Framing the Future: The Second Hundred Years of Education for Public Health
November 7, 2014
Donna J. Petersen, ScD, MHS, CPH
Dean of the College of Public Health
University of South Florida
Donna Petersen is Dean of the College of Public Health at the University of South Florida. Prior to joining USF, she was Professor in the Departments of Maternal and Child Health, and Health Care Organization and Policy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, School of Public Health. From 1996 - 2003, Dr. Petersen was the senior associate dean for academic affairs at the UAB School of Public Health. From 1990-1995, she served as Director of the Division of Family Health at the Minnesota Department of Health.
She currently serves as Chair of The Framing the Future: The Second Hundred Years of Education for Public Health Task Force. This Taskforce was formed by the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) in the summer of 2011 in recognition of the rapidly changing environment for education in public health, a consequence of the unprecedented upheavals both in health care and in higher education.
Dr. Petersen earned her masters and doctoral degrees from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. She has also held positions with the federal government and the state of Maryland and has served on numerous community agency boards and gubernatorial commissions and task forces. She has devoted particular attention to public health responsibilities in monitoring health status, access, utilization, and quality of health care and in the areas of systems level accountability and the development of population-based indicators. She is the author of numerous publications, book chapters and a textbook on needs assessment in public health.