Lauren Hughes, M.D., M.P.H., M.Sc., M.H.C.D.S., FAAFP

Lauren S. Hughes is a Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Colorado and the State Policy Director of the Eugene S. Farley, Jr. Health Policy Center. A practicing family physician, she researches how to improve primary care payment and financing, strengthen rural health care delivery, and enhance access to integrated behavioral health. Dr. Hughes desires to change policies and systems in innovative, equitable, and sustainable ways to help marginalized communities thrive.

Dr. Hughes previously served as Deputy Secretary for Health Innovation in the Pennsylvania Department of Health. In this role, she collaborated with the CMS Innovation Center (CMMI) to co-design and launch the Pennsylvania Rural Health Model, the first-of-its-kind payment and delivery model to transition rural hospitals from fee-for-service to multi-payer global budgets. Earlier in her career, she volunteered through AmeriCorps in a federally qualified health center, studied medicine and health systems in Brazil, Sweden, Tanzania, and Botswana, and served as national president of the American Medical Student Association. She has been a visiting scholar at the Robert Graham Center, the ABC News Medical Unit in New York City, CMMI, and The Commonwealth Fund. In 2018, Dr. Hughes was selected by Presidents Clinton and Bush as a Presidential Leadership Scholar, and in 2022, she was elected Chair of the American Board of Family Medicine Board of Directors. From 2023 until 2026, she co-chaired the Standing Committee on Primary Care within the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. In 2026, along with co-editors Drs. Anthony Cheng and Jen DeVoe, she published the textbook “Primary Care in a Public Health Emergency: Lessons from the Frontlines of the COVID-19 Pandemic.”

Dr. Hughes completed the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program at the University of Michigan, where she earned an MSc in health and health care research. She also holds a master’s degree in health care delivery science from Dartmouth College, an MPH in health policy from The George Washington University, and a medical degree from the University of Iowa. She completed family medicine residency at the University of Washington – Harborview Hospital.