Alumna to Head Lowell Community Health Center.
Susan West Levine (’95) has been named the new chief executive officer of Lowell Community Health Center.
Currently a top advisor and chief of staff to the Johns Hopkins University Provost, Levine will bring more than 25 years of leadership experience in health care, public health, and higher education to her new role.
Prior to joining Johns Hopkins in 2014, Levine served as chief executive of UHealthSolutions, a nonprofit affiliate of the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Earlier in her career, she held executive-level roles at UMass Medical School’s consulting division, Commonwealth Medicine, and worked for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health for nearly a decade.
Levine, who holds a master’s in public health focusing on health service, says it was her early experience working in clinical, administrative, and ambulatory care programs for Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, that set her on this trajectory
“Working at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital as a young professional further shaped my value system,” she says, “and fostered my commitment to work in public health.”
While at SPH, Levine says she was especially influenced by a course on health law with William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor of Health Law, Policy & Management George Annas and now-Emeritus Professor of Health Law, Policy & Management Leonard Glantz. “It definitely was one of my more challenging classes,” she says, “yet they helped me to exercise my analytic skills that today shape how I approach decision-making.”
Returning to Massachusetts to take on her new role this summer, Levine says she is “thrilled to join the Lowell Community Health Center to continue the center’s great tradition of delivering culturally competent health care and enhancing the overall health and well-being of the community of Lowell.”
Founded in 1970, Lowell Community Health Center serves nearly half of Lowell’s population, seeking to provide caring, quality, and culturally appropriate health services to the people of Greater Lowell, regardless of their financial status.