Dawne (Harris) Mouzon, MPH, MA, PhD

Dawne Mouzon, PhD, MPH, MA, has experienced Project L/EARN from a variety of perspectives: intern, teaching assistant (four years), course instructor (seven years), and graduate research assistant at the Rutgers Center for State Health Policy. After working with program mentor and Project L/EARN co-director Jane Miller on the project “How Does Poverty History Affect Maternal Depression?” Mouzon went on to write an undergraduate honors thesis (also with Miller) about racial differences in cancer screening. Her thesis was later published as a co-authored paper with Miller and Project L/EARN co-director Diane (Deedee) Davis, and presented at the 2002 Annual Conference of the American Public Health Association. Mouzon was co-recipient of the Diane Alington Memorial Award for exemplary contributions to the development of Project L/EARN during her 10 years on the instructional staff.

After earning a master’s degree in public health with an epidemiology focus at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) School of Public Health in 2004, Mouzon went on to become a research associate in the Department of Medicine at the UMDNJ Medical School. She received the Division Member of the Year Award for Excellence in Leadership for raising more than $3 million in research funding.

She earned her doctorate in medical sociology at Rutgers, funded by a Minority Fellowship from the American Sociological Association, and received the Mental Health Division’s Student Paper Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems. After completing a National Institute of Mental Health post-doctoral fellowship in mental health services research at the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research, she joined the faculty of the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers, where she teaches in the public health and public policy programs.