Bio - Sarah C. Cunningham

As the first Executive Director of the Central Nebraska Area Health Education Center (CN-AHEC) Sarah Cunningham provides leadership to bring educators, health care professionals, public health department personnel, and community leaders together in a 28 rural county area to insure health care is available and will continue to be available in the future within Central Nebraska. This task is accomplished by determining the educational needs of and for health care providers, supporting the development of a health, science, and technology curriculum framework for K-12 students as well as recruiting minority students and nontraditional students into health care career paths.

Before joining CN-AHEC Cunningham was responsible for the development and implementation of a distance learning network that connected Central Community College to over 50 locations across Nebraska. This included the development of instructional technologies that faculty could employ that reach out to students to create virtual communities of learners. On a statewide basis, Cunningham has been instrumental in the creation of policies and procedures that provide students the ability to receive coursework from a variety of institutions within their rural community. She believes the use of technological advances in rural communities will allow rural areas to remain a quality alternative place to live.

Cunningham is a volunteer adjunct assistant professor in Family Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Sarah is a past president of the Nebraska Distance Learning Association and is a member of the Nebraska Information Technology Commission Telehealth Committee. She received her doctorate in Vocational and Adult Education from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with an emphasis in utilizing technology in instructional design techniques. She is married to John Cunningham, an attorney and has one daughter, Leslie, a freshman at Grand Island Central Catholic High School.