Sandra Wilkniss

Sandra Wilkniss, Ph.D., is senior program director of Population and Public Health at the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP), where she directs programs focused on public health, health system performance, and health reform; vulnerable populations and equity; social determinants of health; care coordination; quality of care; and performance measurement. Prior to joining NASHP, she served as director of Complex Care Policy and was a senior fellow at Families USA. In that role, she led the organization’s national project on state approaches to equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccine, as well as projects on behavioral health integration and cost and value in health system. Before that, Wilkniss spent six years as a program director at the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, advising governors and their senior staff on a variety of issues. She also spent three years in the United States Senate as senior legislative assistant in health care to Senators Bingaman and Heinrich. Wilkniss is a clinical psychologist by training, and has held faculty appointments at Dartmouth Medical College, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Weill Cornell Medical Center, and was the director of Thresholds Institute. She earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Virginia.