Hilary Heishman

Hilary Heishman, who joined the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) in 2011, serves on the Foundation’s Transforming Health and Healthcare Systems strategic portfolio. The team she co-leads supports community leaders, policymakers, practitioners, and others in promoting fair and just healthcare and public health systems that treat all people with dignity and respect, address past harms, and prevent future ones. Her work helps RWJF implement strategic grantmaking and equitable philanthropic principles and practices that contribute to a future in which health is no longer a privilege, but a right.  

Previously, Hilary’s work focused on grantmaking that sought to improve public health; transform healthcare systems; advance multi-sector collaboration and alignment; and create community data systems. With her background in local public health, community health planning, and healthcare system improvement she worked to “build connections that help systems work better for the communities they serve through working together.” She oversaw grants to Health Leads, which works with communities and decisionmakers across industries to break down complex barriers to health equity; Data Across Sectors for Health (DASH), a national initiative that elevates models, principles, and practices that support multisector data-sharing ecosystems to achieve health equity; and 100 Million Healthier Lives, a network and initiative that enables more than 200 communities and 500 healthcare organizations to accelerate their work on population and community health, among many other organizations and initiatives.

Before coming to RWJF, Hilary was a prevention specialist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Her work included supporting a Community Health Improvement Plan in Manchester, New Hampshire; supporting the Influenza Epidemiology and Prevention Branch during the spread of the 2009 H1N1 influenza; working with CDC’s Healthy Community Design Program to promote and evaluate Health Impact Assessments (HIA); and collaborating with healthcare professionals in the CDC’s WHO Collaborating Center for Reproductive Health to improve birth outcomes in hospitals in Kabul, Afghanistan. 

Hilary also conducted public health work and research at the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice and the Washington State Department of Health’s Public Health Improvement Partnership. Earlier, she served in the Peace Corps in Ghana, where she taught biology and coordinated HIV/AIDS prevention programs. 

Reflecting on her work in philanthropy, public health, and the CDC, Hilary speaks about drawing inspiration from her birthplace in rural West Virginia. She praises her upbringing for instilling in her the importance of integrity and community, and helping her value the wisdom of those who are too often overlooked by those in power. As she puts it: “Growing up as I did in West Virginia shaped how I see community and service and how I understand power, fairness, and justice.”

Hilary received a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Virginia and a Master of Public Health in Community Oriented Public Health Practice from the University of Washington, Seattle. 

She currently resides in Hamilton, N.J., and enjoys good conversation, good writing, and good food, and is eager to share all three.