Cheryl Maurana
Senior vice president for strategic academic partnerships, Medical College of Wisconsin
Cheryl Maurana has directed the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment at the Medical College of Wisconsin since the endowment was created 20 years ago.
The $450 million endowment came from the conversion of Blue Cross Blue Shield United into a stockholder-owned company. Leading the endowment, Maurana has directed the distribution of more than $250 million to 450 initiatives to improve health across Wisconsin.
As head of the endowment, Maurana was also heavily involved in the establishment of a new school of pharmacy at MCW and establishing its branch campuses in Green Bay and Wausau.
Maurana is also the founding director of the Robert D. and Patricia Kern Institute for the Transformation of Medical Education and the affiliated Kern National Network for Caring and Character in Medicine. The National Network is based at the Medical College of Wisconsin and includes seven top academic medical centers, including the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine, from across the country.
Maurana joined MCW in 1995 to direct the statewide Area Health Education Center program, a collaboration of the state’s two medical schools, leading it through a major strategic reorganization. She founded MCW’s Center for Healthy Communities and served as the first MCW senior associate dean for public and community health.
In 2007, she launched MCW’s PhD in public and community health, focused on community-based participatory research.
In 2010, she served as the founding director for the Institute for Health and Society, whose mission is to improve health and advance health equity.
