Georgia Karuntzos

Georgia Karuntzos, PhD, is a Strategic Account Executive for the strategy and growth of RTI’s work with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Dr. Karuntzos leads business development and client relations in collaboration with research staff for various federal agencies in HHS, including the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and more. She is responsible for understanding client needs, building strategic partnerships, and connecting client challenges to RTI’s capabilities.

Dr. Karuntzos has 10 years of experience in business development, previously serving as Vice President of Research Development at RTI. In this role, she partnered with research teams to develop plans for entering new markets, establishing key business relationships with partners and funders, and identifying and managing an annual proposal pipeline. Dr. Karuntzos has also supported proposal and capture teams as a subject expert and scientific reviewer, working with staff to ensure efficient and effective business development practices.

Prior to her work in business development at RTI, she spent nearly 25 years leading multi-site evaluations and examining program implementation and outcomes across a variety of contexts and populations. Dr. Karuntzos is a recognized expert in the field of workplace health and has assisted with and facilitated numerous federal advisory and expert panels informing substance use prevention policies.

She led multi-disciplinary teams on complex projects to design and execute evaluations and large-scale research programs for various federal health agencies. Dr. Karuntzos served as principal investigator on the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s (NICHD’s) Work, Family, and Health Initiative in which she developed, implemented, and evaluated a workplace health promotion intervention. In addition, she led RTI’s efforts on the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s (NIAAA’s) Screening and Brief Intervention (SBI) in Employee Assistance Program (EAP) study where she managed the development of an evidence-based intervention for worker engagement.

Dr. Karuntzos also served as project director for the multisite evaluation of SAMHSA’s Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) program, leading the design and execution of a large-scale, multi-site evaluation, including implementation studies to strengthen program delivery. She has also developed user-centered technical assistance products, including for the SAMHSA-funded Prescription Drug Abuse in the Workplace Technical Assistance Center.

Her research has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals, including the American Journal of Health Promotion, the Journal of Applied Psychology, and the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment.