Dr. Cheryl L. Dorsey
Dr. Cheryl L. Dorsey is the President of Echoing Green. She is the co-author of Be Bold: Create a Career with Impact (Echoing Green, 2006).
An accomplished social entrepreneur with expertise in health care, labor issues, and public policy, Dr. Dorsey is the first Echoing Green Fellow to lead this global non-profit organization, which has awarded more than $30 million in start-up capital to over 500 social entrepreneurs worldwide since 1987. In 1992, Dr. Dorsey’s Echoing Green Fellowship enabled her to launch the Family Van, a community-based mobile health unit that provides basic health care and outreach services to at-risk residents of inner-city Boston neighborhoods.
Dr. Dorsey has served in two presidential administrations as a White House Fellow and Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Labor (1997–98), Special Assistant to the Director of the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Labor Department (1998–99), Transition Team Member of the Innovation and Civil Society subgroup of the Technology, Innovation, and Government Reform Policy Working Group (2008–09), and Vice Chair for the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships (2009–present).
Currently, Dr. Dorsey serves on several boards, including the Harvard Board of Overseers, the SEED Foundation, and Northeast Bank. She has received numerous public service awards and recognition for her work, including the Leonard J. Siff Prize for best History of Science Senior Thesis (1985), Robert Kennedy Distinguished Public Service Award (1992), First Recipient, Jane Rainie Opel ‘50, Young Alumna Award, Radcliffe College Alumnae Association (1995), Henry Crown Fellow, Aspen Institute (2006), and Prime Movers Fellow, Hunt Alternatives Fund (2007). In 2009, Dorsey was named one of ‘America’s Best Leaders’ by U.S. News & World Report and the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. In 2010 and 2011, she was named as one of The Nonprofit Times’ ‘Power and Influence Top 50.’ Like Professor Chua, in 2011, Newsweek and the Daily Beast named Dr. Dorsey one of the ‘150 Women Who Shake the World.’
Dr. Dorsey holds a B.A. in History and Science magna cum laude with highest honors from Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges, a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) from the Harvard Medical School, and a Master of Public Policy (M.P.P.) from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. She completed her pediatric residency at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.