President and Leadership
About President Susan C. Scrimshaw, Ph.D.
On July 5, 2006, the Simmons community welcomed Susan C. Scrimshaw, Ph.D., as the new president of Simmons College. President Scrimshaw assumed the mantle of leadership from retiring president Daniel S. Cheever, Jr., who served with distinction for 11 years.
President Scrimshaw, an internationally respected public health scholar, was formerly dean of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) School of Public Health and professor of community health sciences and anthropology at UIC.
President Scrimshaw is frequently honored for her work in raising awareness of public health issues around the world, including minority populations in the United States. Her awards include a gold medal as a "Hero of Public Health" presented by the president of Mexico, and the Margaret Mead Award of the American Anthropological Association. She is a member of the governing council of the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, whose members are chosen for making "major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health," and she is a fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of Science.
President Scrimshaw is the author of five books or monographs and 65 journal articles and book chapters. Her interdisciplinary research has focused on gender, race, ethnicity, and culture, and their impact on public health. Her research includes community participatory research methods, addressing health disparities, improving pregnancy outcomes, violence prevention, health literacy, and culturally appropriate delivery of health care.
President Scrimshaw is past president of the Society for Medical Anthropology, a member and past chair of the national Association of Schools of Public Health, and a member of the board of directors of the U.S.-Mexico Foundation for Science, which advocates for scientific collaboration between the two countries. She recently chaired the Institute of Medicine's committee on Improving the Health of Diverse Populations. She has served on the institute's panel on Health Literacy, its board on International Health, and its panel on Cancer Research among Minorities and the Medically Underserved. She was a founding member of the task force on Community Preventive Services of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
President Scrimshaw recently was awarded the Illinois Public Health Association's highest honor, the 2006 Distinguished Service Award, in recognition of her distinguished service in research, teaching, and public health practice. Under her tenure at UIC, its School of Public Health nearly doubled its overall budget and set new academic standards, while increasing enrollment 50 percent, with a 50 percent population of diverse students—making it the most diverse school of public health in the nation.
The School of Public Health at UIC, in concert with then-dean Scrimshaw, established one of the first of four Bioterrorism Preparedness Centers funded by the Center for Disease Control two years prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and she led her school in a national role in responding to the catastrophe. As chair of the Association of Schools of Public Health, she led negotiations with the federal government after Sept. 11 to fund 22 such centers nationwide, which now number more than 30.
Under her leadership, the UIC School of Public Health established a wide range of community, regional, and national partnership initiatives, including addressing disparities in the delivery of health care, improving pregnancy outcomes, maternal and child health, healthy aging, violence prevention, cancer prevention, AIDS/STD prevention, and occupational and environmental health issues.
President Scrimshaw spent her formative years in Guatemala, where her father, Nevin Scrimshaw, M.D., Ph.D., a renowned public health doctor and international nutritionist, took her to work with him in rural villages as he established a nutrition institute for the World Health Organization. When she was 16, the family moved to Newton, Mass. Nevin Scrimshaw established the M.I.T. Department of Nutrition and Food Science, and was the 1991 World Food Prize Laureate for alleviating hunger and malnutrition in developing nations. He and Susan Scrimshaw are the first father-daughter members of the Institute of Medicine.
President Scrimshaw said she was "utterly delighted to join Simmons; it's a truly special institution with a singular approach to professional preparation, intellectual exploration, and community orientation. Its unique mix of people-focused graduate and undergraduate academic programs and its emphasis as a woman-centered institution can leverage Simmons as a change agent in the nation and the world."