Kana Enomoto, M.A.

Acting Director of the Office of Policy, Planning & Innovation (OPPI)

Ms. Enomoto serves as the Acting Director of the Office of Policy, Planning, and Innovation in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In this capacity, she provides leadership and coordination of strategic planning and provides an integrated and structured approach to program policy analysis, coordination, development and communication. She also serves as SAMHSA's Associate Administrator for Women's Services and Chair of the Advisory Committee on Women's Services.

Ms. Enomoto has been the Principal Senior Advisor to the Administrator and coordinated Agency activities on behalf of the Administrator across the full spectrum of mental health and substance abuse policy issues, SAMHSA’s grant and contracts portfolio, human capital management, process improvement, and interagency/intersectoral collaborations.  Prior to joining the Office of the Administrator, Ms. Enomoto worked in SAMHSA's Center for Mental Health Services where she played key roles in the development of seminal behavioral health policy documents such as Transforming Mental Health Care in America: The Federal Action Agenda and The President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health Final Report and the Surgeon General's Supplemental Report on Mental Health: Culture, Race and Ethnicity. She also was a lead evaluator on the $40 million SAMHSA Multi-Site Study on Women, Co-occurring Disorders, and Violence. 

Since coming to HHS as a Presidential Management Intern (Fellow) in 1998, Ms. Enomoto has worked to raise the profile of women’s and minorities’ mental health and substance abuse issues at the federal level.  Prior to entering the federal government, she was a research associate at the National Research Center on Asian American Mental Health at the University of California, Los Angeles. Ms. Enomoto's background is in clinical psychology and she received her bachelors and masters degrees from UCLA.

Last updated: 03/28/2011