Christine ("Chris") Arenson began as co-director of the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education in July 2020. Dr. Arenson leads the strategic direction of the center.

As a family physician and geriatrician, Dr. Arenson has extensive collaborative practice experience and a demonstrated commitment to interprofessional education. She served as the Alumni Professor and Chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine, Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 2013 to 2020, implementing a new Advanced Primary Care Model across the Jefferson primary care network, now including over 100 practices. Dr. Arenson has served as principal investigator on eight HRSA grants focused on aspects of practice transformation and interprofessional collaborative practice.

Dr. Arenson was the founding Co-Director of the Jefferson Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education, serving in that role from 2007 to 2016. She has provided leadership in numerous roles to the American Interprofessional Health Collaborative, which is committed to advancing scholarship in the field, and has been a member of the National Center’s Knowledge Generation Advisory Committee, advising on the design and implementation of the National Center IPE Core Data Set.

Dr. Arenson graduated from the University of Delaware in 1986 and Jefferson Medical College in 1990. She completed family medicine residency training at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, followed by a fellowship in geriatric medicine. She has been actively engaged in primary care transformation to meet the Quadruple Aim: Improve the Experience of Care, Improve Health Outcomes, Reduce Costs and Restore Joy in Practice.