Beth A Virnig, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Beth A. Virnig, Ph.D., M.P.H., is the dean and Robert G. Frank Endowed Professor at the University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions. She joined the university in July 2022 as the sixth dean of the college in its 64-year history.

She served as a professor in the division of health policy and management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and as director and lead of the school’s Strategic Global Public Health Programming, where she guided efforts with partner universities in Thailand, India, Mexico and Ghana. Prior to that, she served as the school’s senior associate dean for academic affairs and research.

Dr. Virnig’s research examines how patient factors and system factors combine to influence care and outcomes. Her research focuses on cancer care, women’s health, end-of-life care, and the measurement of racial and ethnic disparities in care and health outcomes among Medicare beneficiaries. Her work has been funded by the National Cancer Institute, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. She serves on the American Cancer Society’s Council for Extramural Research. She is the author or co-author of more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, including an article on breast cancer surgery that was named one of the 10 best papers of the decade (1999-2009) by the American Society of Breast Surgeons.

She directed the Research Data Assistance Center, or ResDAC, a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services-funded program providing free assistance to academic, government and nonprofit researchers interested in using Medicare and Medicaid data in their work.

She earned both her Ph.D. and M.P.H. in epidemiology from the University of Minnesota. Prior to joining the University of Minnesota, Dr. Virnig held positions at the University of Miami and Dartmouth Medical School’s Center for Evaluative Clinical Sciences.