Alyssa Padilla, MPH

Alyssa Padilla, MPH, is the operations director for the University of Arizona Health Sciences Comprehensive Center for Pain & Addiction. She leads workforce development, access to care, harm reduction and substance use programming, directs center operations, and supervises managers leading federal and state workforce- and community-based programs. Since 2015, she has led $12.3 million in federal- and state-funded substance use projects, which included supervising 13 staff members and student employees and leading 37 people on nine teams to address substance use in Arizona and successfully accomplish project goals.

Padilla has led program operations, community outreach, education and marketing approaches, and community-based participatory research at the local, state, national and global levels since age 16. A proud Tucsonan, Padilla works to implement community-based public health programming for rural communities and in areas with health care provider shortages. She has won numerous awards for her teamwork and leadership, including the University of Arizona Team Award for Excellence and the White House Healthy Campus Challenge winner, among others.

Padilla previously served on substance use prevention and access-to-care coalitions, including Substance Abuse Coalition Leaders of AZ, Cover AZ, Healthy Pima Medical Practices Taskforce, the Community Prevention Coalition, Pima County Substance Misuse Advisory Committee, Governor's Office for Youth, Faith and Family Community Outreach and Training Workgroup and others.

She earned her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Arizona Eller College of Management and her Master of Public Health from the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. She worked as a fellow on Capitol Hill and in the Department of Health and Human Services in the Office of Global Health Affairs in Washington, D.C.