For the first 13 years of her career, Adena Cohen-Bearak worked in the field of health education, teaching sex ed to kids, training family planning counselors, coordinating a city-wide family planning training program, and creating curricula and on-line health content for new media. After receiving her M.P.H. in 1999, she shifted her focus to public health research. For the past 20 years she has worked on a variety of research projects at Harvard School of Public Health, Boston Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, and other research organizations. Her most recent work included managing a research project entitled "Aligning Family-Team Expectations During Surgical Consent" within the Institute for Professionalism and Ethical Practice at Boston Children's Hospital. She is currently working at the Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research (CHOIR) at VA Bedford Healthcare System, working on a variety of projects as a qualitative analyst.