Dr. Elaine Dannefer is Director of Educational Research and Assessment at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. She is responsible for the oversight of the school’s portfolio based assessment system and educational research program. Her scholarship activities include co-authoring articles on innovative assessment and curricular approaches as well as presenting at national meetings. Current projects include research on student self-assessment of professionalism, advising in a competency-based curriculum, and student approach analysis and interpretation of feedback in relation to competency standards. She is a consultant on the use of portfolios and competency-based assessment and served as the president of the Society for Directors of Research in Medical Education (2008-2009).

Prior to joining the Clinic, Dr. Dannefer was the Associate Dean for Curricular Affairs at the University of Rochester Medical School where she established a Curricular Affairs Office responsible for faculty and curriculum development, educational research, and program evaluation. She also played a key role in Rochester’s comprehensive assessment of professional competence and developed the Dean’s Teaching Fellow program.

Dr. Dannefer received her MSW from Indiana University and PhD in sociology from the University of Rochester.

• Bierer SB, Dannefer EF. Does students’ gender, citizenship, or verbal ability affect fairness of promotion decisions? Results from one medical school. Accepted for publication, Academic Medicine.
• Bierer SB, Taylor C and Dannefer E. Evaluation of essay questions used to assess medical students’ application and integration of basic and clinical science knowledge. Teaching and Learning in Medicine. 2009; 21(4):1-7.
• Bierer SB, Dannefer EF, Taylor C, and Hull AL. Methods to assess students’ acquisition, application, and integration of Basic science knowledge in an innovative competency-based curriculum. Medical Teacher. 2008; 30:7, e171-177.
• Dannefer EF and Henson LH. The portfolio approach to competency-based assessment at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. Academic Medicine. 2007; 82:493-502.
• Dannefer EF, Henson LH, Grady-Welicky T, Bierer SB, Meldrum S, Nofziger A, Barclay C, Epstein RM. Peer Assessment of Professional Competence. Medical Education 2005; 39:13-722.
• Bierer SB, Fishleder AJ, Dannefer EF, Farrow N and Hull AL. (2004). Pyschometric properties of an instrument designed to measure the educational quality of graduate training programs. Evaluation and the Health Professions 2004; 27:410-424.
• Epstein RM, Dannefer EF, Nofziger AC, Hansen JT, Schultz SH, Jospe N, Connard LW, Meldrum SC and Henson LC. Comprehensive Assessment of Professional Competence: The Rochester Experiment. Teaching and Learning in Medicine 2004; 16:186-196.
• Dannefer EF and Henson LC. Refocusing the role of simulation in medical education: Training reflective practitioners. In Dunn WF (ed.), Simulators in Critical Care and Beyond. Des Plaines, IL: Society for Critical Care Medicine, 2004.
• Medina-Walpole A, Clark NS, Heppard B, Dannefer EF, Hall, W and McCann, R. A User's Guide to Enhancing Geriatrics in an Undergraduate Medical School Curriculum: The Ten-Step Model to Winning the “Geriatric Game.” Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 52; 814-821,2004.
• Quill TE, Dannefer EF, Markakis K, Epstein RE, McGrail K and Milella M. An Integrated Biopsychosocial Approach to Palliative Care Training of Medical Students. Journal of Palliative Care, 6:365-380, 2003.
• Dannefer EF, Hundert EM and Henson, LC. “Medical Education Reform at the University of Rochester and the Biopsychosocial Tradition,” in The Biopsychosocial Approach: Past, Present and Future, edited by Rich Frankel, Susan McDaniel and Tim Quill. University of Rochester Press, 2003.
• Dannefer EF, Johnston MA and Krackov SS. “Communication and the Process of Educational Change.” Academic Medicine Supplement, 73:16-23, 1998.
• Cohen J, Dannefer EF, Seidel HM, Weisman CS, Wexler P, Brown TM, Brieger GH, Margolis S, Ross LR and Kunitz SJ. "Medical Education, Change: A Detailed Study of Six Medical Schools." Medical Education, 28:350-360, 1994.