Sara Bleich Named 2015-2016 White House Fellow

Sara N. Bleich, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a leading expert on obesity prevention policy, has been appointed one of the 2015-2016 White House Fellows.

The White House Fellows program was created in 1964 by President Lyndon B. Johnson to give promising American leaders “first hand, high-level experience with the workings of the federal government, and to increase their sense of participation in national affairs.” The 16 fellows work within the government with a goal of encouraging active citizenship and a lifelong commitment to service and take part in an education program designed to broaden their knowledge of leadership, policy formulation and current affairs. The fellows will also participate in community service projects throughout their year in Washington, D.C.

Selection as a White House Fellow is highly competitive and based on a record of professional achievement, evidence of leadership potential and a proven commitment to public service, according to the program.

Bleich, who received a PhD in Health Policy from Harvard University, has been at the Bloomberg School since 2007. Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, she worked as a Research Associate at the RAND Corporation and The Measurement Group. She has published more than 75 papers in top journals of public health and medicine and has received several awards including “most outstanding abstract” at the International Conference on Obesity, “best research manuscript” in the journal Obesity, and first prize for “excellence in public interest communication” from the Frank Public Interest Conference.

Bleich is the recipient of several competitive grant awards: a Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health and multiple Healthy Eating Research grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She is a board member at Garrison Forest School, an independent girls’ school in Owings Mills, MD, and volunteers for the Baltimore Education Scholarship Trust by speaking to donors to raise funds for low-income, minority students to attend independent school.

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Media contacts for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Stephanie Desmon at 410-955-7619 or sdesmon1@jhu.edu and Barbara Benham at (410) 614-6029 or bbenham1@jhu.edu.