaide Nursing School.

Honors and memberships Gebbie was a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Nursing. and a Nurse 21 Award from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2012.

Personal life and death Gebbie had three children with her first husband, Neil Gebbie. Her second marriage was to Lester Nils Wright, a physician, with whom she had two stepsons. He died in April 2022. Gebbie died in Adelaide on May 17, 2022, from cancer.