Headshot of Dr. Susan Sorenson

Susan B. Sorenson, PhD

  • Professor of Social Policy
  • Professor of Health & Societies
  • Senior Fellow in Public Health
  • Research Interests

    Public health

    Epidemiology and prevention of violence, including homicide, suicide, sexual assault, child abuse, battering, & firearms

    Violence against women as a public health issue

    Firearms as a consumer product

    Professor Susan B. Sorenson has a unique interdisciplinary background in epidemiology, sociology, and psychology. Professor of Social Policy, Professor of Health & Societies, and Senior Fellow in Public health, she moved to Penn in 2006 after more than 20 years at the UCLA School of Public Health. Dr. Sorenson is the Faculty Director of the Ortner Center on Violence & Abuse, an interdisciplinary center that involves nine of Penn’s twelve schools.

    Since 1986, Professor Sorenson has taught a graduate course in family and sexual violence – the first violence prevention course in a school of public health in the nation. She currently teaches three courses that she developed: Violence in Relationships (graduate); Public Health and Violence (undergrad); and Foundations of Public Health (undergrad).

    With over 150 publications to her credit, Professor Sorenson has published widely in the epidemiology and prevention of violence, including the areas of homicide, suicide, sexual assault, child abuse, battering, and firearms. She helped establish violence against women as a public health issue and furthered the study of firearms as a consumer product. A primary focus of her work is the social context in which violence occurs, specifically, the norms that shape whether and how violence is tolerated.

    In addition to her academic work, Dr. Sorenson has served on the board of directors and advisory boards of local community-based organizations, state government agencies, and university injury prevention centers. In 1991, she co-founded the Violence Prevention Coalition of Greater Los Angeles, a broad coalition of agencies and individuals which continues to this day. She has provided invited testimony on violence prevention at the local, state, and federal levels.

    Professor Sorenson has served in multiple advisory roles. She was a member of the National Academy of Science’s Panel on Research on Violence Against Women, a consultant to President Clinton’s National Advisory Council on Violence Against Women, a consultant to UNICEF’s May 2000 report on Domestic Violence Against Women and Girls, a member of the advisory panel for the 2001 U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on Youth Violence, author of a 2008 WHO report on health indicators of violence against children in low- and middle-income countries, and a member of the 2013 Institute of Medicine committee on Priorities for a Public Health Research Agenda to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-related Violence. She currently is serving a second term on the Committee on Law and Justice for the National Academy of Sciences.

    Contact

    Phone

    office: 215.573.1169

    fax: 215.573.2791

    Email

    Address

    3815 Walnut Street
    Philadelphia, PA 19104-6179

    About

    Department(s)

    Faculty | Retired Faculty

    Related Links

    http://www.ortnercenter.org

    Curriculum Vitae >