Gail Emrick, MPH’87, MIA’87

A global health & development specialist, Ms. Emrick has been SEAHEC’s Executive Director since 2008, advocating for rural, migrant and border health programs and workforce development. Retiring from that position in August 2024, Gail continues health advocacy as Principal Investigator for an NIH ComPASS award “to increase access to mental and behavioral health services for rural Arizonans” using community health equity structural interventions (CHESI). She also serves as Adjunct Faculty at the University of Arizona College of Public Health.

Ms. Emrick has dedicated her professional life to promoting the well-being of individuals, families, and communities in Central America and the U.S.-Mexico border regions. She has served as Regional Director of a USDA-funded food security program in Central America, as Adviser for strategic public/private partnerships for the United Nation’s World Food Program in El Salvador, and directed a Mayan women’s health network in the highlands of Guatemala, immediately after graduation from Columbia University in 1987. Under her leadership, SEAHEC forged strategic alliances throughout Arizona for improving Arizona’s rural health workforce and has become a recognized leader in migrant and farmworker health advocacy, policy development, and award-winning programming.

In 2021, Ms. Emrick and SEAHEC received the National AHEC Organization “Community-based Program” award for a model farmworker capacity building. Columbia University public health students were an integral part of that recognition. Ms. Emrick, in partnership with Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, developed a summer internship program, allowing Mailman students to intern with SEAHEC, learn about the challenges that farmworkers face in accessing basic services including healthcare. The program placed students for several consecutive years, while the local farmworker community developed their own cadre of community health workers, responsive to local health needs.

Gail earned a joint master’s from Columbia University in 1987 in public health and international affairs. When not at SEAHEC, Gail can be found playing with her newest family additions – grandbabies Keira, Charlie & Leonardo, or hiking in Arizona’s rugged mountains and desert landscape.