Simone Seward, DrPH, MPH, is a public health scholar, educator, and community advocate whose work centers on advancing health equity through community-engaged research, education, and practice. She serves as Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at SUNY Upstate Medical University, where she is also Director of Community Health Strategies and Director of Community Engaged Learning in the Norton College of Medicine.

Dr. Seward’s scholarship and community work focus on the social and structural conditions that shape health, with particular emphasis on maternal and child health, structural racism, health disparities, and the preparation of future health professionals to provide equitable and socially responsive care. Her work bridges academic medicine and community practice, engaging learners and community partners in addressing the upstream factors that influence health and well-being.

A longstanding advocate for Black maternal and reproductive health, Dr. Seward is Co-Founder of the Syracuse Black Maternal Health Collective and serves on the New York State Maternal Health Taskforce, the NYS Birth Equity Improvement Project, and the Onondaga County Maternal and Child Health Workgroup. She has also helped convene Syracuse’s annual Black Maternal Health Summit since its inception in 2023, creating community-centered spaces that elevate lived experience, storytelling, healing, and collective action as essential components of advancing maternal health equity.

Her work increasingly examines how storytelling and community knowledge can transform the education of future physicians. At the 2026 Black Maternal Health Annual Conference, she will present “From Statistics to Sacred Stories: Leveraging Storytelling to Transform Medical Education on Black Maternal Healthcare,” reflecting her commitment to moving beyond disparities as statistics and ensuring that the voices and lived experiences of Black women inform how health professionals understand and respond to maternal health inequities.