Brian Carey Sims is Director for the Center for Metrics and Evaluation in the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) College of Public Health. He has nearly 20 years of experience in program evaluation, research methods and data analysis and has led several large-scale program evaluations involving funders across public health and education (e.g. the U.S. Department of Justice, the National Science Foundation, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of North Carolina). He has extensive experience working with national leadership development programs (including multiple Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded leadership for better health programs and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists). Dr. Sims has provided research and evaluation support services and technical assistance for multiple universities (including Duke University, the University of Chicago, the University of Rochester and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and several community based organizations and initiatives including the White House Community Violence Intervention Collaborative (CVIC). He currently serves as peer reviewer for the co-funded Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and American Heart Association (AHA) Health Equity Research Network (HERN) on Community-Driven Research Approaches and the Journal of Participatory Research Methods. 

Since joining UNMC, he has joined the Center for Reducing Health Disparities as an affiliate faculty member and collaborated with COPH Office of Public Health Practice and the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) personnel to review software systems and frameworks DHHS is currently using for its performance management system as part of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) funded Public Health Infrastructure Grant (PHIG) and Data Modernization Initiatives. He has also collaborated with the Nebraska Association of Local Health Directors (NALHD) on strategic planning and evaluation needs assessment initiatives for local health departments, and worked with the COPH Office of Teaching and Learning to produce and disseminate digital learning module resources designed to support local health department program evaluation efforts.

Dr. Sims currently serves on the National Advisory Committee for the Health Policy Research Scholars, a leadership development fellowship program for doctoral students at Johns Hopkins University and on the External Advisory Committee for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) to the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus.

Dr. Sims’ research focuses on school mental health, agricultural life & sustainability, and human justice  & healing, with a particular emphasis on the implications of media for individuals, families, and  communities of African descent. Sims is a strong advocate for international education and has led study  abroad programs for undergraduates to Senegal, Malawi, Ghana and Haiti. He holds a PhD in Education  and Psychology from the University of Michigan and is a proud alum of the University of Minnesota’s  Interdisciplinary Research Leaders’ Cohort 2, where he currently serves as Senior Advisor for Alumni  Affairs. Sims has recently written for the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and the University of  Cincinnati Press and his forthcoming book, College Thug Syndrome offers an explosive Afrikan-Centered  analysis of higher education.