Fall 2008: Sarena D. Seifer, MD

How do we combine the knowledge and wisdom in communities and in academic institutions to solve the major health, social and economic challenges facing our society? During her presentation, Sarena Seifer will review "what we know" about community-university partnerships, including challenges, facilitators, pitfalls and benefits. She will articulate a vision for authentic community-university partnerships and offer practical strategies for making that vision a reality.

Sarena Seifer’s work focuses on the principles and best practices of partnerships between communities and higher educational institutions. She served as the founding executive director of Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) from 1997-2008 and is now a senior consultant for the organization. She is also a research associate professor in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of Washington.

As executive director of CCPH, she led a series of national initiatives in service-learning and community-based participatory research, including the Health Professions in Service to the Nation Program, Partners in Caring and Community: Service-Learning in Nursing Education, Community-Engaged Scholarship for Health Collaborative, Health Disparities Service-Learning Collaborative and Faculty for the Engaged Campus. She continues to consult on the latter two initiatives and is co-principal investigator on the study Understanding Community-Based Processes for Research Ethics Review. She also coordinates the merit review process for the Healthier Wisconsin Partnership Program.

Seifer is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, and received her master's degree in physiology and her medical degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine. After completing her medical education, she served as the American Medical Student Association's legislative affairs director and subsequently as founding director of its Center for Health Policy Studies. In 1995, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship program in health policy at the University of California-San Francisco's Center for the Health Professions. Prior to her fellowship, she was a health policy analyst for the Washington State Senate and director of recruitment and retention for Northwest Regional Primary Care Association, a membership organization of community and migrant health centers.