Katie Hood

Katie Hood is the Chief Executive Officer of The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF), a position she has held since December 2007. In this role, she has been critical in shaping MJFF’s strategy of intervening aggressively to close crucial gaps that slow potential treatments on their path from the laboratory to Parkinson’s patients, as well as in building a team of in-house research experts needed to implement that strategy.

Since its inception in November 2000, the Foundation has emerged as one of a handful of medical research foundations not only driving high-impact research in their respective disease fields, but also launching initiatives that promote substantial change to the scientific enterprise as a whole, in pursuit of faster progress toward tangible therapeutic advances. Today the Foundation stands as the single largest Parkinson’s research funder in the world outside the U.S. government, having funded over $150 million in PD research to date.

Prior to joining the Foundation in September 2002, Ms. Hood was employed as a consultant at Bain & Company in New York City, doing work in the consumer products, financial services, and nonprofit sectors. She has also served as an analyst in the Credit Department of Goldman, Sachs & Co., and as a program coordinator with Duke University’s Hart Leadership Program.

In August 2008, Ms. Hood was named to the Advisory Council to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), an 18-member board that advises the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, the director of the National Institutes of Health, and the director of NINDS on research funding prioritization and related matters for neurological diseases, including Parkinson’s disease. She also is a member of the Board of Directors of the Parkinson’s Action Network (PAN).

She graduated from Harvard Business School and holds a BA in Public Policy Studies from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.