Lisa A. Frazier, PhD, MPH

What is your background, and what brought you to that area of study? 

• My parents were both MDs and I grew up loving biology and medicine, so I thought I’d be a doctor. But I studied anthropology and political ecology in college, which made me realize that I was much more interested in structural problems and population-level health. That’s what brought me to epidemiology and public health policy. Working as a public health analyst during the development and passage of the Affordable Care Act prompted me to pursue further study in public policy and organizational studies. 

What interests you about brain injury research and policy; how does this intersect with your work? 

• As an epidemiologist and policy researcher, the concurrent invisibility and prevalence of brain injury is fascinating to me. It’s a largely unrecognized public health issue, which means there’s tremendous opportunity to use research to change policy and practice at scale. 

What do you like to do in your free time? 

• Hiking, biking, gardening… Basically anything that allows me to be outside with my daughter. We’ve been spending a lot of time walking in Clintonville’s great ravines and investigating plants, insects, and rocks that we find there. There’s also something extra magical about reading outside together, so we usually take a book or two on our hikes.