Keynote Speaker

Jennifer Kraschnewski, MD, MPH

Penn State Health, Penn State College of Medicine

Professor and Vice Chair for Research, Department of Medicine, Director, Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute, Professor, Dept. of Public Health Sciences, Professor, Dept. of Pediatrics

Keynote Address:

"It takes a village..." Advancing health equity through clinical and translational science

Dr. Jennifer Kraschnewski completed her medical degree at the University of Wisconsin and internal medicine residency training at Duke University Medical Center. Following residency, she completed a NIH-NRSA Primary Care Research Fellowship and master’s in public health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a clinician-investigator with a research focus on behavioral interventions to promote healthy lifestyles in clinical and community settings to address health disparities. Her research is funded by the NIH, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services (SAMHSA). Dr. Kraschnewski has disseminated her research in over 150 national/international presentations and 135 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Kraschnewski leads two key programs to address health disparities. She serves as the PI for a five-year CDC REACH (Racial and Ethnical Approaches to Community Health) grant to provide the Hispanic communities in central Pennsylvania the evidence-based tools to improve their health, prevent chronic diseases, and reduce health disparities via community-led culturally tailored interventions. In 2018, Dr. Kraschnewski launched Penn State Project ECHO (Extension for Community Health Outcomes). Dr. Kraschnewski also serves as Director of the NIH-funded Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). The CTSI advances clinical and translational science through collaboration and team science across scientific fields, an infrastructure of research excellence and data-driven decision-making, strong partnerships, and educational opportunities for a diverse and expanding clinical and translational science workforce. The CTSI’s vision is to serve as the cornerstone of clinical and translational science throughout Penn State, with an emphasis on promoting rural health and health equity. Dr. Kraschnewski also enjoys teaching internal medicine resident physicians while caring for patients in the primary care setting.