Health Economist to Serve as Interim Dean of School of Nursing & Health Studies

September 3, 2019 – An economist with a strong track record of research and leadership in the health field has been appointed interim dean of the School of Nursing & Health Studies, Georgetown President John J. DeGioia announced today.

This month, Dr. Carole Roan Gresenz began service as the interim dean of the School of Nursing & Health Studies.

Dr. Carole Roan Gresenz, who assumed the role at the beginning of September, is a tenured full professor in the school’s Department of Health Systems Administration. She has served as the senior associate dean at NHS and has held the Bette Jacobs Endowed Professorship.

“Throughout her time with our University, Carole has demonstrated an exemplary level of commitment and care on behalf of our Georgetown community,” DeGioia writes in his letter announcing Gresenz’s appointment. “I am deeply grateful to [her] for assuming this important role as we begin our process to identify permanent leadership for the School of Nursing and Health Studies.”

Gresenz says she looks forward to serving in this position.

“I extend my gratitude to Dean Patricia Cloonan for her leadership of NHS over the last five years,” she says. “I am honored to serve in this role and excited to work with NHS’ outstanding academic and administrative leadership, faculty, staff, students and alumni, and with others across the Georgetown University Medical Center and greater Georgetown communities.”

Background in Health

A respected researcher and scholar, Gresenz currently has funding from organizations such as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Department of Defense’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program, and the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health.

Gresenz collaborates with colleagues on campus and at MedStar Health. She is now working on projects related to examining early stage Alzheimer’s disease and financial well-being, aggressive versus conservative treatment of low-risk prostate cancer, the effectiveness of an innovative school-based dental care delivery model in high-need communities, and racial and ethnic differences in outcomes for common surgical conditions.

For many years, she worked at the RAND Corporation, where she held senior roles and management positions. They include senior economist; director of the Economics, Sociology, and Statistics Department; director of the Health Economics, Finance and Organization Program; and associate director of the RAND Institute for Civil Justice. 

Additionally, she serves on the editorial boards of Health Services Research and Medical Care Research and Review and is an editorial advisory board member for Transforming Care, a publication of the Commonwealth Fund.

Service at Georgetown

Gresenz holds her master’s and PhD degrees in economics from Brown University and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Loyola University Maryland.

At Georgetown, she is a member of the university’s Gender Equity Task Force and of the Faculty Senate’s Budget and Finance Committee. Gresenz chairs the NHS Racial Justice Scholar Search Committee, an initiative of Georgetown’s Institute for Racial Justice, and she serves on the Georgetown-MedStar Scientific Council.

Gresenz says her “primary goals for the upcoming year are threefold.” She outlines supporting the school’s educational programs and mission, vision, and values; enhancing research capacity and experiences for faculty and students; and facilitating participation in the university’s Health Sciences Strategy Initiative and coming process for a decanal search.

To complement the NHS academic and administrative leadership team, Gresenz has asked renowned nurse leader and visiting distinguished professor Dr. Patricia Grady (NHS’66), director emerita of the National Institute of Nursing Research at NIH, to serve as senior advisor for nursing in the Office of the Dean.

Well-known professor Dr. Pablo Irusta will also take on responsibilities as associate dean for health studies in addition to serving as chair of the Department of Human Science.

“I look forward to engaging with NHS’ students, faculty, staff, and alumni more broadly as we embark on our work together this year,” Gresenz says.