Sharron Crowder is a Clinical Associate Professor and Special Assistant to the Dean for Health Policy Initiatives at Indiana University School of Nursing.

Dr. Crowder has developed innovative models for health policy education with demonstrable impact on nursing students, faculty, and clinicians, including nurses of color. Her models catalyzed many nurses’ engagement in policy work on the maternal health crisis, opioid epidemic, mental health, veterans’ health, and other healthcare issues. To build capacity for more nurses and other healthcare professionals to impact health policy, Dr. Crowder launched The Indiana University School of Nursing Health Policy Academy.

She is a policy resource to her university’s government relations and has hadschools, notable national nursing organizations and interprofessional organizations including the American Thoracic Society and AcademyHealth replicate her models.

She was selected as a 2019 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow and assigned to the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and Labor. She made history as one of only about 30 nurse fellows selected in 47 years and the first nurse and first African American selected from Indiana. Dr. Crowder’s national importance has been recognized with major awards such as Indiana University President’s Bicentennial Medal and Association of Black Nursing Faculty’s Lifetime Achievement in Teaching Award.

Dr. Crowder received a BSN from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, MN from Emory University, and PhD from Indiana University.