Brenda L. Henry
Program Officer
Brenda Henry, who joined the Foundation in 2008, is a Research and Evaluation program officer working to achieve RWJF’s goal of ensuring quality in the nation’s public health system and advocating for policies that protect, promote and preserve the population’s health. In this capacity, her work spans several key research areas, including helping to develop the RWJF-funded Public Health Services and Systems Research (PHSSR) portfolio of work, which seeks to answer some of the most important and challenging questions about how best to structure, fund and support the nation’s public health system. She also helps to further the Foundation’s effort to support researchers from historically disadvantaged and underrepresented communities and to expand the diversity within the evaluation field overall. As she puts it: “What we do at the Foundation, whether it is addressing diversity, disparities, or population health, puts the nation on the road to better health, and that’s extremely rewarding.”
Previously, Henry was program director for the Center for Applied Research and Technical Assistance, Inc. in Baltimore, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring the healthy development of all young people, specifically youth of color. She also conducted data analysis as a research associate for High/Scope Educational Research Foundation in Michigan, and was a graduate research assistant for the University of Michigan, School of Public Heath, Center for Research on Ethnicity Culture and Health. Her extensive research background includes a range of positions at the University of Michigan, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and the Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.
Henry received both her Ph.D. in health behavior and health education and her M.P.H. from the University of Michigan. She was awarded a B.S., cum laude, from SUNY, College at Cortland. A member of the American Public Health Association, she has received numerous academic awards and honors.
Born in Puerto Rico and raised in New York City, she now resides in Lawrenceville, N.J. She enjoys dining out, concert going, scuba diving and engaging in sports, especially softball.