A professor of public health, Dr. Swanson has served as an associate chairman of the department since she joined the IU faculty in August 2007. She also is an associate director for population sciences at the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center.
Before coming to Indiana, Dr. Swanson was professor of epidemiology and biostatistics and founding dean at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman Arizona College of Public Health, University of Arizona, and director of its Arizona Area Health Education Centers Program. She held the Mel and Enid Zuckerman Endowed Chair in Public Health.
Dr. Swanson also served on the faculty at Michigan State University where she was a professor in the Department of Family Practice and the Department of Medicine in the College of Human Medicine and director of the Cancer Center there.
She received her bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in sociology from Wayne State University and a master’s of public health degree from the Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Swanson is the former president of the American College of Epidemiology and a former member of the national public health accrediting council—the Board of Councilors of the Council on Education for Public Health.
She succeeds former Indiana State Department of Health Commissioner Gregory Wilson, M.D., who has served as interim chairman for two years since the founding chairman Stephen Jay, MD, resigned the position.
Dr. Swanson resides in Carmel.