Jennifer Stuber, PhD

Jenn Stuber, Ph.D., is a graduate of Cornell University with a B.S. in Biology and a minor in philosophy with a Ph.D. in health care policy from Yale University’s School of Public Health. At first, she really didn’t want to become an academic as she feared being locked away in the ivory tower or irrelevance. Her research interests zeroed in on mental health disparities and necessary policy and systems changes when she completed a postdoctoral Robert Wood Johnson Population Health Fellowship at Columbia University. UW’s School of Social Work called to her as a place that would recognize her desire to do evaluation and research on programs and policies that can have positive impact on communities impacted by mental health disparities. In relocating to Washington state, Jenn and her young family soon faced the suicide of her life partner, Matt, in 2011. Since then, Jenn has worked on policies, programs, and trainings in the arena of the suicide prevention, focusing most recently, on students and parents/ caregivers in school-based settings because of the urgency posed by the public health problem of youth suicide and the lack of sufficient resources available in many communities. Jenn founded and Directed Forefront Suicide Prevention at the UW School of Social Work for a decade. She is thrilled to join the SMART Center to focus on youth suicide. SMART understands programming on youth suicide prevention in schools will not endure without the necessary policies and systems being in place. She looks forward to helping the SMART Center support school districts as they work to integrate further the voices of students and parents and as they strengthen their suicide prevention safety nets.