Learn more about our chairperson

Charlene Douglas is the Assistant Dean of the Undergraduate Programs at the George Mason University School of Nursing in Fairfax, VA, outside of Washington, D.C. in American. She also coordinates the Public Health lecture and clinical programs in the school. A former White House Fellow, Dr. Douglas served as Special Assistant to Secretary Louis Sullivan at the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) – the Minister of Health for the United States. Part of that service was helping to launch the Healthy Start Program, aimed at decreasing the infant mortality rate in high-risk areas.

She is currently on the INOVA Home Health Professional Advisory Committee. Previously, she served for three (3) years as the Chair of the Faculty Senate of the entire George Mason University.

She was raised in a church-going family but came to accept Christ as her personal savior in her 20’s when she moved to Baltimore, Maryland for graduate study. She was invited to her first Bible teaching church where she was able to see herself as a sinner who needed to be saved. She has walked with the Lord for almost 40 years. She has given herself to the ministry of work in the Nursery at her church and to the ministry of teaching in her career.

Dr. Douglas received her BA and BSN from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and her MPH and Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore, MD. She began her academic career at the University of Maryland and recently celebrated her 25th year at George Mason University. Dr. Douglas was tenured under Genuine Excellence in Teaching and has been awarded the University Teaching Excellence Award. She is Certified in Online Education, and Certified in Public Health [CPH].