2019-2020 Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Scholars

Most recently, Dr. Enekwechi was a Vice President at McDermott+Consulting, and before that served as the Associate Director for Health Programs at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under President Barack Obama. As the federal government’s chief health care budget official, she provided budget, policy, management, and regulatory oversight for over $1 trillion in spending on a range of federal programs including Medicare, Medicaid, insurance marketplaces, the CMS Innovation Center, and for a number of agencies including CMS, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At the OMB, Dr. Enekwechi managed the review and approval of major CMMI reform proposals, as well as MACRA/Quality Payment Program rulemaking. She also managed OMB processes for reviewing several FDA policies, Medicaid negotiations, Zika and other public health funding requests. Dr. Enekwechi is highly experienced with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation, playing a key role in driving ACA budget, policy, strategy and operational coordination with various agencies, including the Department of Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Office of Personnel Management, among others.

Dr. Enekwechi was previously a Managing Consultant at the Lewin Group where she specialized in health policy evaluation, Medicare and Medicaid payment policies, and quality measurement. She also worked at the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, and the Congressional Budget Office. Dr. Enekwechi completed a BA at the University of Iowa, an MPP at the American University, and a PhD in Health Services and Policy from the University of Iowa. Her research area focused on the use of long-term care services among older adults. She completed postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago, School of Medicine. Dr. Enekwechi is also a Research Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, and a Visiting Professor at Meharry Medical College.

Dr. Merchant attended Yale University for her undergraduate degree, University of Chicago for Medical School, and the University of Pennsylvania for a Masters of Science in Health Policy Research and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program. Her research is at the intersection of digital media and health. She has specifically conducted projects evaluating health behaviors and communication on digital platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Instagram, and Google.  One of her projects in this area involves “banking language” through the development of a unique longitudinal database of social media data merged with health record data. Much of her work also bridges new technologies in the field of cardiovascular health and resuscitation science. In this context, she is the Director of the MyHeartMap Challenge, a social media and crowdsourcing project aimed at improving (automated external defibrillator) AED access and awareness by engaging the public to serve as citizen scientist.

Dr. Merchant is currently funded by the NIH and has over 100 peer-reviewed publications in journals such as NEJM, JAMA, Circulation, and Health Affairs. Her work has been featured in Wired, the Economist, the Wall Street Journal and others. She is a member of the editorial board of JAMA. She is an Aspen Health Innovators Fellow and was recognized by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as one of 10 young investigators likely to have a significant impact on the future of health and healthcare in the US.

Price has received a number of awards for his research work, including an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Howard Temin Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award, a young investigator award from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust, and being named as one of the inaugural “Tomorrow’s PIs” by Genome Technology. He was also named as a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, and received the 2016 Grace A. Goldsmith Award for his work pioneering scientific wellness.

Price has co-founded two companies: Consilience (a 2019 AI startup focused on the learning healthcare system) and Arivale. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI) and on the Board of Advisors for the American Cancer Society (WA).  He is also Chair of the NIH study section on Modeling and Analysis of Biological Systems (MABS).

Price also serves on numerous scientific advisory boards including for Providence St. Joseph Health, Roche (personalized healthcare division), Sera Prognostics, Navican, Basepaws, Mexico’s National Institute for Genomic Medicine, the Center for Big Data and Precision Health at Duke University, and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability. He is a fellow of the European Society of Preventive Medicine, and has published over 160 scientific papers and given 200 invited talks.

His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health including the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the Fogarty International Center, the National Science Foundation, the Health Effects Institute and non-governmental foundations.

Jeff received a PhD from Texas Tech University and completed a 2-year, NIEHS-sponsored postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas Medical Branch. After joining the faculty at Tulane University, he received the 170th Early Career Professorship.

Through a transformative collaboration with the Broad’s Chemical Biology Platform, the Xavier laboratory aims to discover small molecules that can correct pathways defective in Crohn’s and autoimmunity. Xavier and his colleagues have made progress in identifying small molecules in the autophagy pathway (Crohn’s), and small molecules that control cytokine function and regulatory T cells.

In his role as Chief of Gastroenterology at MGH, which he assumed in 2010, Xavier oversees one of the only comprehensive, multidisciplinary programs in New England dedicated to diagnosing, treating, and managing patients with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Xavier was elected to the American Association of Physicians in 2011and is also a fellow of the American College of Physicians and a fellow of the American College of Gastroenterology. Dr. Xavier received his MB, ChB from the University of Zimbabwe and completed his residency and fellowship at MGH.