Niya Werts, PhD, MS, has joined the Graduate School faculty to lead the Master of Science in Health Science program. She is teaching several courses this spring as an adjunct faculty member and will begin mid-June in a full-time faculty role, where she’ll also serve as program director of the MS Health Science.
Dr. Werts is an accomplished educator, scholar, and leader and has taught health science in community and higher education settings for more than 15 years. She has an interdisciplinary focus on community health and health information technology. She is currently a tenured associate professor at Towson University in the Department of Health Sciences and program director of its MS in Health Science. She’s worked at Towson since 2007. Prior to her time at Towson, she worked with various organizations, including Johns Hopkins and the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development.
She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in biology from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, a Master of Health and Exercise Science from Miami University of Ohio, a Master of Information Systems from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Information Systems from UMBC. She’s also held an active license as a massage therapist in the state of Maryland since 2002. Her primary interests are in the realm of health literacy and health data integration for the improvement of health care on the community and organizational levels.