Description of Research Expertise

Elizabeth Sanseau, MD, MS, DTM&H, FAAP, is an attending physician in the Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics (Pediatric Emergency Medicine) at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She serves as the inaugural Medical Director of the CHOP Indigenous Health Unit, established in 2024, and is a faculty member of CHOP Clinical Futures and PolicyLab. Dr. Sanseau is board certified in Pediatrics and Pediatric Emergency Medicine.

Dr. Sanseau's research program focuses on implementation science, pediatric emergency readiness, simulation-based implementation strategies, Indigenous health, and disaster preparedness. Her work seeks to improve the quality of emergency care for children by developing, implementing, and evaluating scalable strategies that strengthen pediatric readiness across diverse healthcare settings, particularly community emergency departments, rural hospitals, and the Indian Health Service (IHS), Tribal, and urban Indigenous healthcare systems.

Before joining CHOP, Dr. Sanseau practiced as a pediatric hospitalist within the Alaska Tribal Health System at Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation in Bethel, Alaska. Working alongside frontline clinicians in geographically remote communities highlighted the unique challenges faced by resource-limited healthcare systems and inspired her commitment to developing practical, sustainable approaches that bridge academic expertise with local implementation.

Dr. Sanseau is Principal Investigator of the HRSA-supported Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) Indian Health Service Hybrid Simulation Program, a national initiative that partners academic medical centers with IHS, Tribal, and rural emergency departments to improve pediatric emergency readiness through longitudinal implementation support, simulation-based training, and quality improvement. She is also the recipient of the HRSA Pediatric Pandemic Network Mentored Disaster Research Career Development Award, through which she is developing an implementation science program focused on pediatric disaster and pandemic preparedness in U.S. Indigenous healthcare systems.

Nationally, Dr. Sanseau co-leads the Improving Pediatric Acute Care Through Simulation (ImPACTS) collaborative and Emergency SimBox, a free, open-access repository of pediatric simulation resources used by clinicians and educators worldwide. Her scholarship integrates implementation science, qualitative and mixed-methods research, simulation, quality improvement, and community-engaged research to identify effective strategies for translating evidence into practice and improving outcomes for acutely ill and injured children. She has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications, textbook chapters, and national presentations on pediatric emergency readiness, implementation science, simulation-based education, and Indigenous health.