Montana State University
Jennifer DeVoe, 1992 Goldwater Scholarship Recipient

Jennifer DeVoe credits her ’92 Goldwater scholarship with deepening her interest in science and launching her career as a physician-scientist. After obtaining her Bachelors in Science degree in Interdisciplinary Studies in 1993, Jennifer obtained her MD from Harvard Medical School in 1999, her MPhil and DPhil from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 1998 and 2001, and completed her Family Medicine residency at the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) in 2004. Since that time, she has served as a full time faculty member in OHSU’s Department of Family Medicine and has recently become the department chair. She sees patients at the OHSU Gabriel Park Family Health Center, precepts medical students and residents, and mentors graduate students, fellows and junior faculty members. She holds joint appointments in OHSU’s Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology and at Kaiser Permanente Northwest Center for Health Research.

Today, Jennifer uses the research skills she started to learn as an undergraduate at Montana State University in her position as a senior advisor for a practice-based research network of community health centers at OCHIN, Inc., a nonprofit health care innovation center designed to provide knowledge solutions that promote quality, affordable health care for all. DeVoe studies access to health care, disparities in care, and how transformations in primary care affect patients’ health outcomes. She has pioneered the use of electronic health record data to better understand primary care utilization by uninsured and underinsured populations, which has garnered her national attention, particularly relating to the Affordable Care Act. She leads a multidisciplinary team of community and academic researchers with expertise in informatics, sociology, epidemiology, biostatistics, economics, primary care, health services research, clinical medicine, health care disparities, and anthropology. Her team’s research findings inform community, practice and policy interventions that help to improve the delivery of care for vulnerable populations and eliminate health disparities. DeVoe is currently a Principal Investigator on several large research studies funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the National Institutes of Health. She is an author on more than 100 peer-reviewed publications. DeVoe has led or supported over 30 studies at OHSU and OCHIN since 2006, spanning across 300 clinic practice sites, with over $20 million in grant funding. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) in 2014.

While the Goldwater influenced DeVoe, she also suggests that the Goldwater award had a significant impact on Montana State. “The Goldwater helped my University understand how strategic investments in Montana State’s honors program were critical to maximizing the success of talented students. “In addition to my Goldwater award,” DeVoe went on to say, “I am pleased to say that Montana State students have been awarded an additional 66 Goldwater Scholarships.”