Susan K. Levine, an award-winning journalist who has covered major issues for some of the country’s leading newspapers, joined the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2008. She uses her expertise in writing about health care to help focus attention on childhood obesity and catalyze change in states, communities and schools. In promoting the Foundation’s multifaceted approach to combating the obesity epidemic, Levine interacts with the press, broadcast media and the entertainment industry. She views the Foundation’s ambitious goal of reversing the epidemic as a “call to arms” and sees her role as a model for “reaching out and communicating the message on obesity to a wide variety of audiences.”

Previously, Levine was a regional health and medical reporter for The Washington Post. Highlights of her reporting there include profiles of the victims of the September 11th attack on the Pentagon, for which she, as part of a Post team of local and national reporters, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Public Service. She also was on the team of reporters and photographers who covered the Virginia Tech University mass shooting and subsequently received a 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting. Her work at The Post spanned reporting on aging, the death penalty and special projects and editing of Virginia government and politics. Previously, she was an assistant metro editor for The Dallas Morning News and a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Hartford Courant, and The Houston Chronicle.

Levine has received many honors for her reporting. In 2007, the Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association presented her with its award for Best Medical Reporting for her article on the wartime pressures on staff at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. She also has been recognized by the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, the International Association of Firefighters, Women in Communications and the Texas Medical Association.

Raised in Texas, Levine received an M.A. in journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. in journalism from the University of Texas.

She and her husband, Jeff, a teacher, live in Silver Spring, Md., with their two daughters. She enjoys travel, reading, performing arts and running. An active community volunteer, she still plans to fulfill a long-held dream of joining the Peace Corps.

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