Elizabeth Miller, MD, PhD, FSAHM

  • Professor of Pediatrics, Public Health and Clinical and Translational Science
  • Edmund R. McCluskey Chair in Pediatric Medical Education
  • Co-Lead, The Pittsburgh Study
  • Co-Director, Community PARTners (Community Engagement) Core, Clinical and Translational Science Institute, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Administrative Assistant: Janice M. Korn

Liz Miller is professor of pediatrics, public health, and clinical and translational science and holds the Edmund R. McCluskey Chair in Pediatric Medical Education at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She is also Director of the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine and the Medical Director of Community and Population Health. She serves as the Academic Co-Director of Community PARTners (the community engagement core) for the Clinical and Translational Science Institute.

Trained in internal medicine, pediatrics and medical anthropology, she has over 20 years of practice and community-partnered research experience in addressing interpersonal violence prevention among adolescents and young adults in clinical and community settings. With diverse funding from National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Justice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Office on Women’s Health, and Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Programs, she has developed and tested clinical and community-based interventions in collaboration with youth, patients, health care providers, victim service advocates, public health administrators, educators, and school administrators.

She has conducted several large-scale, community-partnered research studies including a randomized controlled trial of an athletic coach-delivered gender-based violence prevention program across 41 middle schools (R01CE002543), a youth violence prevention intervention titled Manhood 2.0 across 21 neighborhoods with concentrated disadvantage in Pittsburgh (U01CE002528), and a sexual violence intervention with 28 college campus health centers that is the foundation for this proposal (R01 AA023260). Her team is currently fielding two cluster-randomized trials, one testing trauma-focused support groups in middle schools (R01CE002981) and the other evaluating a racial and gender justice-focused youth violence prevention program in community settings (R01MD013797).

Her research has resulted in over 280 peer-reviewed articles as well as numerous book chapters, commentaries, and clinical guidelines. She has participated in numerous legislative hearings related to protecting adolescent confidentiality, adolescent reproductive health, and adolescent relationship abuse and intimate partner violence prevention. Her work on reproductive coercion and birth control sabotage has resulted in changes in national clinical practice guidelines. She conducts research in partnership with community health clinics testing brief clinical interventions to address partner violence and reproductive coercion in community health care and school health settings. She is involved in developing and testing primary violence prevention programs, including one titled “Coaching Boys into Men” which involves training coaches to talk to their male athletes about stopping violence against women.

She also co-directs, with Ms. Felicia Savage Friedman, a landmark collective impact, community-partnered intervention study called The Pittsburgh Study that seeks to identify and evaluate best practices to support child and adolescent health and thriving. As a mixed-methods intervention researcher trained in community-partnered participatory research, she has taught courses in stakeholder engagement and knowledge translation.

Miller has a strong track record of mentoring learners at various stages in stakeholder-engaged, patient-oriented research (including F, T and K awards). She received the Distinguished Mentor Award from the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Clinical Research Education. As Director of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine, she provides guidance on clinical and social aspects of adolescent and young adult development, including provision of clinical care for youth who are court-involved, child welfare-involved, and who are unstably housed.

Professional and Scientific Society Memberships

  • Massachusetts Medical Society, Member, 1988-2008
  • American Academy of Pediatrics, 1997-Present
    • Fellow, 2005
    • Council on Community Pediatrics and Committee on Adolescence, Member
  • American College of Physicians – American Society of Internal Medicine Fellow, 2001-2008
  • Academic Pediatrics Association, Member, 2002-Present
  • Community Campus Partnerships in Health, Member, 2002-Present
  • Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, 2005-Present
    • Fellow, 2015
  • Society for Pediatric Research, Member (by nomination), 2011-Present
  • North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology, 2014-Present
  • Association of American Physicians, Member (by nomination), 2019-Present

Education & Training

  • BA, History of Art, Yale University, 1988
  • MD, Medicine, Harvard Medical School, 1994
  • PhD, Anthropology, Harvard Medical School, 1994
  • Internship and Clinical Fellowship in Internal Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 1994-1995
  • Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Harvard Medical School, Department of Social Medicine, 1995-1997
  • Residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Medicine and Pediatrics, 1997-2000

Selected Publications

Academic and Research Interests

  • Adolescent Health
  • Intimate partner violence
  • Teen dating violence
  • Adolsecent relationahip abuse
  • Reproductive coercion
  • Violence prevention
  • Health equity
  • Community-based participatory research
  • Stakeholder-engaged research

Research Grants

NIH R01MD013797, Creating Peace:  community-based youth violence prevention to address racism and discrimination (PI), 2019-2024.

NIH 3R01MD013797, Urgent Revision to Creating Peace: community-level intervention to reduce youth violence (PI), 2020-2021.

NIH 3R01MD013797, Diversity Supplement: Creating Peace:  community-based youth violence prevention to address racism and discrimination (Local PI, PI: Rollins), 2020-2022.

The Heinz Endowments, Behavioral Health Services for Justice Involved Youth, 2018-2021.

Shear Family Foundation/Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh Foundation/Grable Foundation, The Pittsburgh Study: Longitudinal Study on Child Health and Thriving, 2018-2025.

NIH R21HD098086-01A1, Multi-level Emergency Department Intervention to Reduce Pregnancy Risk Among Adolescents (PI: Miller, Melissa), 2019-2021.

NIH R01DA046401-02, Teen Mothers’ Prenatal Cannabis Use and Co-Use with Tobacco (PI: DeGenna), 2019-2024.

United Way, Evaluation of Implementation of Coaching Boys into Men in Southwestern PA (PI), 2015-2021.

CDC NU38OT000282 (Cooperative Agreement), Improving Services for Women and Children During a Pandemic, 2020-2021.