Marcia Brand, Ph.D., is associate administrator for health professions in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).

HRSA works to fill in the health care gaps for people who live outside the economic and medical mainstream. The agency uses its $7 billion annual budget (FY 2008) to expand access to quality health care through an array of grants to state and local governments, health care providers and health professions training programs.

From 2001-2007, Brand was director and associate administrator of HRSA's Office of Rural Health Policy (ORHP). In that position she was responsible for health policy, research and grant activities that promote better health care services in rural America.

On July 9, 2007, Brand became associate administrator of the Bureau of Health Professions (BHPr), while continuing in her leadership position at ORHP. On January 31, 2008, she relinquished her ORHP position and retained her position as BHPr's associate administrator.

At BHPr, she provides national leadership in the development, distribution and retention of a diverse, culturally competent health workforce that provides high-quality care for all Americans.

Prior to joining ORHP, Brand led efforts to plan and implement the State Planning Grant Program, which helped states explore options in providing health care coverage for their uninsured residents. She also coordinated HRSA's efforts to implement the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and worked on the Secretary's Initiative on Children's Health and the President's Interagency Task Force on Children's Health Insurance Outreach, which aimed to increase enrollment in SCHIP and Medicaid.

As senior advisor to the deputy assistant secretary for health in 1997, Brand worked on the Secretary's Initiative on the Future of Academic Health Centers. She served as deputy director of BHPr's Office of Research and Planning for two years prior to that appointment.

Brand earned a doctoral degree in higher education from the University of Pennsylvania, and master and bachelor of science degrees in dental hygiene from Old Dominion University in Virginia.

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