Elizabeth Mertz, PhD, MA, is a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, with a joint appointment in the Department of Preventive and Restorative Dental Sciences, School of Dentistry and in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences in the School of Nursing. She serves as the Associate Director for Research at Healthforce Center, and is affiliated with the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, and the Center to Address Disparities in Children’s Oral Health (CANDO). Beth has researched, published and lectured on a broad range of health professions workforce policy and analysis issues including; supply and demand of providers, health care regulation, state and federal workforce policy, access to care, and evolving professional practice models. She has served on a number of advisory and planning committees for organizations such as the Health Resources and Services Administration, the California HealthCare Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation and the Institute of Medicine. She is the PI on multiple research grants including a NIH funded evaluation of standardized preventive care to reduce dental disparities in children, a set of studies on workforce diversity in dentistry and a national center for Oral Health Workforce Research. She holds a BA from the University of Southern California, a MA from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and a PhD in medical sociology from the University of California, San Francisco.