David Dausey

Public Life

Dausey is regularly consulted as a public health expert by regional, national and international news media providers on a wide variety of general public health issues including: health care reform, diet and exercise, and toxic chemicals. He is most frequently contacted by the news media for his expertise in infectious disease epidemiology that includes diseases such as: West Nile Virus HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Avian Influenza, and Hantavirus. Dausey has served as a guest commentator on public health topics for national and international television news providers including CNN, BBC, and Canadian Television. He has also served as a guest commentator on public health topics for national and international radio news providers such as NPR and Beijing Today. Dausey is a regular guest writer on public health topics for regional and national newspapers including USA Today, the Washington Post, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the Buffalo News.

Education and Training

Dausey received a bachelor's degree in psychology from Mercyhurst University with the highest Latin honors (summa cume laude). He was honored at his undergraduate commencement with the Social and Behavioral Science award for academic excellence. Dausey received his master's degree in epidemiology and public health from the Yale School of Public Health and his doctoral degree in epidemiology and public health from the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. While at Yale, Dausey served as a senator for the Graduate and Professional Student Senate. He completed post graduate training in higher education management and leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Career as an Epidemiologist and Researcher

Dausey is an internationally recognized epidemiologist. He was appointed a fellow of the American College of Epidemiology in 2012. He has conducted public health research in more than 20 countries including Bahrain, Cambodia, China, Jordan, Israel, Mexico, Tanzania, Thailand, Palestine and Qatar. For example, Dausey helped to design a national health care strategy for the Emir of Qatar that included revising the entire country's health care and public health systems. In the United States, Dausey has conducted public health research in every region of the country with more than 100 state and local public health agencies. He has received research grants from foundations such as the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Benter Foundation, as well as grants and contracts from government agencies including the US Department of Health and Human Services and the Veterans Health Administration. Dausey's research on public health systems received international attention when it called into question the preparedness of U.S. public health agencies to respond to major emergencies. Dausey has used simulation exercises to evaluate public health agencies and cooperations between public health agencies and their community partners. Dausey has conducted research on global disease surveillance and global cooperations for public health. Dausey and colleague Melinda Moore (RAND) were the first to coin the term "sub-regional disease surveillance networks" to describe the emerging trend of transnational disease surveillance and control organized and governed by member countries to address their shared priorities. Dausey has emphasized the need to develop models to sustain these cooperations over time. In addition, Dausey is an expert in planning for global public health emergencies such as pandemic influenza. He developed and conducted tabletop exercises in collaboration with the ministries of health of six countries in Southeast Asia. He later conducted similar exercises in East Africa and the Middle East.

Career as a Professor and Teacher

Dausey is an award winning professor and teacher. He began his teaching career at Yale University where he was a teaching fellow. At Yale, Dausey taught sections of Epidemiology and Health Policy. His first role as a professor was at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine where he was a Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry. At the University of Pittsburgh, Dausey was actively engaged in the Center for Research in Health Care. During this time, Dausey made significant contributions to the literature in the fields of Psychiatry and health services research. For example, Dausey conducted research on the predictors of suicide among individuals with severe mental illness. Dausey also developed performance metrics to assess the quality of mental health care in the United States. Dausey and colleges Robert Rosenheck and Anthony Lehman developed a new mental health performance measure known as "preadmission care" in 2002.

Dausey moved to Carnegie Mellon University where he became a Distinguished Service Professor of Health Policy and Management where he taught courses in health systems, health policy, program evaluation and epidemiology. Dausey is currently a tenured full professor at Mercyhurst on administrative leave to serve as the University's provost. He was formerly chair of the Department of Public Health. Dausey was recognized for teaching excellence at Carnegie Mellon when he was awarded the Martcia Wade Teaching Award in 2010. He was later recognized for teaching excellence at Carnegie Mellon's "Celebration of Education" in 2011. Dausey was also awarded both the Alpha Theta Mentorship Award and the Panhellenic Intrafraternity Council Role Model Award for his active role in mentoring and advising students. Dausey has extensive experience teaching distance learning courses and courses that involve asynchronous learning techniques. He also has extensive experience teaching study abroad and experiential learning courses. He has advised or led study abroad initiatives in a number of countries including Mexico, Vietnam, Ireland, Ghana, Uruguay, Bangladesh and Tanzania.

Career as an Academic Administrator

Dausey began his career in academic administration as the Senior Director of Health Programs and Initiatives Carnegie Mellon University. In this capacity, he oversaw three master degree programs, three master degree concentrations, three joint undergraduate/graduate degree programs, and a health focused doctoral program. Dausey grew and expanded the academic programs at Carnegie Mellon focused on health by creating partnerships with community organizations. He also restructured health focused programs and initiated the "healthcare@heinz" initiative. The healthcare@heinz initiative enabled the Carnegie Mellon to bring together the university's health programs to have: administrative unity, common branding and marketing, shared networking experiences, a central repository of assets and greater academic and research collaborations. Dausey left Carnegie Mellon to join Mercyhurst University to become the Founding Chair and Professor of the Department of Public Health. Dausey later became Founding Director of the Mercyhurst Institute of Public Health. In this capacity he created the first Academic Health Department in the Northeast parterning Mercyhurst with the Erie County Department of Public Health. He also created the first formal collaboration between an American university and Teletón, the largest provider of rehabilitation services in Latin America. Dausey was appointed the Founding Dean of the School of Health Professions and Public Health at Mercyhurst, which he eventually grew to become the Zurn College of Natural and Health Sciences. As Dean, Dausey was responsible for restructuring the nursing programs at Mercyhurst and successfully establishing an accredited master's level Physician Assistant program. Dausey became Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Mercyhurst University in 2015. He oversaw a major restructuring of the academics at Mercyhurst including the establishment of four new colleges, restructuring the faculty body, and the development and implementation of a new core curriculum.

Career as an Author

Dausey is the author of a wide range of books, reports and peer-reviewed publications. His publications have been read by academic audiences, public health practitioners and the general public. For example, his book "Tests to Evaluate Public Health Disease Reporting Systems", was disseminated to federal, state and local public health practitioners throughout the United States by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He has published in a variety of academic journals such as the American Journal of Public Health, the American Journal of Psychiatry, Psychiatric Services, and Health Affairs. His research has been profiled in by major media outlets such as USA Today, the Nation's Health and JAMA.

Selected Works

Awards and Service

Dausey was awarded a predoctoral fellowship from the National Cancer Institute to pursue research in cancer epidemiology at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. He was awarded a training grant from the National Institutes of Health that fully supported his doctoral studies at Yale University. He served as an elected trustee or director on the Board for several organizations including the American College of Healthcare Executives, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Healthcare Council of Western Pennsylvania, Jewish Health Care Foundation, Women for a Healthy Environment and the Alzheimer's Association.

Personal life

Dausey was born on June 13, 1975 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Daniel and Jody Dausey. He currently lives in Erie, Pennsylvania with his wife, Nichole, and their two boys, Daniel and Elijah. Dausey is an avid runner and was a varsity athlete while in college. He served as the captain of the Mercyhurst Cross County team from 1995-1997.