Dorene Markel, MS, MHSA

You are here

Faculty

Dorene S. Markel, M.S., M.H.S.A
Director, The Brehm Center
Assistant Research Scientist, Department of Learning Health Systems


Dorene Markel serves as the Director of the Brehm Center at Michigan Medicine, which is focused on transforming the way research and collaborations are undertaken using a systems analysis approach and utilizing diabetes as a platform. She is the coordinator of the Brehm Coalition, a “dream team” of 10 senior scientists in type 1 diabetes research from 9 universities. Ms. Markel holds a faculty appointment in the Medical School¹s Department of Learning Health Sciences and is playing a key role in initiating a Learning Health System approach to diabetes care at UMHS. Her interests in ethics involve topics related to ethical issues in genetics, research and learning health systems. She also serves as a coordinator and mentor to the Brehm Scholarship programs for undergraduates and medical students at the university (about 32 students per year). Ms. Markel has been on staff at the University of Michigan Medical School since 1984 and has held leadership roles in growing the clinical and translational research enterprise at Michigan Medicine. She served as the Associate Director for Alliances and Collaborations for the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (MICHR) home of UM’s NIH-CTSA grant, as the Director of Clinical and Translational Research at the University of Michigan Medical School and as the founding Managing Director of MICHR. She also played a key role in the development of the NIH Human Genome Center at the University of Michigan (Dr. Francis Collins, Center Director, who is now Director of NIH) where she served as the Director of Human and Family Studies. Ms. Markel was the first Genetic Counselor to be employed by Michigan Medicine, and among the first nationally to specialize in neurogenetic conditions. Ms. Markel received a Master’s Degree in Human Genetics, specializing in genetic counseling, from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1983 and a Master’s Degree is Health Services Administration from the University of Michigan School of Public Health in 1991.