Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Scholars

Rima A. Arnaout, MD

Rima A. Arnaout, MD

Associate Professor in Residence, University of California San Francisco

Bio

Dr. Rima Arnaout is Associate Professor of Medicine, a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub investigator, and faculty in the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, the Biological and Medical Informatics program, and the Center for Intelligent Imaging at the UCSF. She is investigating whether machine learning can be used to detect standard and novel patterns in biomedical imaging in a scalable fashion, with the goals of decreasing diagnostic error in medical imaging and uncovering new phenotypes for precision medicine research. Dr. Arnaout completed her undergraduate degree at MIT, her MD at Harvard Medical School, residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, and cardiology fellowship at UCSF.

Swathi Arur, PhD

Swathi Arur, PhD

Associate Professor and Deputy Chair, Department of Genetics, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

Bio

Dr. Arur established her laboratory in the Department of Genetics at MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2010.  Over the last 12 years, her lab has built a strong foundation for understanding how female nutrition regulates reproduction and progeny survival and defined new molecular targets of cancer metastasis. Discoveries in the Arur Lab are primarily driven via federal, state, and private funds, in particular the National Institute for Health, American Cancer Society, Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, Anna Fuller Foundation among others. Dr. Arur obtained her Ph.D. with Prof. M.K. Bhan from the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences in India and conducted her postdoctoral work at Washington University School of Medicine with Prof. Tim Schedl.  Dr. Arur serves on the Board of Directors at Genetics Society of America, she Chairs the Awards Committee for GSA, serves as a standing study section member of the NIH study section (CMIR); as an Editor at Development (published by Company of Biologists, UK). Dr. Arur is the co-chair and chair of the Gordon Research Conference in Developmental Biology in 2023 and 2025, respectively, (these are leading scientific meetings in the field).  Dr. Arur was awarded the MD Anderson Presidential Scholar Award in 2017 and the Distinguished Faculty Mentor at MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2018. In 2020, Dr. Arur was Elected Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Sciences.

Ami S. Bhatt, MD, PhD

Ami S. Bhatt, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor of Medicine (Hematology, BMT) and Genetics; Director of Global Oncology, Center for Innovation in Global Health, Stanford University

Bio

Ami Bhatt is a physician-scientist with a strong interest in microbial genomics and metagenomics. She received her MD and PhD from the University of California, San Francisco. She then carried out her residency and fellowship training at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and served as Chief Medical Resident from 2010-2011. She joined the faculty of the Departments of Medicine (Divisions of Hematology and Blood & Marrow Transplantation) and Genetics at Stanford University in 2014 after completing a post-doctoral fellowship focused on genomics at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. Prof. Bhatt has received multiple awards for her academic scholarship including the Chen Award of Excellence from the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO).

Her team’s research program seeks to illuminate the interplay between the microbial environment and host/clinical factors in human diseases. Her translational laboratory develops and applies novel molecular and computational tools to study strain level dynamics of the microbiome, to understand how microbial genomes change over time and predict the functional output of microbiomes. These innovations facilitate much improved (1) measurement of the types and functions of microbes in patients with non-communicable diseases, (2) understanding how microbes communicate with one another and with human cells using small proteins, and (3) testing of the impact of microbially targeted interventions in clinical trials.

In addition to carrying out research at Stanford University, Prof. Bhatt has active collaborations worldwide including in Nigeria and South Africa. She is committed to ensuring that advances in research touch the lives of individuals in all income settings–and thus, in her spare time, enjoys volunteering for the nonprofit she co-founded, Global Oncology and serves as the Director for Global Oncology for Stanford’sCenter for Innovation in Global Health.

Brandon Brown, PhD, MPH

Brandon Brown, PhD, MPH

Associate Professor of Medicine, Department of Social Medicine, Population, and Public Health, University of California, Riverside

Bio

Brandon Brown is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Medicine, Population and Public Health at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) School of Medicine (SOM). His primary research interests include the health impacts of aging with HIV and ethical issues in HIV research. He has received funding from both private and federal organizations, working closely with community partners in every step of the research process. The first in his family to attend college, Dr. Brown earned his bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from the University of California, Irvine, followed by a MPH in epidemiology from UCLA. He then attended the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to earn his PhD in international health with a focus on epidemiology. After returning from his dissertation studies in Peru, he conducted postdoctoral work at UCLA. Dr. Brown received additional training as a HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) Scholar, a Resource Center for Minority Aging Research Scholar, trainee at the Fordham HIV Research Ethics Training Institute (RETI), and visiting scholar at the Hastings Center for Bioethics. Dr. Brown is the Chair of the Board of Directors of TruEvolution, a non-profit organization advocating for health equity and racial justice for LGBTQ+ people; faculty advisor for the UCR Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program; equity advisor for the SOM; faculty member at RETI; member of the APHA Nations Health Advisory Board; and member of the HPTN ethics working group. His recent grants focus on developing a virtual village to halt isolation of people aging with HIV, and investigating payment practices in clinical research. With more than 140 publications, Dr. Brown is an avid collaborator and a highly sought-after epidemiologist for the media on topics related to COVID-19, having appeared in well over 100 outlets, including NPR, Time Magazine, and the Atlantic. 

Alejandra Casillas, MD, MSHS

Alejandra Casillas, MD, MSHS

Assistant Professor of Medicine in Residence, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles

Bio

Alejandra Casillas MD, MSHS is an assistant professor of medicine in residence, in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research at the David Geffen School of

Medicine at UCLA. She practices primary care at UCLA, and also teaches medical students and internal medicine residents while caring for patients at the Venice Family Free Clinic. As the daughter of Mexican immigrants, Dr. Casillas witnessed the health disparities lived by her family, and the struggle for a better life in her diverse Los Angeles community. Today, as a primary care physician for the underserved, a mentor to trainees from disadvantaged backgrounds, and a health disparities researcher, she addresses these inequities.

The first in her family to attend college, Dr. Casillas completed her undergraduate studies at Harvard College and medical training at Harvard Medical School, where she received the Dean’s Community Service Award and was a Paul and Daisy Soros Scholar for New Americans. She finished her internal medicine and primary care residency at the University of California San Francisco, also serving as Chief Medical Resident at UCSF Medical Center. Dr. Casillas returned to Los Angeles as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at UCLA– where she completed a health services research and leadership fellowship, and received a masters’ degree at the Fielding School of Public Health. After completing her training, Dr. Casillas worked at the academic medical centers in Geneva and Lausanne, with funding from the Swiss Office of Public Health, to address immigrant health disparities in the French-speaking region of Switzerland.

Dr. Casillas’ health services research focuses on the low-income communities served by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, the second largest municipal safety net in the US, developing digital health interventions tailored to socially complex, Limited English Proficient patients. Her published scholarship also includes research and programming initiatives addressing equity and diversity inclusion in academia and health, connecting to her UCLA roles as director of the CTSI Health Disparities Student Research Program, and founder of the First Generation Program at the School of Medicine.

Christopher R. Cogle, MD

Christopher R. Cogle, MD

Professor of Hematology and Oncology, University of Florida

Bio

Christopher R. Cogle, M.D. is a physician, scientist, and professor of hematology and oncology at the University of Florida. Through mentored career awards from the National Institutes of Health(NIH K08) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology, he discovered that adult blood stem cells make blood vessels. He used that discovery to invent and patent new therapeutics for patients with blood cancers and cardiovascular diseases. He has been named a Top 10 Young Stem Cell Scientist by the British Council, a Scholar in Clinical Research by The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and his clinic has been designated a Center of Excellence by The Myelodysplastic Syndromes Foundation. He founded two startup companies, CancerPOP and addon, based on his inventions. Civic engagement is a priority for Dr. Cogle beginning in his early days in Scouting. He is currently a Den Leader in his children’s Cub Scout Pack. He has produced two documentaries–“The Gap” and “A Narrow Catch”–that shed light on systemic injustices in the American health system. Dr. Cogle led the State of Florida’s effort in crafting and implementing the Florida Cancer Plan, as elected Chairperson of the Florida Cancer Control and Research Advisory Council. As a National Academy of Medicine Emerging Leader in Health and Medicine Scholar, Dr. Cogle will expand his health policy efforts by focusing on national and international challenges in health promotion, disease prevention, and disease control.

Paul Cohen, MD, PhD

Paul Cohen, MD, PhD

Albert Resnick, M.D. Associate Professor, The Rockefeller University

Bio

Paul Cohen is the Albert Resnick, MD Associate Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Metabolism at the Rockefeller University. He is also a cardiologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He is a graduate of the Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program, where he completed his PhD research with Dr. Jeffrey Friedman studying the unique metabolic effects of the hormone, leptin. He then pursued clinical training in Internal Medicine at Columbia and in Cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He completed postdoctoral research training with Dr. Bruce Spiegelman at Dana Farber Cancer Institute studying transcriptional determinants of adipocyte identity. Dr. Cohen’s lab focus on understanding the molecular links between obesity and associated diseases with a particular focus on diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.

Carrie H. Colla, PhD

Carrie H. Colla, PhD

Associate Professor, The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth

Bio

Dr. Carrie Colla is an Associate Professor of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice at the Geisel School of Medicine. A health economist, Dr. Colla focuses on provider payment, health insurance markets, and insurance benefit design. Her work is aimed at improving the quality, accessibility, and cost of health care. Colla’s investigator-initiated research is dedicated to examining health system performance and the effectiveness of payment and delivery system reforms, including accountable care organizations. Her empirical studies include the effects of changes in Medicare reimbursement for physicians and institutional providers on vulnerable patient populations; the prevalence and drivers of low-value health care services; and labor market effects of health insurance expansions, among others. In 2017-2018 Dr. Colla participated in the Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship, with placements in the House of Representatives and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. Colla received her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College, and her MA in economics and PhD in health policy from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dustin T. Duncan, ScD

Dustin T. Duncan, ScD

Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University

Bio

Dustin T. Duncan, ScD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, where he directs Columbia’s Spatial Epidemiology Lab and co-directs the department’s Social and Spatial Epidemiology Unit. Dr. Duncan is a Social and Spatial Epidemiologist. His research broadly seeks to understand how social and contextual factors especially neighborhood characteristics influence population health, with a particular focus on HIV epidemiology and prevention and sleep epidemiology and promotion. Dr. Duncan’s intersectional research focuses on Black gay, bisexual and other sexual minority men and transgender women of color. His work appears in leading public health, epidemiology, medical, geography, criminology, demography, and psychology journals. Working in collaborations with scholars across the world, he has over 200 high-impact articles, book chapters and books, and his research has appeared in major media outlets including U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Post, The New York Times and CNN. Dr. Duncan’s recent work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the HIV Prevention Trials Network, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Verizon Foundation, and the Aetna Foundation. He has received several early career and distinguished scientific contribution awards including from the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science (IAPHS). In 2020, he received the Mentor of the Year Award from Columbia University Irving Medical Center’s Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research.

Ellen F. Eaton, MD, MSPH

Ellen F. Eaton, MD, MSPH

Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Alabama Birmingham

Bio

Ellen Eaton is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and Director of the UAB 1917 HIV Clinic Outpatient-based Opioid Treatment Clinic. Her patient care and research is focused on infectious outcomes of substance use and mental health disorders. She studies low barrier interventions, such as patient reported outcomes, telehealth, and peer navigation, to improve diagnosis and treatment of addiction in the Deep South. She has recently extended her work to Zambia, another resource poor setting, to test low barrier therapies for substance use as a means to improve HIV outcomes.

Justin Basile Echouffo Tcheugui, MD, PhD

Justin Basile Echouffo Tcheugui, MD, PhD

Associate Professor of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Bio

Justin is a physician-scientist. He trained in clinical endocrinology and metabolism at Harvard University, USA. He underwent research training in epidemiology at the University of Cambridge, UK. and in clinical \investigation at Boston University, USA. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

His clinical practice focuses on diabetes and obesity. His research is at the intersection of metabolism and cardiovascular diseases, exploring the pathways leading to type 2 diabetes, as well as the related-cardiovascular complications. He uses epidemiological methods and other investigational approaches (biomarkers, imaging, etc.) to understand the natural history and pathogenesis of diabetes and the resultant cardiovascular complications.

Holly Fernandez Lynch, JD, MBe

Holly Fernandez Lynch, JD, MBe

Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics and Law, Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Bio

Holly Fernandez Lynch, JD, MBE, is Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics in the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, as well as assistant professor of law at Penn Carey Law School. She pursues conceptual and empirical research and scholarship with the goal of influencing institutional and governmental policy. Her work focuses on clinical research ethics and regulation, priority setting in research, access to investigational medicines outside clinical trials, FDA pharmaceutical policy, and the ethics of gatekeeping in health care.

Professor Fernandez Lynch is founder and co-chair of the Consortium to Advance Effective Research Ethics Oversight (www.AEREO.org), an organization working to evaluate and improve IRB quality and effectiveness, and an active member of the NYU Working Group on Compassionate Use and Preapproval Access (CUPA). She serves as a member of the boards of Public Responsibility in Medicine & Research (PRIM&R) and the American Society for Law, Medicine, and Ethics, and as “ethicist in residence” at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She was previously a member of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP).

Professor Fernandez Lynch has worked as an attorney in private practice, as a bioethicist serving NIH’s Division of AIDS, as an analyst with President Obama’s Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, and as executive director of Harvard Law School’s bioethics and health law research program. She was named a Greenwall Faculty Scholar in 2019 and elected a fellow of the Hastings Center in 2021.

Anna Greka, MD, PhD

Anna Greka, MD, PhD

Associate Professor of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School; Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Bio

With a focus on laying the foundation for molecularly targeted therapies, Anna Greka’s scientific work is centered on understanding membrane proteins and fundamental mechanisms of disrupted cellular homeostasis.

Anna’s early scientific work focused on the role of TRP ion channels in essential cellular functions. Combining her expertise in ion channel biology with the study of kidney podocytes, she uncovered a pathway linking TRPC5 ion channel activity to cytoskeletal dysregulation and cell death. Based on these discoveries, TRPC5 inhibitors are now being tested in the clinic for difficult-to-treat kidney diseases.

Recently, Anna and her team made a key discovery of a general mechanism that monitors the quality of membrane protein cargoes destined for the cell surface by studying a proteinopathy in the kidney, caused by a mutation in MUC1. Specifically, they identified a mechanism for membrane protein quality control that is operative in diverse cell types and tissues, such as kidney epithelial cells and retina photoreceptors. The study of cargo quality control and its implications for several toxic proteinopathies is now a major focus of the laboratory.

Anna is also interested in dissecting the fundamental mechanisms of disrupted cellular homeostasis at the intersection of proteotoxicity and lipotoxicity across the lifespan, with implications for many metabolic and degenerative human diseases.

Anna is the recipient of several honors, including the 2020 Donald W. Seldin Young Investigator Award by the American Society of Nephrology and the American Heart Association, the 2018 Seldin-Smith Award for Pioneering Research from the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI), a 2017 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, a 2014 Top 10 Exceptional Research Award from the Clinical Research Council, and a 2014 Young Physician-Scientist Award from the ASCI. She was also elected to the ASCI Council, and serves on the Harvard-MIT M.D.-Ph.D. Program Leadership Council.

Kelli Stidham Hall, PhD, MS

Kelli Stidham Hall, PhD, MS

Associate Professor, Heilbrunn Department of Population & Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University; Associate Professor, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University

Bio

Dr. Kelli Stidham Hall is an Associate Professor in the Heilbrunn Department of Population & Family Health at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and adjunct Associate Professor with tenure at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. She completed her PhD from Columbia University, a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University, and a NIH “BIRCWH” K12 Faculty Career Development Award at the University of Michigan. She is the Founding Director and Principal Investigator of the Center for Reproductive Health Research in the SouthEast (RISE) at Emory. Dr. Hall’s NIH-and foundation-funded program uses biosocial and multi-level frameworks and interdisciplinary methods to study the social determinants of reproductive health and health disparities in the U.S. and Africa. One major research theme entails evaluating the effects of policies and other macrosocial factors on family planning service delivery, access to care and outcomes. Her >15 years of clinical experience as a primary care advanced practice nurse informed her other theme focused on understanding and addressing interrelationships between reproductive, mental and behavioral health and social wellbeing during adolescence and young adulthood. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Society for Family Planning; Editorial Board of Contraception journal; Executive Committee of the National Medical Committee of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and formerly as Section Counselor for APHA’s Population, Sexual and Reproductive Health (PSRH) Section. Dr. Hall was awarded APHA PSRH’s Outstanding Young Professional and the Society of Adolescent Health and Medicine’s Robert DuRant Statistical Rigor and Scientific Innovation in Adolescent Health Research Award.

Sidney H. Hankerson, MD, MBA

Sidney H. Hankerson, MD, MBA

Vice Chair for Community Engagement in Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Bio

Sidney Hankerson, MD, MBA is Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Community Engagement in the Department of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is also Director of Mental Health Equity Research in the Institute for Health Equity Research at Mount Sinai.  His research focuses on reducing racial/ethnic disparities in mental health treatment. He is a nationally recognized expert at faith-based mental health services research.

New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio recently appointed Dr. Hankerson as Chair of the Community Services Board of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.  Dr. Hankerson has presented his study results at the White House, United Nations, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Gracie Mansion (NYC Mayor’s Office), and numerous national academic conferences. He was an inaugural member of the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Council of Faith and Community Partnerships and served on the APA Council of Minority Mental Health and Health Disparities.

Dr. Hankerson completed a dual MD/MBA program from Emory University, where he was Medical School Class President for two years. He completed his psychiatry residency at Emory and was named Chief Resident of Psychiatry at Grady Memorial Hospital. He then completed a NIMH T32 post-doctoral research fellowship at Columbia University and was on faculty at Columbia for 12 years before transitioning to his current leadership roles at Mount Sinai. 

Ronald L. Hickman, Jr., PhD, RN, ACNP-BC, FNAP, FAAN

Ronald L. Hickman, Jr., PhD, RN, ACNP-BC, FNAP, FAAN

The Ruth M. Anderson Endowed Chair and Associate Dean for Research, Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, Case Western Reserve University

Bio

Ronald Hickman is the inaugural Ruth M. Anderson Endowed Chair and Associate Dean for Research at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). He is a registered nurse and a board-certified acute care nurse practitioner who has provided postoperative care for critically ill patients and their families. As a nurse scientist, Dr. Hickman is nationally known for his pioneering work focused on technology-based solutions to improve chronic disease self-management and end-of-life care. His innovative work integrates knowledge from several disciplinary domains to develop technologies and understand biobehavioral mechanisms that influence how patients and their families make decisions and manage their health or an acute illness. He is currently the principal investigator for an NIH-funded clinical trial evaluating the effects of a decision support technology for family members of critically ill patients posed with end-of-life care decisions.

Dr. Hickman received his PhD in nursing science from CWRU and completed a 4-year career development award (KL2) in multidisciplinary clinical and translational research at CWRU’s School of Medicine. Dr. Hickman’s scholarship has garnered numerous regional and national awards from research and professional societies, such as distinguished scientist awards and recognition for his efforts to enhance diversity and inclusion in nursing. He is committed to mentoring others and has received his university’s highest honors for excellence in mentoring undergraduates and graduate students. Dr.Hickman is an elected fellow of the National Academies of Practice and the American Academy of Nursing.

Ehsan Hoque, PhD

Ehsan Hoque, PhD

Assistant Professor of Computer Science; Affiliate faculty, Goergen Institute for Data Science, University of Rochester

Bio

Ehsan Hoque is an Asaro-Biggar (’92) Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Rochester, where he co-leads the Rochester Human-Computer Interaction (ROC HCI) Group. From 2018-2019, he was the Interim Director of the Georgen Institute for Data Science.

Dr. Hoque uses Artificial Intelligence and Human-centered computing to amplify human ability. He models and captures the dynamics of human behavior using machine learning and network sciences; and design interactive systems to promote equality and access in health care. He has identified opportunities in developing technologies that can improve the lives of disadvantaged, ill, disabled, and other individuals who struggle with socio-emotional communication, such as those with autism, severe anxiety, neurodegenerative disease, and terminal illness.

His ideas and impact have been recognized by NSF CRII, NSF CAREER, and Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (ECASE). MIT Technology Review named him as one of the Top Innovators Under 35 (TR35) Award in 2016, and Science News recognized him as one of ten early-to mid-career scientists to watch in 2017. He is an inaugural member of the Association of Computing Machinery’s Future of Computing Academy (ACM FCA).

He earned his PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013, working with Prof. Rosalind Picard. His dissertation work of developing an intelligent agent to improve the socio-emotional ability of humans was highlighted by MIT Museum as one of MIT’s most unconventional inventions. He is blessed to be the primary caregiver of his brother, 20, diagnosed with autism and Down Syndrome.

Gunisha Kaur, MD, MA

Gunisha Kaur, MD, MA

Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology; Director, Human Rights Impact Lab, Weill Cornell Medicine

Bio

Dr. Gunisha Kaur is a physician-scientist who has dedicated her career to advancing the health of forcibly displaced individuals such as refugees and asylum seekers. She has used her extensive background in neuroscience research as an analytical framework to pioneer the study of human rights using scientific methodology. Her research has been supported by funders such as the National Institutes of Health, the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research, and Cornell University.

Dr. Kaur’s academic writing on forcibly displaced populations has been published by high impact medical journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet. She has also translated her medical and scientific expertise in mainstream outlets including TIME, CNN, and NBC News. Dr. Kaur has given over 100 national and international keynote presentations and talks, including with global leaders, at the United Nations, and for the U.S. Government.

Dr. Kaur is an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology at Weill Cornell Medicine, a Medical Director of the Weill Cornell Center for Human Rights, Founding Director of the Human Rights Impact Lab, and a Stephen M. Kellen Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations. She earned her B.S. from Cornell University in 2006, graduated from Weill Cornell Medical College in 2010, and completed her Anesthesiology Residency training at Weill Cornell Medical College/New York Presbyterian Hospital in 2014. She earned a Master’s Degree in Medical Anthropology from Harvard University in 2015.

Caprice Knapp, PhD

Caprice Knapp, PhD

Principal, Health Management Associates

Bio

A health economist and evaluator, Caprice Knapp has more than 20 years’ experience working on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in the private sector, state and federal policymaking, and academics.

In the private sector she was the federal policy director for Molina Healthcare, Inc. As an academic, she was an associate professor in the Department of Health Outcomes and Policy at the University of Florida (UF) conducting external quality review activities for Texas and Florida Medicaid and CHIP programs and maternal and child health research. In the policymaking arena, she worked in the Governor’s Office of State Planning and Budgeting in Colorado as well as the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy fellow. Most recently she was the North Dakota Medicaid Director from 2019 to 2022.

Caprice’s career has been focused on vulnerable populations, delivery system reform, and global health. Examples of her funded research topics include an assessment of Florida’s CHIP Reauthorization Grant; an evaluation of fertility-preservation decision making for adolescent girls with cancer; outcomes of concurrent models of pediatric palliative care; and an assessment of the quality, patient experiences, and costs of health and dental plans for children in Florida. Her global health projects also focus on maternal and child health and have been conducted in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America.

At the University of Florida, Caprice earned a PhD in economics and completed postdoctoral training in health services research. She has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed publications, 60 government reports, and two books.

Joseph A. Lewnard, PhD

Joseph A. Lewnard, PhD

Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, University of California, Berkeley

Bio

Dr. Lewnard is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health. He studies the transmission dynamics and control of infectious disease agents, with a focus on respiratory and vaccine-preventable pathogens. Through multiple projects involving government, NGO, public health and industry collaborations, his lab has established pediatric vaccines as one of the most promising tools for addressing the global challenges of antimicrobial overuse and resistance. Since 2020, he has also made numerous contributions to the ongoing COVID-19 response, and leads multiple ongoing field-based studies in California as well as large-scale studies of COVID-19 epidemiology in South India. He was the 2021 recipient of the Early Career Research Excellence award from the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, a 2019 fellow of the Kavli Frontiers in Science program of the National Academy of Sciences, and a member of the 2018 Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity fellowship cohort at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. He received his PhD in Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases from Yale University in 2017 and was a postdoc from 2017-18 at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. He received a BA with first class honors in Geography and Music from McGill University in 2013. He serves on the editorial board of eLife and during the 2021-22 year holds a visiting Medical Officer appointment in the Influenza Division of the CDC. He is the recipient of extramural research grants from NIH, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, WHO, CDC, Pfizer, Merck, the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation, and other funders.

Miguel Marino, PhD

Miguel Marino, PhD

Associate Professor of Biostatistics, Oregon Health & Science University

Bio

Miguel Marino, PhD is an Associate Professor of Biostatistics in the Department of Family Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, with a secondary appointment in the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health. He received his undergraduate degree in Mathematics from UCLA and his PhD from Harvard University. Before joining OHSU, he was a Yerby Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University.

Dr. Marino maintains a broad statistical research program that focuses on the intersection of primary care and public health studies. His research utilizes novel statistical methodology to address complexities associated with the use of electronic health records (EHRs) for critical community and primary care research questions in health policy, health disparities, preventive service utilization, health insurance monitoring, among others. Dr. Marino currently studies how to validate EHRs as a reliable source for pragmatic trials and observational cohort studies. He is currently funded by several agencies including the NIH, AHRQ, CDC and has over 125 peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals such as JAMA, JGIM, Health Affairs, and AJPH.

Since 2013, Dr. Marino has been the Statistical Editor for the Annals of Family Medicine. He also has served on NIH, PCORI and AHA study sections. He has formerly served as the President of the American Statistical Association’s Oregon Chapter. Currently, he serves as the Publications Officer for the Health Policy Statistics section of the American Statistical Association. His contributions to this field were recognized in 2017 when he received the New Investigator Research Award by the North American Primary Care Research Group.

Meredith T. Niles, PhD

Meredith T. Niles, PhD

Associate Professor of Food Systems and Policy, Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences, University of Vermont

Bio

Dr. Meredith Niles is an Associate Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences and the Food Systems Program at the University of Vermont, and serves as the Associate Director of the Food Systems Research Center, a joint effort with the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service.  Her interdisciplinary research in food systems, health and environment examines how to achieve sustainable food security along with the food and agriculture system pathways to improve health and environmental outcomes.  Her research primarily focuses on the impact of climate change, disasters and other crises like pandemics on food security and health outcomes, as well as the drivers and barriers for farmers to adopt more sustainable management practices for climate change, water, and health outcomes.  She is a founding member and director of the National Food Access and COVID research Team (NFACT), a consortium of researchers from 18 study sites in 15 states examining the impact of COVID-19 on food security and access.  Her research has resulted in more than 75 peer-reviewed publications, 30 policy briefs and government reports, and garnered international recognition.

Dr. Niles holds a B.A in political science with honors in environmental studies from The Catholic University of America and a PhD in ecology with a focus on human ecology and environmental policy from the University of California- Davis.  She was a Sustainability Science post-doctorate fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government exploring smallholder farmer experiences with climate change and food security in 15 countries. Prior to her academic career Dr. Niles worked at the United States Department of State on the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and several environmental and food non-profits.  She is passionate about making research more publicly available through open access, serving on the board of directors for the Public Library of Science (PLOS), one of the world’s largest non-profit academic publishers, from 2014-2022.

Ziad Obermeyer, MD

Ziad Obermeyer, MD

Acting Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley

Bio

Ziad Obermeyer is an Associate Professor (Acting) at UC Berkeley, where he does research at the intersection of machine learning, medicine, and health policy. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. He has received numerous awards including the Early Independence Award, the National Institutes of Health’s most prestigious award for exceptional junior scientists, and the Young Investigator Award from the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine. His work has been published in Science, The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, The BMJ, and Health Affairs. He is a graduate of Harvard College (magna cum laude) and Harvard Medical School (magna cum laude) and earned an M.Phil. from Cambridge in the history and philosophy of science. Prior to his career in medicine, he worked as a consultant to pharmaceutical and global health clients at McKinsey & Co. in New Jersey, Geneva, and Tokyo. He continues to practice emergency medicine in underserved communities.

Christina Ann Roberto, PhD

Christina Ann Roberto, PhD

Mitchell J. Blutt and Margo Krody Blutt Presidential Associate Professor of Health Policy, University of Pennsylvania

Bio

Christina A. Roberto, Ph.D. is the Mitchell J. Blutt and Margo Krody Blutt Presidential Associate Professor of Health Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also the Director of the Psychology of Eating and Consumer Health lab (PEACH lab) and Associate Director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics at Penn. The mission of the PEACH lab is to identify and evaluate policies and interventions that promote healthy eating habits and prevent nutrition-related chronic diseases. The lab strives to help create a just and equitable food system where those with the fewest resources and opportunities have the same chance to live a long, healthy life as those with the most. The PEACH lab’s work has informed local and national government food policy. Dr. Roberto works closely with policymakers, community-based organizations, companies, and institutions to generate timely research that can provide those partners with science-based guidance.

Dr. Roberto has an undergraduate degree in Psychology from Princeton University where she graduated magna cum laude. She earned a joint-PhD at Yale University in clinical psychology and chronic disease epidemiology. Dr. Roberto completed her clinical internship at the Yale School of Medicine and was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Cynthia E. Rogers, MD

Cynthia E. Rogers, MD

Professor of Psychiatry, Washington University

Bio

Cynthia Rogers, M.D. is Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at Washington University in St. Louis and Co-Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Dr. Rogers graduated with a B.A. in psychology from Harvard University and completed her M.D., psychiatry residency, and child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at Washington University. She is an academic child psychiatrist whose program of research focuses on improving the psychiatric outcomes of infants through understanding the underlying neural mechanisms of social-emotional development and psychopathology and the impact of social determinants of health on these mechanisms. Dr. Rogers co-directs the Washington University Neonatal Development Research (WUNDER) group, a multidisciplinary lab which uses multimodal MRI to understand how poverty, racism, prematurity, and prenatal substance exposure affect the brain at birth, alter brain development across childhood, and relate to child psychiatric disorders. Dr. Rogers serves as prinicipal investigator of multiple NIMH and NIDA funded longtidinal research studies and serves as Associate Director of the Healthy Brain and Child Development national consortium study. Dr. Rogers clinical work centers on addressing the impact of social determnants of health to reduce development of psychiatric disorders in perinatal and child populations. She co-directs the Washington University Perinatal Behavioral Health Service which serves perinatal women with psychiatric and substance use disorders and she leads a teaching consultation clinic for formerly preterm children with early developmental and social-emotional delays. She serves on the editorial board of Biological Psychiatry and a Deputy Editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and is a member of several professional societies, including the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the FLUX Society, and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

Benjamin N. Rome, MD, MPH

Benjamin N. Rome, MD, MPH

Instructor in Medicine, Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital

Bio

Benjamin N. Rome, MD, MPH is general internist and health policy researcher at Harvard Medical School and a faculty member in the Division of Pharmacology and Pharmacoeconomics in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Within the Division, Dr. Rome works within the Program On Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law (PORTAL) to study the evaluation, regulation, cost, and use of prescription drugs in the United States. His research interests include how drug prices affect patient adherence and clinical outcomes, value-based drug pricing, and policies to make medications more affordable to patients. His work has been has published in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Health Affairs, and JAMA Internal Medicine. His research has also been featured in a Congressional report about rising prescription drug prices and he has testified in front of the US House of Representatives about evidence-based drug approval during the Covid-19 pandemic. Dr. Rome received his undergraduate degree in community health from Brown University, his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, and his Master of Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health while he was a general internal medicine fellow at PORTAL. He trained in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is a practicing primary care physician at the Phyllis Jen Center for Primary Care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Carlo Giovanni Traverso, MB, BChir, PhD

Carlo Giovanni Traverso, MB, BChir, PhD

Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Division of Gastroenterology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School

Bio

Dr. Traverso, a gastroenterologist and biomedical engineer, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering,  Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. His current research program is focused on developing the next generation of drug delivery systems to enable safe and efficient delivery of therapeutics through the gastrointestinal tract as well developing novel ingestible electronic devices for sensing a broad array of physiologic and pathophysiologic parameters.

Brownsyne Tucker Edmonds, MD, MPH, MS

Brownsyne Tucker Edmonds, MD, MPH, MS

Vice President and Chief Health Equity Officer, Indiana University Health; Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Clinical Pediatrics, and Associate Dean for Health Equity Research, Indiana University

Bio

Brownsyne Tucker Edmonds is the inaugural Vice President and Chief Health Equity Officer for Indiana University Health and the Associate Dean for Health Equity Research for Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM), where she holds an endowed chair for Health Equity Research.  She is an Associate Professor of Obstetrics Gynecology (OB/GYN) and Clinical Pediatrics with training in general OB/GYN, health services research, public health, and clinical ethics.  Her research interests are in patient-provider communication and shared decision-making in reproductive health care. She is interested in understanding the impact of race, class, and culture on patient preferences and risk perceptions; physician decision-making and counseling; and ultimately, variations in treatment provision and service delivery. Dr. Tucker Edmonds’ work currently focuses on communication and decision-making in the management of periviable deliveries. She utilizes qualitative and quantitative methodologies to develop decision support interventions for parents facing this, and other, preference sensitive decisions in high-risk obstetrical settings. Dr. Tucker Edmonds previously served as her department’s Vice Chair for Faculty Development and Diversity, and also served as an Assistant Dean for Diversity Affairs for the IU School of Medicine.  Dr Tucker Edmonds previously served on the Ethics Committee for the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) and was the Legislative Affairs Chair for Indiana ACOG.  She now serves on ACOG’s Committee on Government Affairs and is the Chair of the Indiana Section.  Dr. Tucker Edmonds was an Anniversary Fellow for the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) from 2015-2017, during which time she served on the committee that authored, “The health effects of cannabis and cannabinoids: The current state of the evidence and recommendations for research.”  Most recently, she served on the committee that authored the consensus report, “Birth Settings in America: Outcomes, Quality, Access, and Choice.”

Jing Wang PhD, MPH, MSN, RN, FAAN

Jing Wang PhD, MPH, MSN, RN, FAAN

Dean and Professor, Florida State University

Bio

Jing Wang, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN is Dean and Professor of the Florida State University College of Nursing, and Adjunct Professor in Biomedical Informatics and Public Health at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. She serves as the Board of Trustee at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and HCA Florida Capitol Hospital. Her research uses mobile and connected health technologies to optimize multiple-behavior lifestyle interventions and improve patient-centered outcomes among the chronically ill and aging populations with multiple chronic conditions, especially among the rural, underserved, and minority populations. Recently, she led interdisciplinary research that uses artificial intelligence to develop health care data analytics methods to characterize the dynamic pathways to the emergence of common multiple chronic conditions in Latinx populations and optimize multiple-behavior intervention through smart and adaptive clinical trials. In addition to her research focus on health disparity populations, she’s also devoted to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity in academic and clinical nursing settings as President of the Asian American/Pacific Islander Nurses Association, Board of Directors at National Coalition of Ethnic Minority Nurses Association, the National Institute of Nursing Research Council Working Group on Diversity, and AARP/RWJF Future of Nursing Campaign for Action’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Steering Committee. She’s an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, 2013 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholar, 2015 TEDMED Scholar, 2016 Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation Macy Faculty Scholar, and Harvard Macy Scholar where she continues to teach in the “Leading Innovations in Health Care & Education” program in the Harvard Macy Institute. She is also the editorial board member of The Science of Diabetes Self-Management and Care. She was a member of the Steering Committee that updated the American Nurses Association (ANA) Connected Health Principles from the 1998 ANA Core Principles on Telehealth to guide nursing practice on telehealth and connected health. As a Health and Aging Policy Fellow and American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow, she was a Senior Scientific Advisor to Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and works with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) as a senior policy advisor. Wang received MSN and PhD from the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing, MPH from its Graduate School of Public Health, and Graduate Certificate in Clinical and Translational Science from its School of Medicine.

Keegan Warren-Clem, JD, LLM

Keegan Warren-Clem, JD, LLM

Director and Managing Attorney, Medical-Legal Partnerships at Texas Legal Services Center; Adjunct Professor, The University of Texas School of Law and McCombs School of Business

Bio

Keegan Warren-Clem, JD, LLM, is the director and managing attorney of Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLP) at Texas Legal Services Center. Through MLPs at multiple health care sites, she works collaboratively with health care providers to improve health outcomes by bringing patient-centered legal and structural expertise into the delivery of health care. An adjunct professor dually appointed at The University of Texas School of Law and McCombs School of Business, Keegan also challenges students and residents to explore connections between health and unmet legal needs. Currently, Keegan is engaged in research that takes an epidemiological approach to legal interventions as a concrete means for addressing social determinants of health, and she recently finished service on a National Academy of Medicine committee on integrated health care delivery. Keegan is admitted to practice in Texas and is a member of the State Bar College, an honorary society of the most highly trained lawyers in the state. She is a veteran of the Army National Guard and is also a member of the Order of St. Joan of Arc, the highest civilian award given by the Army Armor and Cavalry Associations. Keegan earned her LLM in Health Law and Policy as the inaugural Southern Illinois Healthcare/Southern Illinois University MLP LLM Fellow, her JD from The University of Texas, and her BA in Spanish, international relations, and Latin American studies from the University of Arkansas as a Sturgis Fellow. In her spare time, she rows crew.

Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Scholars Alumni
  • Maria Elena Bottazzi, PhD
  • Paul Christopher, PhD
  • Deidra C. Crews, MD, ScM
  • Adaeze Enekwechi, PhD
  • Oluwadamilola “Lola” Fayanju, MD, MA, MPHS
  • Lori Freedman, PhD
  • Christopher Friese, PhD, RN, AOCN, FAAN
  • Jordan Green, PhD
  • Marcia Haigis, PhD
  • Leora Horwitz, MD
  • Mark Huffman, MD, MPH
  • Ning (Jenny) Jiang, PhD
  • Sandeep Kishore, MD, PhD, MSc
  • Raina Merchant, MD, MSHP
  • Mark Neuman, MD
  • Minal Patel, PhD, MPH
  • Brea Perry, PhD
  • Nathan Price, PhD
  • Suchi Saria, MSc, PhD
  • Margaret (Gretchen) L. Schwarze, MD, MPP
  • Julie Segre, PhD
  • Jacob Sherkow, JD
  • Hanni Stoklosa, MD, MPH
  • Sohail Tavazoie, MD, PhD
  • Hassan A. Tetteh, MD, MBA, MPA, MS
  • Y. Claire Wang, MD, ScD, MS
  • Jonathan Watanabe, PharmD, MS, PhD, BCGP
  • Jeffrey Wickliffe, PhD, MS
  • Joseph C. Wu, MD, PhD
  • Ramnik Xavier, MD, ChB

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