Sarah Verbiest

Dr. Sarah Verbiest brings more than 25 years of expertise, leadership, and research in maternal, child, and family well-being to UNC School of Social Work. She supervises programs that serve clinics across North Carolina, serves on policy teams such as the Child Fatality Task Force, holds a robust research portfolio, and has convened statewide coalitions to address maternal and infant mortality disparities. She has successfully led complex mixed-methods research studies and leveraged the findings into on-the-ground change. She edited the book titled Making Change Happen: Moving Lifecourse from Theory to Action (APHA Press, 2018), which focused on MCH practitioners. Her newest book, Preconception Health and Care: A Lifecourse Perspective, was released in August 2020. Dr. Verbiest is currently co-editing the 4th Edition of the Maternal and Child Health textbook due out in print in 2021. She is a co-principal director for the Maternal Health Learning and Innovation Center,  a new national resource center developed to accelerate innovative and evidence-informed interventions that improve maternal health and eliminate maternal health inequities. Dr. Verbiest is also on the steering committee for the HRSA MCHB Lifecourse Intervention Research Network and leads the national NC Preconception Health and Health Care Initiative. She is the director of the Jordan Institute for Families at UNC School of Social Work and the executive director of the Collaborative for Maternal and Infant Health at UNC School of Medicine.