Christa Wagner, PhD, serves as the founding director of the Medical College of Wisconsin’s Center for Sustainability, Health and the Environment (MCW SHE Center). Under Christa’s leadership, the SHE Center will advance sustainability efforts in health care delivery and research; educate about climate change impacts on health; generate new knowledge about the environment and health to improve lives in Wisconsin and beyond; and collaborate with communities to learn about and address the impacts of climate and the environment on health.
Prior to joining MCW, lived in Baltimore, MD, and served as manager of government relations at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) in Washington, DC, where she was responsible for legislative policy and advocacy in support of medical research, public health and academic medicine’s partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs. From 2016-2017, she was the Genetics and Public Policy Fellow sponsored by the American Society of Human Genetics and the NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute, where she contributed to policy developments in the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. Christa earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biochemistry from Oberlin College and her PhD in Cellular and Molecular Medicine from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Christa is an avid runner, cyclist, travel enthusiast, and enjoys backcountry camping.