Dr. Sheen’s public health experience extends 25 years, as she has had oversight of public health programs at all levels within a public health environment. Most recently she held a series of progressively responsible public health roles for the Virgin Islands, culminating in Commissioner of Health, where she was a driving influence in transforming public health policy and practice across the territory. Her efforts included Medicaid expansion, which increased access to healthcare for over 30,000 persons, behavioral health services for children under the age of 21 and she implementation of the first ever Medicaid Management Information System in partnership with the State of West Virginia. Sheen led wide-scale agency modernization and increased public health emergency responsiveness, evolution of the Virgin Islands department of health’s public-facing messages to include a deep focus on preventative health strategies, and dramatically expanded the use of public communication channels.
Through all initiatives, her focus has been on achieving public health improvements that promote and protect the health of all residents. One example of her leadership is the passage of historic legislation, “The Virgin Islands Smoke-free Act”. Another example is her recent work with the US Health and Human Services Bureau of Primary Health Care, where she was the recipient of a HRSA Administrator Award for the development of a training and technical assistance repository to house all health center related national trainings.
Dr. Sheen served as Governor Albert Bryan Jr’s Policy Advisor on Health and Human Services where she leads seven of the 11 initiatives related to the Governor’s Healthier Horizons initiative. Conceptualized and established new initiatives that seek to increase access to healthcare and improve the healthcare infrastructure: Healthy Housing Initiative, Office of Health Information Technology, the Association Health Plan and Telehealth Act.
Dr. Sheen holds a Doctorate Public Health and a Master’s Degree in Public Health with a concentration in Prevention Science from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia; a Graduate Certificate of Public Health from the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington and a Bachelor of Science degree in Management from Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland.