Jennifer Canvasser, MSW

Davis, California

Founder and Director, NEC Society
Represented: Patients, Caregivers, and Patient Advocates
Term Ends August 2021

Jennifer Canvasser is a macropractice perinatal social worker, the Founder and Director of the Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC) Society, and a bereaved mother. She completed her undergraduate degree at UCLA and earned her Master’s in Social Work from the University of Southern California, concentrating her studies on developmental psychology, community organizing, and social movements. After her 11-month-old son, Micah, died from complications of NEC, a devastating intestinal disease, Canvasser brought together renowned investigators and clinicians with committed patient families to advance research, awareness, care practices, and policies for medically fragile babies and their families in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Canvasser’s personal experience of spending nearly a year in the NICU and the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) as a mother of a medically fragile baby, coupled with her professional expertise as a social worker and director of the NEC Society, render her deep commitment to patient family–centered research, care, and policies. She is eager to become increasingly active with PCORI because she recognizes the profound implications for medically fragile children and their families.

Canvasser served as a member of the Advisory Panel on Patient Engagement from September 2018 to September 2021.