Boise State University welcomes Public Health Officer Maureen Welcker.
Reporting to the chief of staff and vice president for compliance, legal and audit, Welcker will be essential in planning and directing everyone’s safe return to campus this fall in response to COVID-19. In her role, Welcker will provide public health informed guidance on COVID-19 related matters to the university’s senior leadership team and the campus community, serve as the primary public health resource for reintegration planning, liaise with other state and federal agencies and organizations, and work with internal stakeholders to determine how to deploy public health strategies. She also will lead efforts to establish a contact tracing program unique to Boise State, enabling a more nimble campus response to positive cases and notification of close contacts within our community in coordination with University Health Services and Central District Health.
Welcker brings extensive public health knowledge and experience connected to many facets of the pandemic, and joins Boise State having already provided guidance to local and state agencies on COVID-19 response. In her career, Welcker has worked with diverse national, regional, state and local partners to plan, respond and recover from public health concerns and outbreaks.
She has significant epidemiology training from her prior work with the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (IDHW) and Masters of Public Health (MPH) degree from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
Among her many achievements, Welcker successfully coordinated Idaho’s inaugural public health preparedness and response program’s emergency communication and training efforts, and thereafter spearheaded the state’s pandemic influenza emergency preparedness and response program, with coordination of 33 state agencies and Idaho’s seven District Health Departments. Welcker additionally has organized and been involved in stand-out public health emergency response efforts, including Idaho’s 2002-03 smallpox vaccination efforts, national polio vaccination clinics and public health campaigns in West Africa, Congressional information sessions at the United States Capitol and H1N1 pandemic influenza vaccination clinics.
Welcker brings a depth of knowledge to the university as a public health expert with a self- described creative, “out-of-the-box” mindset. In her free time, Welcker enjoys running and outdoor adventuring with her family including rafting, hiking and skiing.