Biography

Shawn D. Kimmel, PhD, is currently Director of the Detroit Center for Community-driven Policymaking, a community-based nonprofit advocacy, research, and training center dedicated to working with communities to strengthen community power to drive policymaking. The Center is especially committed to nurturing community organizing and community-driven research for policymaking to achieve health equity and sustainable urban development in Detroit and beyond. Dr. Kimmel is especially committed to advocacy, research, and community action focused on developing innovative frameworks for community engagement, as a pathway to altering the social determinants of health inequity. In addition to directing this Center, Dr. Kimmel’s volunteer community service includes leadership as Chair of the Board of the Michigan Alliance of Timebanks, and involvement in leadership of APHA’s Community-based Public Health Caucus (CBPHC). He recently served as Chair of the CBPHC’s Policy Workgroup, and is an active member of the Caucus Steering Committee. Shawn is also serving as an elected Governing Councilor for the CHPPD (Community Health Planning & Policy Development) Section of APHA, as a co-chair of CHPPD’s Membership Committee, and as a CHPPD representative on APHA’s Membership Committee. As a consultant, Dr. Kimmel is also currently working with MI Surgeon General Dr. Kimberlydawn Wisdom to develop a national policy framework and toolkit for proliferating the number of state-level Surgeons General across the nation. After earning his PhD in American Studies, Dr. Kimmel was a postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Community track of the Kellogg Health Scholars Program at the University of Michigan School of Public Health (2006-2008), where he studied best practices for strengthening the capacity of community-based organizations to integrate policy research and advocacy into the design of community-based participatory research (CBPR) projects. His research and policy work are directed at understanding how best practices in CBPR might be adapted to foster stronger community-driven research and policymaking partnerships, to better support the health equity and action goals of community-based organizations.