Dorothy Sheu

Dorothy Sheu leads the Project Management Office at the University of Pennsylvania’s PAIR Center. As its Assistant Director, she equips research teams with the continuous process improvement tools, training, and mentorship needed to effectively run clinical studies.

Among her responsibilities, Dorothy runs two of the largest trials in their respective fields: the $27.5M COMPASS-PC trial, comparing generalist and specialist palliative care for hospitalized patients, and the $11.5M Healthy Lungs trial, comparing strategies to help lung cancer screening patients quit smoking— both funded by PCORI. Alongside this research, she also facilitates workshops on plain language and language interpretation access to help researchers communicate more equitably with the communities they serve.

Before joining Penn, Dorothy managed a $20.3M multi-hospital partnership at Johns Hopkins supporting chronically ill residents of Baltimore City, following earlier work in emergency preparedness at the Maryland Department of Health and health education at the International Rescue Committee. Dorothy holds an MPH from Yale University and a BA from Grinnell College.

Outside the office, she’s usually propagating plants, caring for her rescue dog and cats, or traveling with her partner.