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Michelle Cornette, PhD

Data Analytics and Evaluation Lead
SAMHSA
Rockville, Maryland, United States

Michelle Cornette, Ph.D. is Data Analytics and Evaluation Lead in the 988 & Behavioral Health Crisis Coordinating Office at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA, USA). Her professional history in suicide prevention includes roles as administrator, researcher, clinician, educator, and survivor of suicide loss. She is Past Executive Director of the American Association of Suicidology, where she introduced a number of products and programs, and was responsible for dramatically expanding the organization’s operating budget.

At SAMHSA, Dr. Cornette was a contributor to the 2024 Revised National Strategy for Suicide Prevention and Action Plan. She has overseen the Zero Suicide grant program, and has served as a program officer for the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention and Community Crisis Response Partnership grant/ cooperative agreement programs. She co-managed the grant for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which has since become 988, and was a contributor to the 988 Reports to Congress. Dr. Cornette leads the BHCC Data Subcommittee, and served previously on the Joining Forces IPC, the Suicide Prevention IPC Data and Surveillance Subcommittee, and the BHCC SPCC Implementation Strategy Work Group.

Dr. Cornette previously supported the Research & Program Evaluation and Data & Surveillance Divisions at the Department of Defense Suicide Prevention Office. She was also Military Suicide SME at the Center for Deployment Psychology, where she developed a two-day training for military/ veteran mental health providers on evidence-based approaches to suicide risk assessment, crisis intervention, and treatment, and which she subsequently delivered at military treatment facilities across the country.

She spent 10 years in the VA system, where she was VISN 12 Suicide Prevention Director, responsible for overseeing suicide prevention activities at the 7 VA facilities in VISN 12. Dr. Cornette has received Federal and private funding for her program of research on suicide risk, and she has presented and published extensively in addition to providing many television and print interviews on the topics of suicide risk assessment, prevention, and treatment. She earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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