Dr. Benjamin F. Miller, PsyD, a clinical psychologist by training, is an academic, executive, and policy expert. Over the last two decades, Dr. Miller has worked tirelessly to prioritize mental health in our policies, programs, and investments. He works at the intersection of policy and practice, ensuring that mental health and substance misuse solutions are a focus across the world.

Dr. Miller’s expertise in the mental health space largely stems from the early days of his career. Beginning as an educator, teaching special education, he saw firsthand how our systems fail those who are in the most need. After receiving his doctorate in clinical psychology from Spalding University  in Louisville, he began his years-long professional relationship with the University of Colorado School of Medicine, beginning with his predoctoral internship at Colorado in 2006. He subsequently trained at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, focusing on how we can better integrate mental health into primary care.

After returning to Colorado from Massachusetts, he joined the Department of Family Medicine where he worked for over 8 years, ultimately achieving the academic rank of Associate Professor. During his tenure at Colorado, he helped establish the Eugene S. Farley, Jr. Health Policy Center as its founding director. The Farley Center positioned Miller as a national thought leader on mental health and policy and led to the creation of several seminal documents and publications. From Colorado, he transitioned to help start Well Being Trust, a national foundation that focused on advancing the mental, social, and spiritual health of the nation. Under his leadership as president of the foundation, Well Being Trust helped invest in the creation of several movement building organizations, reports that influenced policy change, and tools that could be used by communities to advance mental health.

With over 100 publications and hundreds of invited keynote speaking engagements, Miller has fought relentlessly to change the national narrative around mental health.

Driven by an unwavering desire to help our society’s most vulnerable members, Dr. Miller has assisted children in the special education system as they navigate school, supported cancer patients struggling to cope with their diagnosis, and worked with prison inmates on ways to successfully reintegrate into their communities. These experiences led him to see how the continued marginalization of mental health in America has damaging consequences that penetrate through every layer of society, and has the potential to affect everyone, regardless of age, race, or socioeconomic background. Dr. Miller has tirelessly advocated for systemic reform to America’s approach to discussing, diagnosing, and treating those who struggle with mental health conditions, including drug and alcohol misuse.

His extensive policy work led him to be sought out by numerous policy leaders, including presidential candidates. In 2019, Dr. Miller helped the Buttigieg campaign as a lead on his mental health and addiction policy platform called Healing and Belonging in America. He has also testified to multiple federal and state committees, including the United States Committee on Finance. Working with both sides of the aisle, his experience and professional opinion are renowned and often sought after by Members of Congress and state officials regarding how best to advance mental health policy in America. He has made presentations around the world about the increasing need to make mental health an integral part of health care. He is also the author of a weekly newsletter, Mental: Fighting the fragmentation of mental health one policy at a time, where subscribers gather to read a timely take about how everyday happenings are connected to mental health, and advice about how they can address them.

Dr. Miller has been featured in numerous local and national media outlets – including the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Hill, CNN, MSNBC, USA Today, NPR, and Bloomberg News, and countless others. Today he maintains a leadership presence in a variety or organizations, including  Inseparable, Stanford School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and the British Journal of General Practice. Dr. Miller was the past president of the Collaborative Family Healthcare Association and an Institute for Healthcare Improvement faculty member.

With a deep respect and understanding for the ways in which the future of mental health will be shaped by our communities, Dr. Miller has worked to democratize knowledge and programs for mental health with the end goal of all of us having more capacity to help each other. He has co-lead work on Community Initiated Care, which aims to strengthen communities to become the first, most immediate response to common mental health needs. In addition, Dr. Miller truly believes that the next generation of leaders will transform mental health in America and has dedicated countless hours to encouraging young people to develop creative solutions to the problems their peers are facing each day.

Dr. Miller has received numerous awards and grants for his work, which include leading the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Academy for Integrating Behavioral and Primary Care project, the Sustaining Healthcare Across Integrated Primary Care Efforts (SHAPE) project and acting as a technical expert for multiple Centers for Medicare and Medicaid discussions. He has participated in multiple National Academies of Science, engineering, and Medicine workgroups and committees, most recently appointed to a committee focused on strategies to improve access to behavioral health care services through Medicare and Medicaid.

In 2022, he was alumni of the year for Spalding University, and has received presidential citations from the American Psychological Association and the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine.

Dr. Miller was the lead author on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Whole Health report – which provided specific direction to advance mental health nationally. He is on the Board of Mental Health Colorado, the Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health, Kokoro, and 2nd Verses, and chairs the Inseparable Advisory Board.

Dr. Miller’s powerful work and continued passion for advocating for mental health reform has taken him into communities all across the country, from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he currently plays music, paints, and spends time with his wife and daughters.