Kathleen Berentsen Swenson Named Director of M.S. in Genetic Counseling

Kathleen Berentsen Swenson, MS, CGC, MPH, has been named the new Director of the Boston University Master’s Program in Genetic Counseling. Berentsen began working with the Genetic Counseling Program in 2010 as a course instructor and capstone mentor.

She brings 16 years of experience in genetic counseling in various clinical settings across many specialties (prenatal, pediatrics, neurology and cancer); advocacy at the national level with the Children’s Tumor Foundation and at the community level with the Dominican Women’s Development Center for the WH/I GENE coalition project; public health work with the New York State Department of Health;  research across multiple spheres; faculty experience at the Sarah Lawrence Genetic Counseling Program; and most recently in industry.

Berentsen is an experienced educator and clinician across a broad spectrum of genetic counseling domains, ranging from prenatal genetic counseling to the development of a telephone-based counseling platform. Most recently, she worked at Counsyl, Inc. as a Clinical Product Specialist where she oversaw education for hereditary cancer genetics and mentorship of graduate students and internal employees. Prior to that, Kathleen served as a genetic counselor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in their Cancer Genetics and Prevention Program.

Berentsen earned her undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences and Psychology from Muhlenberg College in 1997, her Master’s Degree in Human Genetics from Sarah Lawrence College in 2000, and a Master’s Degree in Public Health from Columbia University in 2008.