J. Zoe Beckerman

J. Zoë Beckerman is a Teaching Professor and Vice Chair of Academics in the Milken Institute School of Public Health's Department of Health Policy and Management.  Zoë's work allows her to focus primarily on her passion for teaching and mentoring students. She has worked with a range of students from undergraduates through doctoral students, both residentially and online. Through her work, Zoë has experimented with how pedagogical techniques can make or break individual’s learning experiences and finds this work especially important as our student body diversifies. Zoë's goal is to meet each student where they are and help them build their skills and professional standing to meet their long-term goals. Zoë was delighted to be awarded the Milken Institute School of Public Health's Excellence in Teaching Award in 2019 and 2024 by the undergraduate students.  She was inducted into the GWSPH Master Teacher Academy in 2023.  She also won GW's Morton A. Bender Award for excellence in teaching in 2023, and is only the third GWSPH faculty member ever to have won this university-wide award.  In her role as Vice Chair of HPM, she focuses on the academic affairs of the department.

Zoë's work at GW builds on decades of practitioner work as a health policy analyst focusing on women’s health at the Kaiser Family Foundation and as an attorney in a boutique law firm specializing in health law representing and coaching non-profits that serve low-income children and families. As a consultant and partner in a law firm, Zoë advised hundreds of non-profits across the country on regulatory matters. She also designed and led in-person trainings for 5 to 250 adult learners ranging from groups of Hasidic women with very limited education to health care executives running multi-million-dollar companies. Zoë also designed and implemented several online training series long before the use of webinars was mainstream. Over the years, she has been at the helm of hundreds of trainings and problem-solving teams using different delivery modalities. Prior to her legal work, she also worked for the federal government at the National Institutes of Health and on Capitol Hill for the Senate HELP Subcommittee on Public Health and Safety as a part of the Presidential Management Internship (now Fellowship) Program.  

In terms of research, Zoë was a co-Principal Investigator analyzing and writing about Medicaid managed care issues.  Zoë has extensive knowledge about the administration of federally funded health programs, grant funding and grants policy, and the systems and processes in place to ensure such programs work smoothly.  Her work has focused on a variety of health and law topics, including but not limited to: access to and delivery of health care services; insurance, Medicare and Medicaid; fraud and abuse; corporate compliance; HIPAA and privacy laws; EMTALA; changes made by the Affordable Care Act and health reform; women’s health services and care; behavioral and mental health interventions; history of public health; advocacy in public health; ethics in public health; community needs assessment; federal grant funding streams in health and human services; early childhood and poverty.

Zoë has a long history with GW: she graduated from GW Law School, held a seat on the university's Board of Trustees, and was the founding Chair of GWSPH's Dean's Advisory Council before she began teaching here.