Shannon N. Zenk, PhD, MPH, RN is the Director of the National Institute of Nursing Research.
As NINR’s Director, Dr. Zenk led the development of the Institute’s new strategic plan with a bold focus on social determinants of health and health equity and initiated new programs both at NINR and across NIH to advance scientific discovery in these areas. She is a staunch advocate for the unique perspective and leadership of nurses and nurse scientists as key to advancing health equity. Since joining NINR in 2020, she launched the Institute’s first strategic imperative on firearm injury prevention and guided the Institute’s research priorities on Maternal Health, COVID-Era Food and Housing Policies and Programs, and the Integration of Social Interventions with Clinical Care. She has taken a leadership role as the co-chair of several NIH-wide efforts, including the Social Determinants of Health Research Coordinating Committee, the Community Partnerships to Advance Science for Society (ComPASS) Program, the Implementing a Maternal health and PRegnancy Outcomes Vision for Everyone (IMPROVE) Initiative, and the Climate Change and Health Initiative. She also represents the NIH on HHS and government-wide groups such as the HHS Social Determinants of Health Small Leadership Team, HHS Primary Health Care Advisory Group, and Social Determinants of Health Interagency Policy Committee.
Dr. Zenk’s research is centered on environmental justice and health. Her work takes a contextual and spatial approach to understanding the role of the environment in health behaviors and outcomes, with the ultimate goal of producing evidence to eliminate racial/ethnic and socioeconomic health disparities. To better understand how the environment affects health, Dr. Zenk and her colleagues advanced the use of a concept from behavioral geography, “activity space,” which expanded environmental exposure measurement beyond where people live to include the places where people conduct their activities and spend time. They also evaluated policies and investments that affect neighborhood environments for their impacts on health and health inequities. This work leveraged a variety of technologies such as GIS and mobile GPS sensors and emerging data resources such as electronic health records. Dr. Zenk’s Neighborhoods and Health Lab is now housed at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.
Prior to joining NINR, Dr. Zenk had a 14-year career as a faculty member at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) College of Nursing and Institute for Health Research and Policy. She spent time as a visiting scholar in Rwanda and Australia. She earned her bachelor’s in nursing, magna cum laude, from Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington; her master’s degrees in public health nursing and community health sciences from UIC; and her doctorate in health behavior and health education from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dr. Zenk is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, and was inducted into the International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame in 2019.