This project documents the unique paths of MCH leaders in academe, focused on five key questions. The hope of this project is to preserve these experience and the wisdom from the field that each expert brings and also to inspire a new generation of MCH academics.
Donna Petersen is a professor of public health at the University of South Florida. She earned her masters and doctoral degrees in maternal and child health from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. She has held faculty and senior leadership positions at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and served as Director of the Division of Family Health at the Minnesota Department of Health.
Dr. Petersen has provided extensive technical assistance and training to over 25 state health departments in the areas of needs assessment, data system development, systems level accountability and the development of population-based indicators. She has served on numerous boards, commissions and task forces and is Editor Emerita of the Maternal and Child Health Journal, founding member and past president of the National Board of Public Health Examiners, past Chair of the Council on Education for Public Health, and immediate-past Chair of the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health.
Dr. Petersen has been honored for her work by the American Public Health Association, the Association of Teachers of Maternal and Child Health, the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition, the Delta Omega National Public Health Honor Society, the National Coalition for Excellence in MCH Epidemiology, the federal Bureau of Maternal and Child Health and the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs.
Click below to listen to Donna Petersen's story as she responds to five questions.