Matthew Castner

At Johns Hopkins, Matthew Castner is a lecturer in the MA in Nonprofit Management program and serves as the Director of Population Health at Johns Hopkins Howard County Medical Center. He is also an associate faculty member in Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, where he shares his field experience with future healthcare professionals.

An accomplished public health executive, educator, and researcher, with extensive experience in health administration, Castner is dedicated to bridging the gap between healthcare data, clinical operations, and community well-being. He specializes in leveraging public health informatics to address modern healthcare challenges and improve regional health outcomes. Castner’s work directly intersects with the program’s course focus on Howard County nonprofits, offering a firsthand look at how clinical institutions and community organizations collaborate to drive social impact.

As the Director of Population Health, he oversees strategies to enhance preventative care, reduce health disparities, and tackle the social determinants of health in the local community. By integrating clinical data with community needs, he designs and implements targeted interventions that keep populations healthier outside traditional hospital walls – frequently partnering with regional nonprofits and community-facing initiatives that form the backbone of Howard County’s social safety net.

Throughout his career, Castner has balanced the dual roles of practitioner and academic. He is consistently guided by a mission to create a more proactive, equitable, and data-informed healthcare system, whether analyzing complex datasets, managing hospital-based population health initiatives, or lecturing in the classroom. His efforts provide a vital roadmap for how nonprofit models and medical systems can co-create sustainable, community-led health solutions.

Castner’s academic background reflects a deep commitment to data-driven healthcare. He earned a DrPH specializing in Public Health Informatics at Johns Hopkins University, where his advanced research focused on utilizing predictive analytics and machine learning models to improve behavioral health interventions and suicide prevention. He also holds an MHA from Johns Hopkins and completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Maryland.