MEMBERSHIP
Fairfax County Health Department Laboratory:
Serving the National Capital Area
by Nancy Maddox, MPH, writer
redbrick edifice is located in the City of
Fairfax, adjacent to a health department
clinic and the City of Fairfax Police
Department. The highly secure facility
provides 10,000 square feet of operational
space, including a full BSL-3 suite with
three isolation rooms and a three-room
molecular testing suite.
Director
FCHDL staff. Front row (from l to r:) Huy Tran, Sara Sharif, Romina Wright, Whitney Owens, Emma Levings, Chip Hill. Back row (from
l to r:) Fernando Valdes, Mary Louise Kolodziej, Patti Dawson, Barbara Beatty, Deborah Severson, Arelis Piscitelli. Photo: FCHDL
Virginia’s lone local public health
laboratory—the Fairfax County Health
Department Laboratory (FCHDL)—sits
directly across the Potomac River from
Washington, DC, and serves a diverse
population drawn from across the globe.
Since the laboratory’s founding in the
1970s, the county has grown from a quiet
DC suburb to a vibrant, populous area
with urban centers of its own. Today, it is
the single largest county in the National
Capital Region, with a median household
income more than double the national
average and a population of 1.1 million
people, almost a third of whom are
immigrants.
While the federal government has a
notable presence in the jurisdiction—
which is home to the Central Intelligence
Agency, National Counterterrorism Center
and other US agencies and offices—it also
hosts the headquarters of nine Fortune
500 companies, ranging from Northrop
Grumman to Freddie Mac.
The combination of high-profile
employers, dense urban areas, a diverse,
well-traveled population and over 23,000
acres of parkland translates into steady
work for FCHDL. The laboratory supports
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LAB MATTERS Fall 2018
health department efforts to respond to
myriad public health threats, including
infectious disease outbreaks, bioterrorism,
environmental health hazards, foodborne
illness and natural disasters. It also
provides medical testing on behalf of the
county’s five public health clinics, screens
for drugs of abuse, conducts research and
assists neighboring jurisdictions, upon
request. FCHDL is an advanced sentinel
laboratory in the national Laboratory
Response Network for biological
pathogens and is the only Virginia public
health laboratory offering services to
identify fecal parasites.
In addition to Fairfax County, the
laboratory provides services and support
to the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church,
the towns of Herndon, Clifton and Vienna,
and a number of surrounding counties.
Facility
Since 2010, FCHDL has been housed in
a renovated, 1950s-era building that
originally served as an elementary school
and today holds Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design (LEED) gold-
level certification for its sustainability
and energy-efficiency. The single-story,
Director Deborah Severson, MT(ASCP)
was born and raised in Steubenville,
Ohio, and earned her degree in medical
technology from West Liberty University
in West Virginia. Following graduation
and ASCP Board Certification as a Medical
Technologist, Severson returned to her
hometown and began her career as a
bench technologist at the Ohio Valley
Hospital, where she was later promoted
to supervisor of the microbiology
laboratory. After meeting her husband
while on a ski trip, Severson joined
him in Libertyville, Illinois, where she
worked at the North Chicago Veterans
Administration Hospital. Following a
brief stay in Rhode Island, the family
relocated to tiny Pearisburg, Virginia,
where Severson took time off to raise her
children while co-owning and operating
a small catering business. Working with
the local health department to set up her
catering business sparked her interest
in working in public health. In 2000 she
and her family moved to Fairfax County,
where, in 2002, Severson accepted a job
as a public health laboratory technologist
in the FCHDL environmental laboratory.
From that position, she advanced to
environmental laboratory supervisor,
and then, in 2012, to FCHDL director.
Staff
In addition to Severson, full time
laboratory staff include eight level-one
public health laboratory scientists,
two level-two public health laboratory
scientists, two laboratory supervisors
(level-three scientists), a laboratory
information management system
manager, two administrative assistants
PublicHealthLabs
@APHL
APHL.org