My Biography
Susan C. Scrimshaw is the past President of Russell Sage College, Troy and Albany, NY. Previous positions include President of Simmons College, Boston, Massachusetts, Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Associate Dean of public health and Professor of public health and anthropology at the University of California at Los Angeles. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the non-profit Capital District Physicians’ Health Plan (CDPHP) in Albany, New York. She recently Chaired the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Birth Settings, and co-edited the report Birth Settings in America: Outcomes, Quality, Access and Choice (National Academies Press 2020). She is also lead editor for the second edition of The Handbook of Social Studies in Health and Medicine, to be published in 2021 by Sage Publications, London. She is a graduate of Barnard College, with a Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University. Her research includes community participatory research methods, combining qualitative and quantitative research methods, health disparities, pregnancy outcomes, health communication, and culturally appropriate delivery of health care. When she was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 1993, she and her father, Dr. Nevin S. Scrimshaw, became the first father/daughter members of the NAM. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Anthropological Association.