Heidi E. Brown, PhD

2026 University Distinguished Professor

Since joining the Arizona in 2013, she has taught multiple courses within the department, both  within the undergraduate Public Health core and graduate and undergraduate electives Over the  years, she has engaged 28 undergraduate preceptors into her teaching team and advised multiple  undergraduate students through honors thesis, UROC, UBRP, FRONTERA, and Step-Up. She has  served on 15 doctoral committees (chairing 2) and 9 MS (chairing 4) and 27 MPH committees (chairing 17).

Her research focuses on how the environment we live in affects health, with three general areas:  vectorborne disease dynamics, infectious causes of cancer, and climate hazard resilience. As an  assistant professor, she was awarded the competitive K01 award from the NIAID to conduct experi-  ments into mosquito flight at Biosphere-2 and, with a partner in Mathematics, she won the 2013 DARPA Chikungunya Forecasting Challenge. She maintains an active research portfolio of transdisciplinary projects supported by the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy. She enjoyed interdisciplinary work with collaborators in Departments all across campus, across the US and in the U.K., France, Germany, and Brazil.