Elizabeth Dzeng

Dr. Elizabeth Dzeng is an Associate Professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in the Division of Hospital Medicine and Affiliated Faculty in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies. She is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Cicely Saunders Institute, King's College London. Her research bridges medical sociology, medical ethics, palliative care, and human-centered design, focusing on how institutional cultures and policies shape clinical practices and ethical frameworks in end-of-life care.

• PhD in Medical Sociology, University of Cambridge (2015)
• MPhil in Development Studies, University of Cambridge (2008)
• MD and MPH in Health and Human Rights, Johns Hopkins University (2009, 2007)
• BS and MS in Biological Sciences/History and Chemical Engineering, Stanford University (2003)

Her research program examines the influence of neoliberalism on healthcare institutions, goal-concordant care, and moral distress among clinicians. She employs comparative ethnographic interviews across the U.S. and U.K. to analyze institutional ethics in critical care and uses community-based participatory research to address disparities in serious illness care. Her recent publications analyze institutional structures, code status design, and social determinants of care for vulnerable populations.

Dr. Dzeng has received prestigious awards including the NIA/NIH Beeson Emerging Leaders Award (K76, 2022-2027), the Sojourns Scholars Leadership Award (2022-2024), and multiple NIH Loan Repayment Program Awards. She holds leadership roles in the Society of General Internal Medicine and the Research Centers Cooperative Network.

Her Google Scholar articles from 2023-2025 reveal trends in studying institutional ethics, DNA vaccine development, structural racism in end-of-life care, and health policy, with recurring sub-fields in neoliberalism, moral distress, and human-centered design.