PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — After nearly two decades at Brown University as a medical resident, graduate student, professor and academic leader, Dr. Megan L. Ranney has been named dean of the Yale School of Public Health. Ranney will step down from her current role as deputy dean of Brown’s School of Public Health effective July 1, 2023.
A prominent advocate with an international reputation for innovative approaches to health and patient care, Ranney is a physician-scientist who has held faculty appointments at Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School since 2008 and at Brown’s School of Public Health since its inception in 2013. She is a practicing emergency physician, researcher and educator with a particular focus on intersections among digital health, violence prevention and population health.
Ranney is a leading public voice on urgent topics in health and medicine ranging from COVID-19 to firearm injury, to mental health, to working conditions for health care providers, offering expert analysis through testimony to Congress, appearances on broadcast news networks, op-eds in major media outlets and guidance for non-governmental organizations. Her career is distinguished by a deep commitment to working with patients and communities to address complex public health and medical challenges, especially those that burden members of historically underserved populations.
Ronald Aubert, interim dean of Brown’s School of Public Health, said Ranney has been a remarkable public health leader at Brown, in Rhode Island and nationally, as well as a dedicated mentor and teacher to aspiring physicians and public health professionals studying at the University.
“Megan has been a tireless advocate for patients, students, fellow faculty and medical practitioners — and for advancing creative ideas and approaches to public health,” Aubert said. “Her scholarship has had a significant impact on real-world issues facing patients, and she’s inspired and informed everyone from students at Brown to people across the country who count on her expert analysis on timely health issues. She’s been a champion for the mission of the School of Public Health, and we’re grateful for the extensive impact she’s had on our community.”
Ranney came to Brown in 2004, completing her medical residency in emergency medicine and a fellowship in Injury Prevention Research. She has served as an attending physician at the Miriam Hospital and Rhode Island Hospital in Providence since 2008, the year she joined Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School faculty in the Department of Emergency Medicine. She earned a master in public health from Brown in 2010, and in 2013, became an assistant professor in the Department of Health Services, Policy and Practice in the School of Public Health. She has since held academic appointments in both schools.
In 2019, Ranney became the founding director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health, a center where creative minds from Brown and its affiliated hospital partners collaboratively design, test and deploy digital solutions to challenges that affect the health of patients and populations.
Ranney said she’ll depart for Yale with both great excitement about the opportunities ahead and lifelong memories from Brown, the university she has called home for the better part of two decades.
“What an honor to have been part of this institution for 20 years, and to have been with the School of Public Health since its formal inception and throughout its journey,” Ranney said. “I am immensely grateful to my colleagues and teachers in emergency medicine and at the School of Public Health, and to President Christina Paxson, whose model of leadership is part of what inspired me to move into higher education leadership.”
