Dr. Ranney is a practicing emergency physician, researcher, and national advocate for innovative approaches to public health. She holds the Warren Alpert Endowed Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Alpert Medical School of Brown University, is Founding Director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health, and is Associate Dean of Strategy and Innovation at the School of Public Health at Brown University. Dr. Ranney’s funded research focuses on developing, testing, and disseminating digital health interventions to prevent violence, mental illness, and related epidemics. During the COVID-19 pandemic she has been a CNN Medical Analyst, as well as having frequent appearances on MSNBC, BBC, Good Morning America, NBC, PBS, NPR, and others. She has been published in print media ranging from the Atlantic to the New York Times regarding the value of a national public health strategy. She also developed and co-leads, with Dr. Ashish Jha, the “Surviving And Thriving in The Age of Pandemics” online course at the School of Public Health at Brown University.
She serves multiple national leadership roles, including as Chief Research Officer of AFFIRM Research, the country’s leading non-profit committed to ending the gun violence epidemic through a non-partisan public health approach, and Co-Founder and President of the Board of GetUsPPE.org, a start-up non-profit that is delivering donated personal protective equipment to those who need it most. She is a Fellow of the fifth class of the Aspen Institute’s Health Innovators Fellowship Program, and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. She has received numerous awards for technology innovation, public health, and research, including “Rhode Island Woman of the Year” (2021), the American College of Emergency Physicians’ Policy Pioneer Award (2018), and “50 Experts to Trust In A Pandemic” (Elemental/Medium, 2020).
Dr. Ranney earned her bachelor’s degree in History of Science, graduating summa cum laude, from Harvard University; her medical doctorate, graduating Alpha Omega Alpha, from Columbia University; and her master’s in public health from Brown University. She completed her residency in Emergency Medicine and a fellowship in Injury Prevention Research at Brown University. She was previously a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cote d’Ivoire. She lives in Rhode Island with her husband and two children.