Ann Lee Burch, Ed.D.

Dean of the Arizona School of Health Sciences (ATSU-ASHS)

A.T. Still University

Dr. Ann Lee Burch has served as the dean of A.T. Still University’s Arizona School of Health Sciences (ATSU-ASHS) since 2019. Dr. Burch received her EdD from Columbia University, Teachers College in 2005. She received her MPH from Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health in 2002 and her MSPT from Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1989. She was a postdoctoral fellow with the Research Group on Health Disparities at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her BA is in psychology from the University of Rochester.

Prior to her appointment as dean, Dr. Burch served as vice dean for ATSU-ASHS. She served as the chair of the Physical Therapy Department from 2008-January 2012. Prior to ATSU, Dr. Burch was the director of physical therapy at the University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She has held full time clinical, administrative and/or faculty positions at the International Center for the Disabled in NY, NY, Mercy College in NY, Long Island University in Brooklyn, NY, the University of Puerto Rico, Centro Medico and A.T. Still University.
Dr. Burch’s area of scholarly interest and application of that interest is the knowledge, attitudes, and self-efficacy of health care providers and healthcare professional students towards underrepresented patient/client groups. More recently she has researched, published, and is interested in higher education leadership during times of economic, political, health or environmental crisis.

Dr. Burch is the author of a Guide to Physical Therapy (Vault Publishers) which was written to increase information access about physical therapy to both high school graduates and re-entry adults. She was a co-investigator on an NIH grant at the University of Puerto Rico exploring the feasibility of an exercise program for breast cancer survivors living in San Juan. Dr. Burch has lived in Symi, Greece, Taipei, Taiwan, Ahmedabad, India and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

She was a member of the class of 2019 cohort with the Institute of Management and Leadership Education and also a member of the class of 2014 cohort of Women in Educational Leadership at Harvard Graduate School of Education.
In 2017 she was the co-PI on a Centers for Disease Control, Association for Prevention and Teaching grant exploring a population health case study format for teaching and communicating the impact of social determinants of health on disparities.

She has been a peer corps reviewer for the Higher Learning Commission since 2018.

In 2025, she was named a National Academies of Practice Distinguished Scholar Fellow.