Rate My Professor Ross Silverman

Ross D. Silverman, JD, MPH, is Professor of Health Services Administration and Policy and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs at Temple University’s Christopher M. Barnett College of Public Health. He holds a secondary appointment as Professor at Temple University Beasley School of Law and serves as a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Public Health Law Research. Silverman earned his Juris Doctor from Boston University School of Law, Master of Public Health in Health Services from Boston University School of Public Health, and Bachelor of Arts in History from Indiana University–Bloomington. Before joining Temple University in 2021, he was Professor at Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health and Robert H. McKinney School of Law from 2013 to 2021, including as Interim Chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management. From 1998 to 2013, he held faculty positions at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and School of Law, advancing from Assistant Professor to Professor and Chair of Medical Humanities.

Silverman specializes in public health law, policy, and ethics, with expertise in vaccination law, policy surveillance, legal epidemiology, and effects on vulnerable populations. An internationally recognized authority, he advised local, state, national governments, and NGOs during the COVID-19 pandemic on vaccination access, hesitancy, mandates, exemptions, contact tracing, quarantine, isolation, and response inequities. His scholarship has appeared in leading journals including New England Journal of Medicine (“Ensuring Uptake of Vaccines against SARS-CoV-2,” 2020; “Vaccination over Parental Objection,” 2019), BMJ (“Covid-19, equity, and inclusiveness,” 2021), JAMA, Health Affairs, American Journal of Public Health, and Hastings Center Report. He received the American Public Health Association Law Section Lifetime Service Award in 2013, among other honors such as Profile in Public Health Law by the CDC. Silverman serves on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics as President-Elect in 2025 and President in 2026, on the Editorial Board of Public Health Reports, and has chaired the APHA Health Law Special Primary Interest Group and Action Board. He teaches graduate-level Public Health Policy and Legal Issues and mentors in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Future of Public Health Law program.