Colleen L. Barry, a nationally and internationally recognized research scholar, educator, and leader in health policy and policy communication, is the inaugural dean of the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. As the founding dean, Dr. Barry has an influential role in building Cornell’s newest school into one of international prominence, developing its academic programs, partnerships across campuses, and major new policy centers, and spearheading a long-term vision to improve lives through evidence-based policy.

Dean Barry is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Social Insurance.  She has authored over 250 peer-reviewed publications in leading medical and policy journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Health Affairs, and American Journal of Public Health, and has led numerous large-scale research studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and numerous health-oriented foundations.

At Cornell, Dean Barry is founding co-Director of the Cornell Health Policy Center (CHPC), a partnership between Weill Cornell Medicine and the Brooks School of Public Policy that serves as the hub for health policy research, training, and impact-oriented policy engagement at Cornell. Barry currently serves as the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of Sandy Hook Promise, an organization that seeks to protect children from gun violence.

Prior to Cornell, Dean Barry was the Fred and Julie Soper Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, the academic home to 100 full-time faculty and over 200 adjunct faculty, five graduate degree programs, and 16 research centers. While at Johns Hopkins, she directed the NIMH funded pre- and post-doctoral mental health services and systems training program and was the founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Mental Health and Addiction Policy. She co-chaired the Forum on Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and has served as a board member and Vice President for the Association of Public Policy and Management (APPAM).

Prior to Johns Hopkins, Dr. Barry began her academic career as a faculty member at the Yale School of Public Health. She received her Ph.D. in health policy from Harvard University (2004), her Master of Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (1999), and graduated summa cum laude with a BA in political science and Russian language and literature from Drew University (1992).

About Colleen Barry