Elizabeth Ferrell Bjerke is an attorney with the Center for Public Health Practice in the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. She studied international and maritime law at the University of Thessoloniki in Greece and received her law degree from Tulane University.

Bjerke was a litigator in private practice in New Orleans and Dallas. She then worked as counsel for the Food and Nutrition Service of the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington, DC. While there, Bjerke received an award for the implementation of a suspension and debarment program for food stamp fraud. She also helped to write legislation and regulations for the USDA’s food pyramid.

Bjerke has two faculty appointments and teaches public health law and ethics in the Department of Health Policy and Management, as well as in the School of Law. She began her career at Pitt in 2006 when she was hired to write a book for the Pennsylvania judiciary about emergencies with public health implications. Currently, Bjerke is leading a legal team in the creation of legal network maps showing visualizations of state emergency preparedness and response laws. She is also studying Pennsylvania oil and gas laws and state emergency preparedness capabilities as they relate to the CDC’s annual technical assistance reviews and the Strategic National Stockpile.

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Legal Networks Analyzer (LENA) and Public Health System Emergency Preparedness and Response Law Database