Dr. Donawa is the Associate Provost, Office of Continuing Professional Development at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a Jointly Accredited provider. She is an international and national speaker, having presented in China, Canada, West Africa, and throughout the US. Her experience in education and industry spans more than 30 years. Jefferson manages 300 accredited continuing education activities annually.
Prior to joining Thomas Jefferson University, she served as the Assistant Dean, Office of Continuing Medical Education (OCME) at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland for eight years. In 2013, Dr. Donawa founded the Johns Hopkins Hospital Management Exchange Program for Chinese Healthcare Professionals. For seven years, Presidents and Vice Presidents of hospitals and universities visited Johns Hopkins and participated in weeklong medical education programs.
Additional experience includes serving as the Director of an Accreditation Commission for Alternative Medicine (ACAOM). Her contributions to continuing medication education and accreditation over the past 15 years include serving on the ACCME Accreditation Review Committee (ARC) since 2019; steering committee member for ACCME’s annual conference (2020 and 2021); and Chair of the Program Committee for the Society for Academic Continuing Medical Education (SACME) for three years.
Dr. Donawa earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications, with a minor in English from Towson University in Towson, Maryland. She subsequently earned a Master’s Degree in education with a focus on instructional design and curriculum development from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. She continued her educational pursuits, earning a Ph.D. in Higher Education and Administration from Morgan State University (MSU) in Baltimore, Maryland. In her spare time, she writes poetry and has authored two poetry books, Blessings Beyond Measure (2017) and Poetry for the Young Heart (2020).
