Daniel Derksen, MD

Daniel Derksen, MD, a nationally noted health care policy and rural health expert, and University of Arizona faculty member and administrator, is an associate vice president for rural health workforce development initiatives at the U of A Health Sciences.

Derksen is a professor of public health in the Department of Community, Environment and Policy at the U of A Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, with a joint appointment in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the U of A College of Medicine – Tucson. Since 2013, he has served as the Walter H. Pearce Endowed Chair and director of the Arizona Center for Rural Health at the U of A Zuckerman College of Public Health. Derksen collaborates across the six Health Sciences colleges and the university, and with stakeholders and partners statewide to build on interprofessional activities. 

Over his 30 years in academics, Derksen’s service, research and educational activities include collecting, translating, analyzing and reporting data to inform legislative, regulatory and program policies to increase health insurance coverage; reduce the number of uninsured; narrow health disparities; and ensure a well-trained and distributed health workforce to meet the state’s and nation’s needs. 

Derksen is former president of the Arizona Academy of Family Physicians (2017-2018) and is former chair of the American Academy of Family Physicians Commission on Governmental Advocacy (2013-14). He completed a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship in 2008 with then-U.S. New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman. He researched and drafted provisions to improve the supply of the nation’s health workforce, later included in Title V of the Affordable Care Act. While working for New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez as director of the state’s Office of Health Reform (2011-12), he established the state-run Health Insurance Exchange/Marketplace as principal investigator of the CMS Health Insurance Exchange Cooperative Agreement. As principal investigator of $60 million of state, federal, foundation, contracts and grants over his 30-year academic career, Derksen has sought to improve health insurance coverage and access to health care, emphasizing interprofessional, community-based service-learning models in rural areas. 

He graduated from the U of A College of Medicine in 1984 and completed his residency in family medicine at the University of New Mexico, where he served as a faculty member for 25 years.