Professor Named Board Chair at Wounded Warrior Project.

Jonathan Woodson, professor of health law, policy & management, has been selected to chair the Wounded Warrior Project’s Board of Directors.

Woodson joined the board in December 2016. The Wounded Warrior Project was formed in 2003 to provide services to military soldiers who incurred a physical or mental injury or illness that stemmed from the September 11, 2001, attacks. It also advocates for continued research to close the knowledge gap on military and veteran care.

The organization is headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla., and the board will convene its meetings in both Jacksonville and Washington, DC.

“The whole idea of the Warrior Project is about making wounded and injured service members whole again,” Woodson says. “I’m proud of the organization and the gains it has made, and we look forward to a very strong future that will support veterans and families for decades ahead.”

In June, the board awarded a $65 million grant to Home Base, the largest private-sector clinic in the nation dedicated to providing medical care and resources to military veterans and their parents, children, and extended family members. Located in the Charlestown Navy Yard, the program provides services such as behavioral treatment, rehabilitative medicine, nutrition, and wellness, and the grant will fund the program’s continued participation in the Warrior Care Network, which connects veterans with individualized mental health care.

Due to the prolonged wars in which the US military has participated, Woodson says the Wounded Warrior Project is focused on addressing both the short- and long-term needs of wounded veterans and service members who endure visible and invisible wounds for decades.

“For someone who has a traumatic brain injury and other associate problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder, we need to figure out how to be serve them over decades and identify the most effective treatments,” Woodson says. “And we also need to make them economically whole and self-sufficient.”

Woodson is also a professor of management at Questrom School of Business, a professor of surgery at the School of Medicine, and the director of the Institute for Health System Innovation & Policy. He has served as the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs in the US Department of Defense and is a brigadier general in the US Army Reserves.

“At this point in my career, I’m focused on understanding and embracing the complexity that exists in promoting health and in the delivery of healthcare services, and then using that appreciation to design systems that bring about better services in healthcare delivery,” Woodson says.

—Jillian McKoy