PUBLIC AND COMMUNITY HEALTH
Senior Associate Dean for Public and Community Health
Cheryl A. Maurana, PhD, Senior Associate Dean for Public and Community Health at the Medical College of Wisconsin, has received national recognition for her work in public health research and community partnerships. At the Medical College of Wisconsin, she has built a number of partnerships both within the College and with communities for improving health in the Milwaukee community and the state of Wisconsin.
For the past six years, she has played a leadership role in the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Program, a statewide community-academic partnership, research and education initiative, with a specific focus on the Healthier Wisconsin Partnership Program. This initiative was funded by the $300M dollar endowment from the conversion of Blue Cross/Blue Shield United of Wisconsin to for-profit status.
Dr. Maurana serves as one of the nine board members of the MCW Consortium for Public and Community Health, the public body mandated by the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance. In 2005, Dr. Maurana played a leadership role in the College's receipt of the Association for American Medical Colleges Award for Outstanding Community Service that nationally recognizes medical schools for leadership in advancing innovative community health improvement.
Dr. Maurana joined the Medical College in 1995 and directed the statewide Area Health Education Center Program (AHEC), leading it through a major strategic planning and reorganization process. She founded the College's Center for Healthy Communities in 1997. In 1999, she received the Community-Campus Partnerships for Health Leadership Award for national leadership in building community-academic partnerships.
Her academic work has focused on building community-academic partnerships to improve the health of the public. She also served as chair of the founding board of the Community-Campus Partnerships for Health, a national organization that has experienced significant growth in the past eight years.
Before coming to the Medical College, Dr. Maurana was Associate Dean for Community Health at Wright State University School of Medicine where she founded the University's Center for Healthy Communities. Under her direction, that interdisciplinary center was selected as one of 20 national models by the U.S. Public Health Service Health Resources and Services Administration. The center includes four health professions schools (allied health, nursing, medicine and professional psychology) and the Department of Social Work. Before Wright State, she was a faculty member at Purdue University, where she directed the Social Research Institute.
Dr. Maurana received her PhD from Purdue University and completed a four-year U.S. Public Health Service Fellowship in health services research. She received her undergraduate degree in the honors program from Seton Hill College in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, where she recently received the Distinguished Alumnae Award.