Terri D. Wright, PhD, MPH, a member of the judges’ panel for the Prize for Prenatal Innovation, is the Vice President for Program and Community at the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation. She has employed her extensive leadership skills and expertise advancing equity and public health through policy, practice, and management in local and national government, philanthropic and non-profit organizations throughout her career, with a specific interest in maternal and infant health.

She served as the first executive director of The Steve Fund, and as director of both the Center for Public Health Policy and the Center for School, Health and Education at the American Public Health Association (APHA). She also served as program director for health policy at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation for 12 years, where she developed and reviewed the Foundation’s health programming priorities and initiatives, evaluated and recommended proposals for funding, and administered projects and initiatives. She assisted in public policy funding and related policy program development, as well as provided leadership to the Foundation’s policy programming for systemic change.

Prior to the Kellogg Foundation, Dr. Wright was maternal and child health director and bureau chief for Child and Family Services at the Michigan Department of Community Health. In that role, she managed policy, programs, and resources with the goal of reducing preventable maternal, infant, and child morbidity and mortality through policy and programming in Michigan. She improved the availability and utilization of community-based social support programs for positive pregnancy outcomes and secured federal waivers to demonstrate innovative approaches to reducing unplanned pregnancies and improving pregnancy outcomes.

She has also served as the women’s health director for the Family Health Section in the Georgia Division of Public Health, where she directed statewide program policies, practices and budgets for improving the access and quality of family planning and maternal and infant care services to families in rural and urban communities.

Dr. Wright holds a master’s and a doctorate degree from the University of Michigan, and a bachelor’s degree in community and school health from the City University of New York. She is an active member of APHA and was honored with their 2018 Executive Director Citation, and is a former member of the Institute of Medicine’s Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity and the Elimination of Health Disparities. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband.