Biography:

Leslie Ruffalo, PhD MS is an Associate Professor and the Co-Director of Medical Student Education in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Dr. Ruffalo defines herself as a community-engaged health researcher and educator. Her research philosophy is to apply community engaged research principles to answer research questions that are important to the community. Dr. Ruffalo’s research approach has been applied to weight management, veteran health, food security, school-based health and wellness, and rural health. She is the Co-Director of the Continuous Professional Development Course in the medical school, the Director of the Community Health Program Evaluation Course in the Masters in Public Health Program, and she is one of the founding faculty members of the DrPH program in the Graduate School. Dr. Ruffalo has been a presenter on over 100 peer-reviewed state, national, or international presentations and authored over 25 peer-reviewed publications.