Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Scholars

Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi, Associate Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and Professor in Pediatrics and Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, is an internationally-recognized vaccinologist and global health advocate. As Co-director of Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, she has more than two decades of experience in applying a product development partnership (PDP) model to build sustainable global biotechnology capacity and training programs that have successfully transitioned NTD vaccines from bench to clinic. Her philosophy is to engage, motivate and empower young scientists to build strong networks and contribute to scientific and global health effectiveness. As a global thought-leader she has received national and international highly regarded awards,has more than 120 scientific papers and participated in more than 200 conferences worldwide. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH), the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM), the Leshner Leadership Institute Public Engagement (Infectious Diseases) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and a Sr. Fellow of the American Leadership Forum (ALF). Currently, she is also a committee member to the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine for the Stronger Food and Drug Regulatory Systems Abroad consensus study. Dr. Bottazzi has a bachelor’s degree in Microbiology and Clinical Chemistry from the National Autonomous University in Honduras, and a doctorate in Molecular Immunology and Experimental Pathology from the University of Florida. Her post-doctoral training in Cellular Biology was completed at University of Miami and Pennsylvania.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

Dr. Mark Huffman joined the Washington University School of Medicine as Professor of Medicine and Co-Director of the Global Health Center in January 2022. He also holds a secondary appointment at The George Institute for Global Health at the University of New South Wales and has previously served as the inaugural director of the Center for Global Cardiovascular Health and Quentin D. Young Professor of Health Policy at Northwestern University. Huffman is a practicing cardiologist with interest and experience in complex preventive cardiology, lipidology, and hypertension care. He has experience in cardiovascular epidemiology, clinical trials, implementation research, and health systems and policy research that aligns with the World Health Organization’s Best Buys for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases toward achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals..

In August 2019, Caprice Knapp became the North Dakota Medicaid Director. She brings to the position more than 17 years’ experience working on Medicaid and 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. In academics, 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.

Knapp’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 Children’s Health Insurance Program 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, Knapp 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.

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.

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.

Dr. Nathan Price is Chief Scientific Officer of Thorne HealthTech (NASDAQ:THRN). Previously he was CEO of Onegevity when it merged with Thorne to form Thorne HealthTech prior to its IPO in 2021.  He is also an (on leave) Professor at the Institute for Systems Biology, where he co-directs with Lee Hood the Hood-Price Lab for Systems Biomedicine. Additionally, Dr. Price is an affiliate faculty at the University of Washington in the Departments of Bioengineering, Computer Science & Engineering, and Molecular & Cellular Biology. He also serves on the Board on Life Sciences for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM).

Price has received numerous 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 co-founded Arivale, a scientific wellness company that was named as Geekwire’s 2016 startup of the year. He served as 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 was also Chair of the NIH study section on Modeling and Analysis of Biological Systems (MABS).

Price also has served on numerous scientific advisory boards including for Providence St. Joseph Health, Roche (personalized healthcare division), Sera Prognostics, Navican, Basepaws, and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability. He is a fellow of the European Society of Preventive Medicine, and has published over 180 scientific papers and given over 200 invited talks.

Dr. Hassan A. Tetteh is a US Navy Captain and Associate Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and adjunct faculty at Howard University College of Medicine. He was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow from 2012-13, assigned to the US Congress, Congressional Budget Office, (CBO). Currently, Tetteh is a Thoracic Surgeon for MedStar Health and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He leads a Specialized Thoracic Adapted Recovery (STAR) Team, in Washington, DC, and his research in thoracic transplantation aims to expand heart and lung recovery and save lives.

A native of Brooklyn, New York, Tetteh received his BS from State University of New York (SUNY) at Plattsburgh, his MD from SUNY Downstate Medical Center, his MPA from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, MBA from Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School, and MS in National Security Strategy with a concentration in Artificial Intelligence from the National War College. He completed his thoracic surgery fellowship at the University of Minnesota and advanced cardiac surgery fellowship at Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Tetteh is a bestselling author of the novel Gifts of the Heart, has finished twenty marathons, and recently delivered the popular TEDx talk entitled, From Death to Life, based on his work in transplant surgery. Tetteh is board certified in thoracic surgery, general surgery, clinical informatics, and healthcare management, and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.

Jing Wang, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN is the new Dean and Professor of the Florida State University College of Nursing, and Adjunct Professor in Biomedical Informatics at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. 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-Elect of the Asian American/Pacific Islander Nurses Association, and Board of Directors at National Coalition of Ethnic Minority Nurses Association.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 Diabetes Educator and the Editor-in-Chief of JMIR Aging. 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 works with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), serves as a Senior Scientific Advisor to Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and will work with 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.

Dr. Jeffrey K. Wickliffe is Professor and Chair in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences in the School of Public Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His research focuses on the complex interplay among environmental health risk factors and their impacts on human health at the population level. His work is concerned with environmental exposures that result in chronic disease outcomes such as cancers as well as exposures that occur during fetal development and their effects on perinatal health including neurodevelopmental outcomes. His work also incorporates underlying health status in evaluating the likelihood of negative health effects upon exposure to environmental risk factors. A feature of his current work is focused on the relationship between overweight and obesity and the associated increased sensitivity to disease risk factors and disease prevalence. He has published numerous articles from bench experimental studies to population studies investigating the relationships between environmental exposures and their ultimate effects. His work clearly demonstrates his desire and ability to work within multidisciplinary teams to address increasingly complex population health and public health threats. His population work spans from local settings to international settings wherever environmental health problems exist.

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 his PhD from Texas Tech University and completed a 2-year, NIEHS-sponsored postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Jeff was a faculty member (Assistant and Associate Professor) in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences in the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University from 2009 until 2020.