Dr. Karen Hacker is the first executive director of the Institute for Community Health and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. She is an Internist with a subspecialty in Adolescent Medicine and wealth of experience in public health and community health efforts. Today she is leading the Institute towards its vision of community-based participatory research. She has been involved in projects ranging from child mental health, to suicide prevention and physical activity promotion. She came to the Institute several years ago after spending over 15 years working in the public sector. In the late 1980’s she started one of the first school-based health centers at Los Angeles High School. Subsequently, she spent over twelve years working with disadvantaged populations as both a clinician as the Division Director for Child and Adolescent Health at the Boston Public Health Commission and Boston Medical Center. She served as the third president of the National Assembly on School Based Health Care. Dr. Hacker’s expertise in public health and youth issues includes reproductive health, youth development, teen pregnancy prevention, and mental health promotion and her research experience includes both qualitative and quantitative methods. She has written and spoken extensively on these subjects and has been involved in numerous national and state policy discussions.

Dr. Hacker received her undergraduate education at Yale University with a major in Anthropology, and her medical education at Northwestern University. She completed her residency in primary care internal medicine at Boston City Hospital and went on to complete her fellowship in Adolescent Medicine at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. Dr. Hacker received her MPH from Boston University.

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