Elena Andresen, Ph.D., was trained in epidemiology and in health services research. Her research has been primarily in the areas of outcomes of chronic disease, disability and in aging. The particular focus of her research has been on assessing measures of patient-centered outcomes and health-related quality of life measures. She has been an active teacher and mentor to graduate students.

In June 2017, Dr. Andresen became executive vice president and provost of OHSU, Oregon's academic health center. In these roles, she oversees the education mission for the schools of Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry, Pharmacy and Public Health, as well as other health care professional programs and initiatives. Dr. Andresen retired on June 30, 2021 with Emeritus status.

She has served in a number of leadership roles at OHSU, including, from 2015 to 2016, interim dean of the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health, where she led the successful effort to secure accreditation.

Her work has been funded through the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among others. Dr. Andresen has published more than 130 peer-reviewed articles and was the principal investigator for the Oregon Office on Disability and Health at OHSU until 2016, a five-year state grant funded by the CDC.

An internationally recognized scholar, Dr. Andresen has served on and led dozens of national and international committees for the CDC, AHRQ and the NIH. She is an elected Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology, and a member of the American Association on Health and Disability, American Public Health Association and the Society for Epidemiologic Research.

Before coming to OHSU in 2011, Dr. Andresen served on the faculty at the University of Rochester, Saint Louis University, and, most recently, the University of Florida, where she was the founding chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the newly accredited College of Public Health and Health Professions. She received her bachelor's, master's and doctorate from the University of Washington.

When not at OHSU, she enjoys gardening and spending time with her husband in the High Desert near Wamic, Oregon, for star gazing and birding.