Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam will resign at the end of the year, Gov. Tom Wolf announced Monday.
The department's executive deputy secretary, Keara Klinepeter, will replace Beam as acting secretary, the governor said.
Beam became acting health secretary in January, replacing Dr. Rachel Levine, who left the Wolf administration to become assistant secretary of health in President Joe Biden's administration. Beam previously had been Wolf's deputy chief of staff.
She supervised the state's rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine over the past year. Last week, the state Supreme Court lifted the K12 mask mandate that Beam had imposed in early September, which Republicans had assailed as governmental overreach.
"I am proud to have worked with Acting Secretary Beam over the past several years, and the commonwealth has been fortunate to have had the benefit of her leadership during the COVID-19," said Gov. Wolf.
The state's announcement did not indicate Beam's future plans.
Klinepeter previously served as senior advisor to the Secretary of Health, focusing on the state's response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
She majored in economics and political science at Chatham University and earned a master's degree in health care policy and management at Carnegie Mellon University.
"I look forward to continuing to work closely with the tremendous employees at the Department of Health and ensuring public health remains a top priority throughout the commonwealth," she said in a statement.
