Speaker Bio: Daniel Derksen, Ph.D.

The Walter H. Pearce Endowed Chair and Director of the Arizona Center for Rural Health (AzCRH), and Professor & Chair of the Community, Environment & Policy Department at The University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health

Dan Derksen, M.D., oversees AzCRH programs including the State Office of Rural Health, the Rural Hospital Flexibility Program, and the AzCRH Navigator Consortium. In 2007-08 he was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow with U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman. He researched and drafted provisions to improve the supply and distribution of the nation’s health workforce signed into law in 2010. Working for Governor Martinez, he established New Mexico’s health insurance Marketplace that currently covers 50,000 individuals.

As principal investigator of state, federal, private foundation, and grants in excess of $55 million over his 30-year academic career, Dr. Derksen works to improve insurance coverage and access to high quality health care, emphasizing community-based service-learning models in rural areas.