Erika Ziller, PhD

Dr. Erika Ziller is Chair of Public Health at USM, where she teaches in both the BS and MPH programs. She began her career as a social worker in rural Maine where she quickly realized that many of the challenges facing her clients were exacerbated by health and social policies that were unresponsive to their needs. Since then, Dr. Ziller has been committed to policy-informed research aimed at improving health care access for underserved populations, particularly rural residents. She grew up in small-town Maine and obtained her PhD in public policy from the University of Southern Maine in 2012. Dr. Ziller teaches courses on health policy, the U.S. health care system, and leads the Field Experience for the MPH degree program.

In addition to her faculty role, Dr. Ziller serves as the Director of the Maine Rural Health Research Center (https://mrhrc.org/) at the University of Southern Maine. She has directed numerous studies on rural health care access, insurance coverage, and health behaviors, including recent studies on rural-urban differences in adolescent smoking and lung cancer prevention. In 2011, Dr. Ziller received the Louis Gorin Award for Outstanding Achievement in Rural Health Care from the National Rural Health Association in recognition of her contributions to rural health policy. She served on the editorial board of the Journal of Rural Health and is an active member of the National Rural Health Association.