Faculty Profile

Olivia Anderson

Olivia S. Anderson, PhD, MPH, RD

  • Clinical Associate Professor, Nutritional Sciences
  • Associate Chair of Educational Initiatives

Dr. Anderson is interested in the scholarship of teaching and learning in public health education. Her research has a specific emphasis surrounding: 1) implications of the public health discipline to interprofessional education (IPE) and practice, 2) lactation education training aimed to reduce health disparities and promote population health, and 3) equitable teaching strategies for effective education especially in public health writing. Dr. Anderson teaches maternal child nutrition and professional development courses that foster public health writing and teaching skills.

  • PhD, University of Michigan, 2013
  • MPH, University of Michigan, 2009
  • BS, Michigan Technological University, 2006

Research Interests:
Breastfeeding education, interprofessional education, interprofessional socialization, public health writing, scholarship of teaching and learning

Research Projects:
Dr. Anderson leads efforts within the Intentional Measurement and Research Workgroup through the Center for Interprofessional Education to develop a roadmap of assessment tools to measure interprofessional collaboration and practice behaviors among UM health science students.

Dr. Anderson collaborates with other health sciences faculty to assess and evaluate various introductory level interprofessional education modules and programs. Her focus is to measure whether the IPE offerings foster interprofessional socialization among UM health science students.

Through a partnership with the Center for Academic Innovation, Dr. Anderson explores equitable teaching practices for public health writing. She applies transparency-focused design to her writing assignments, including the use of the educational technology tool Lettersmith to provide students with visual guides when creating content based on a rubric.

August, E., Zelner, S., Zelner, J., and Anderson OS. (2022). Training public health students on authorship creates equitable opportunities to develop critical professional skills. Pedagogy in Health Promotion. In press.

Rulli, D., Bavireddy, V., Smith, L., and Anderson, O.S. (2022). Socialization into an interprofessional team among foundational health profession learners. International Journal of Allied Health. In press.

McCabe, C.F., Ly, C., Gregg, B., and Anderson, O.S. (2022). Breastfeeding models comparison study. Breastfeeding Medicine. In press.

Zamora, A., and Anderson, O.S. (2022). A call for competence in the social determinants of health within dietetic education and training. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 122(2):279-283. doi: 10.1016/j.jand.2021.10.007

Zamora, A., August, E., and Anderson, O.S. (2022). Impact of Transitioning to Remote Learning on Student Learning Interactions and Sense of Belonging Among Public Health Graduate Students. Pedagogy in Health Promotion, published online. doi: 10.1177/23733799221101539

Anderson, O.S., Weirauch, K., Roper, R., Phillips, J., Chuisano, S.A., and Sadovnikova A. (2022). Development of Team Behavior Skills and Clinical Lactation Competence Among Medical Students Engaging in Telesimulations with Standardized Patients. Breastfeeding Medicine, 17(6): 519-27. doi: 10.1089/bfm.2021.0229

Email: oliviasa@umich.edu
Office: 734-762-2888
Address: 3859 SPH 1
1415 Washington Hts
Ann Arbor, MI, 48109

For media inquiries: sph.media@umich.edu 

Areas of Expertise: Maternal Health,  Nutrition