Risa Silverman

Risa Silverman directs the Office for Public Health Practice and Outreach (OPHPO). In that role since 1996, she has strengthened the school’s relationships with the local and statewide public health community by acting as a liaison between agencies seeking student/faculty connections and students/faculty seeking community engagement for research and teaching endeavors. Over the years, OPHPO, under Silverman’s direction, has created preceptor recognition events; a training and manual for preceptors; support for practice grants from the Health Resources and Services Administration as well as other faculty grants; and established an advisory board of school faculty to review and address outreach scholarship and its relationship to promotion and tenure.

Silverman also serves as the primary contact at the school for local and national agencies seeking student interns and employees. She has taught community health graduate and undergraduate courses, as well as served as the administrative director for the Department of Public Health, and the coordinator for the Center for Research and Education in Women’s Health.

She is an alumna of the Department of Health Promotion and Policy in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences. Before working at the school, Silverman spent over 15 years working for a variety of community health agencies, serving as community organizer, evaluator, development staff, and director. She has worked locally with the Hampshire County Human Services Department, the Gateway Regional School system, Institute for Science and Interdisciplinary Studies, and Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture.