Christa L. Wagner, PhD

Christa Wagner, PhD, was named as the Founding Director of the Medical College of Wisconsin’s Center for Sustainability, Health, and the Environment (MCW SHE Center), housed within the Institute for Health & Equity (IHE) in July 2023. She also holds an appointment as Assistant Professor in the IHE, Division of Community Health. The mission of the MCW SHE Center is to be a distinguished leader and innovator to foster a healthy and equitable environment, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and waste, and mitigate and resiliently adapt to climate challenges. Under Christa’s leadership, the SHE Center will work to pioneer environmentally sustainable paths to a healthier world and collaborate across the institution, its health system partners, government agencies, tribal nations, non-profit organizations, academic institutions, and businesses within Wisconsin, nationally, and globally. Prior to joining MCW, Christa served as Manager in the Office of Government Relations at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) 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. She also worked to advocate for environmental and sustainability progress including support for hospital resiliency. Christa transitioned from the laboratory to health and science policy in serving as the 2016-2017 Genetics and Public Policy Fellow sponsored by the American Society of Human Genetics and the National Institutes of Health’s National Human Genome Research Institute. In this role, she contributed to health and science policy efforts at a scientific member society, as well as in the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, including Capitol Hill experience as a health fellow in the office of U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio. 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.