Background & Bio
Dr. Janis Gonzales is a pediatrician and public health physician and currently works as the Chief Health Officer for the New Mexico (NM) Early Childhood Education and Care Department, one of the few Department level agencies in the country dedicated to the prenatal to three population. Prior to taking on this role, Dr. Gonzales served as the Maternal Child Health Director/Title V Director in the New Mexico Department of Health, where she had oversight of several programs including Children’s Medical Services, Families FIRST, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), Family Planning, Maternal Child Health Epidemiology, and Maternal and Child Health.

Dr. Gonzales received her Doctor of Medicine (MD) from the University of Illinois, her Master of Public Health (MPH) from the University of New Mexico, and is Board Certified by the American Board of Pediatrics. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), received the 2017 Early Childhood Champion “Unsung Hero” Award from the AAP, and was appointed in 2019 to the UT Austin Prenatal-to-Three Policy Center’s Advisory Council, which works with the Pritzker Foundation to develop recommendations for evidence-based prenatal to three policies.

Dr. Gonzales is the immediate past President of the NM Pediatric Society (NM Chapter of the AAP) and the AAP Early Childhood Chapter Champion for NM, as well as the President of the NM Perinatal Collaborative. She has served for ten years on the Interagency Coordinating Council (ICC) for the Family Infant Toddler (FIT) early intervention program and was previously appointed to the Early Learning Advisory Council. She is also a board member of Hero’s Path Palliative Care and a member of the J Paul Taylor task force, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) task force, and the Birth Equity Collaborative.