Dr. Melinda Ford is an experienced primary care physician and medical educator who has firsthand clinical knowledge of the challenges of treating drug-dependent patients. In addition to her assistant professorship at the Heritage College, she works for OhioHealth Physician Group Heritage College as a family medicine and addiction physician.

“People are sometimes surprised to learn that a political scientist is on faculty at a medical school,” Skinner said. “But politics is at the heart of the policy process, and shapes everything from how professional relationships are formed to changes in our health care system. We need to be politically astute to make good policy, and we need physicians to be involved in these decisions.”

Franz is a medical sociologist and health services researcher whose research and teaching focus on health disparities, population health, and substance use. She is an associate professor of Community-based Health at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, in Athens, Ohio and Osteopathic Heritage Foundation Ralph S. Licklider, D.O. Endowed Faculty Fellow in Population Health Science.