Ranelle Brew

Dr. Brew teaches as a Contributing faculty member at Walden University and as an Associate Professor for the Public Health program at Grand Valley State University and is the Chair of the Department of Public Health and Program Director. Her Doctoral and double Master degrees are from Columbia University in Education and Health Sciences respectively. Her doctoral research included Adolescent Asthma Health Education in New York City public schools through collaboration between New York Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University. Dr. Brew's current research interests include a summer health professions camp entitled, sHaPe, for which she is a director, global health, photo voice, and breastfeeding.

She has worked in health care for over 20 years in various settings including clinically, within the public school system, in geriatric health, fitness and currently in higher education. She has more than 18 years of teaching experience in both New York City and the Greater Grand Rapids areas.

Dr. Brew teaches courses in the Public Health Promotion and Education emphasis as well as the Introduction to Public Health course. Teaching online is an area of expertise of Dr. Brew's as she has taught, designed curriculum, and trained faculty using these technologies for the past 17 years. She is the author of instructor materials for F.A. Davis Publishing for Medical Terminology, Simplified and a children’s book entitled Healthy Days.

Dr. Brew serves in the public health community extensively. She has served as a Past-President for the Michigan Public Health Association (MPHA) and the Great Lakes Chapter of the Society of Public Health (GLC-SOPHE). She is a 20+ year active member of American Public Health Association (APHA) and social co-chair for the PHEHP section, a national member of SOPHE, Society of Public Health Education, and Advisory Board Chair for the Diagnostics and Therapeutics Kent Count Early College Health programs, and a WAY committee member for the Junior League of Grand Rapids with focus on women and children’s wellness programming.

Global health is a research area of interest and she has traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, Ghana, West Africa, Beijing, China, Tacloban City, Philippines, Manenberg, South Africa, Ikaria, Greece, and Nicoya Coast, Costa Rica with students on study abroad programs. Her current project includes a sustainable international health care service-learning program for the MPH program and plans to continuously take a group of graduate students on domestic and internationally annually. In 2022, she will travel to Sardinia, Italy with an interdisciplinary group of Public Health and Occupational Health Sciences students focusing on the Blue Zones work on centenarians. Other research areas include breastfeeding, accessibility, and diversity pipelining into health professions.

Courses Taught

HLTH 6475 - Design, Implementation and Evaluation

Public Service

Michigan Public Health Association , Board Member - Grand Rapids

Awards / Honors

Michigan Hometown Health Hero Award, Michigan Public Health Week Partnership, 2018