Denise Rodgers, MD

Denise Rodgers is a professor at the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. She also oversees the training of health professions students to work as highly effective members of healthcare teams.

Dr. Rodgers previously served as the fifth and final president of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) from January 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013. From 2006 to 2013, Dr. Rodgers led UMDNJ’s academic and clinical operations as Executive Vice President. She served as UMDNJ's Chief of Staff from 2005 to 2006. From 1997 to 2005, Dr. Rodgers was Senior Associate Dean for Community Health at the UMDNJ- Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Dr. Rodgers has spent much of her career working with poor, minority, and disadvantaged patients and communities.  She currently chairs the steering committee for the Believe in a Healthy Newark culture of health initiative that is funded by RWJF/ New Jersey Health Initiatives.

She chairs the board of directors for the Healthy Greater Newark Medicaid ACO and is a member of the board of the Greater Newark Healthcare Coalition.  From October 2016 to April 2017, she served as interim director of the Newark Department of Health and Community Wellness. Before joining UMDNJ, Dr. Rodgers was a professor and vice chair at the University of California, San Francisco Department of Family and Community Medicine and director of the San Francisco General Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program. She also served as family medicine Chief of Service at SFGH.

From 1994 to 1996 she served as Chief of Staff at San Francisco General Hospital. In this role, she was also a member of the executive leadership team for the San Francisco Department of Public Health. In 1999, Dr. Rodgers was elected to be the inaugural chair of the DHHS HRSA Advisory Committee on Training in Primary Care Medicine and Dentistry, a role she held until 2003.  In 2001, Dr. Rodgers was elected president of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) and in 2009, she was awarded the STFM Recognition Award.  Dr. Rodgers is currently a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges(AAMC) Medical Center Leaders Caucus, having previously served on the AAMC Advisory Panel on Health Care.

Dr. Rodgers received a Bachelor of Arts in psychobiology from Oberlin College and graduated from Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. She completed her family medicine training in the Residency Program in Social Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. Dr. Rodgers is board-certified in family medicine and is a diplomate of the American Academy of Family Physicians.