Position: Pediatrician, Social Epidemiologist and Associate Professor
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Organization: Boston University School of Medicine
Renée Boynton-Jarrett, a pediatrician and social epidemiologist, is an associate professor at Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine. She is also the founding director of Vital Village Networks. Vital Village uses a trauma-informed lens to improve community capacity to promote child wellbeing in Boston and support coalitions nationally through the NOW Forum. Her scholarship has focused on early-life adversities as life course social determinants of health. She has a specific concentration on psychosocial stress and neuroendocrine and reproductive health outcomes, including obesity, puberty and fertility. She is nationally recognized for her work on the intersection of community violence, intimate partner violence, and child abuse and neglect, as well as neighborhood characteristics that influence these patterns. Through dedicated community partnerships her current work is developing community-based strategies to promote child wellbeing and prevent childhood adversities.
She has received numerous awards for teaching, clinical care and public health, including the Massachusetts Public Health Association Paul Revere Award for outstanding impact on public health and an honorary degree. She received her bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, her MD from Yale School of Medicine, and her ScD in Social Epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health, and completed residency in Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Hospital.