Dr. Vanessa Maier, 1991

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“Humility, grace, the ability to freely give compassion, to see goodness in ourselves and others, to accept and receive unmerited forgiveness, these are hard lessons to learn. But my experience at Heights gave me a solid foundation in these lessons, offering the richness of diversity, the power of kindness and the aspiration to follow a path of learning and service. Heights profoundly influenced my journey, and it is an immeasurable honor to be inducted into the Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame.”

“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Vanessa Maier, MD, MPH is a Family Physician at MetroHealth Medical Center and Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Named one of Cleveland’s Best Doctors in 2022 by Cleveland Magazine, she sees patients in her primary care clinic at MetroHealth’s Beachwood Health Center and in the Heights Wellness Center, in her alma mater, Cleveland Heights-University Heights High School. She serves as the Medical Director of MetroHealth’s School Health Program, a collaboration between MetroHealth and local school districts to increase access to school-based primary care. This work was highlighted in the PBS documentary “Healthy Students = Strong Learners” She also serves as the Director of Health for the City of Shaker Heights.

Dr. Maier is passionate about the intersection of clinical medicine and public health, promoting collaboration between healthcare systems and educational systems and expanding access to school-based health centers. She is the Primary Investigator on a National Institute of Health randomized clinical trial in partnership with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Environmental Health Watch and The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, to understand community partnerships in the care of students with asthma. She is a Co-Investigator on a National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences study to evaluate factors associated with absenteeism in students with asthma, in collaboration with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District, the American Lung Association, University Hospitals Rainbow Center for Child Health and Policy and Case Western Reserve University Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences.

Dr. Maier is also a passionate educator and recipient of several teaching awards including the prestigious Kaiser Permanente Excellence in Teaching Award. She serves as the Director of the Advocacy and Public Health Pathway at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, an interdisciplinary student-driven initiative developed in partnership with the School of Law and School of Applied Social Sciences, where students learn to support the social, economic and political change necessary to improve the health of populations.

Education

Case Western Reserve University – Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine – Medical Doctorate
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine – Masters in Public Health

Current Occupation

Physician

Achievements
  • Served on the ABC Science Collaborative, 2020-2022, National Institutes of Health Advisory Council coordinated through Duke University School of Medicine Clinical Research Institute to assist K-12 schools in developing evidence-based COVID 19 mitigation policies to safely return to in-person learning “Urban Classification, Not COVID-19 Community Rates, Associated With Modes of Learning in US K–12 Schools” published in Pediatrics, 2022
  • Received $4,488,545 School-Based Health Centers Removing Barriers to Care Award in 2022 through the Ohio Department of Health and the Ohio Department of Education in collaboration with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, the Cleveland-Heights-University Heights School District and MetroHealth’s Institute for HOPE
  • Received $436,436 Clinical and Translational Science Research Award in 2023 through Case Western Reserve University’s Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative, School-Based Research-Informed Asthma Toolkit for Health Equity in collaboration with Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District, the American Lung Association, University Hospitals Rainbow Center for Child Health and Policy and Case Western Reserve University Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences
  • Received the Kaiser Permanente Excellence in Teaching Award in 2023 for excellence in teaching and inspiring students to lead careers that exemplify medicine’s most enduring values
  • Raised two teenagers through a global pandemic and still happily married for 22 years and counting to the love of her life who she met when they were both students at Heights High School