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.

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.

Adaeze Enekwechi is the President of Impaq, LLC and its subsidiaries including Impaq International, Maher and Maher, and ASCEND. She provides strategic oversight of all research, technical assistance, and technology services across all program areas including healthcare, workforce development, social programs, education, and international development.

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.

Jordan J. Green is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Oncology, Ophthalmology, Neurosurgery, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, and Materials Science & Engineering, at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is also an associate researcher of the Institute for NanoBioTechnology and co-founder and associate director of the Translational Tissue Engineering Center at JHU. Dr. Green received his B.S. in biomedical engineering and in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2003 and completed his PhD in biological engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007.  Subsequently, Dr. Green was a postdoctoral associate at MIT in chemical engineering from 2007-2008. Dr. Green is also the CTO and co-founder of the Baltimore biotech startup company, AsclepiX Therapeutics and a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. His work has resulted in the publication of over 90 papers and he has received numerous awards including the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Allan Colburn Award, the Biomedical Engineering Society Rita Schaffer Award, the American Society for Gene & Cell Therapy Outstanding New Investigator Award, the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Young Investigator Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and was named by Popular Science as one of the “Brilliant Ten.”  Dr. Green’s main research interests are in creating biomaterials and nanobiotechnology to engineer cells and develop advanced therapeutics.

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.

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 is the Quentin D. Young Professor of Health Policy and Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine and Medicine-Cardiology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Huffman holds a secondary appointment as an Associate Professor of Food Policy at The George Institute for Global Health in Sydney, Australia. He is a practicing cardiologist, researcher, and teacher interested in global cardiovascular health epidemiology, clinical trials, implementation science, health systems and policy research, training, and action. Huffman serves as the director of Northwestern’s Center for Global Cardiovascular Health where his team works across the spectrum of cardiovascular disease prevention in research for improving acute cardiovascular systems of care, simplifying pharmacotherapy through fixed-dose combinations, programmatic implementation and evaluation for large-scale hypertension control, monitoring and improving the US and global food and medicine supplies, and achieving tobacco endgame. He aims to improve global cardiovascular health and health care, especially in low- and middle-income countries, and to bring lessons learned back home to the United States.

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.

Mark D. Neuman is Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. Dr. Neuman is the founding Director of the Penn Center for Perioperative Outcomes Research and Transformation, which focuses on improving the health and well-being of patients undergoing surgery, critical care, and pain treatment through comparative effectiveness research and implementation science. A practicing general anesthesiologist and health services researcher, his work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), and the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research. Dr. Neuman’s work, which has appeared in JAMA, the Lancet, the BMJ, and the New England Journal of Medicine, focuses primarily on understanding the determinants of functional outcomes among older adults undergoing major surgical procedures and the short- and long-term consequences of anesthetic and pain management interventions delivered around the time of surgery; additional work has examined processes by which medical research findings are translated into expert guidelines, and how such guidelines change over time in response to new evidence. He is the Principal Investigator of the PCORI-funded REGAIN trial (Regional versus General Anesthesia for Promoting Independence after Hip Fracture), a 45-center international pragmatic randomized trial to assess the association between commonly used anesthesia treatments for older adults undergoing hip fracture repair with and survival and functional outcomes at up to 1 year after fracture. Dr. Neuman currently chairs the Committee on Geriatric Anesthesia of the American Society of Anesthesiologists and lectures nationally and internationally on the care of older adults undergoing surgery and anesthesia and on the design and conduct of pragmatic trials in perioperative care.

Dr. Patel is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Health Behavior & Health Education. She completed her M.P.H and Ph.D. in HBHE at the University of Michigan. Dr. Patel directs the Center for Behavioral Solutions to Healthcare Engagement and Access (CBSHC) at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Her research program focuses on the development and evaluation of behavioral interventions that focus on improving self-efficacy and navigation skills for individuals to access complex health care delivery systems, affordable healthcare, and management of chronic disease. Emphases of her work include health-related financial toxicity, team-based care, health and financial literacy, and populations with a long history of health disparities. Dr. Patel’s research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, American Lung Association, and private foundations. She has led studies focused on improving health insurance literacy in economically disadvantaged communities, screening and addressing unmet social needs in clinical settings, and health care provider training in implementing guideline-based care. She also serves on the evaluation team of Michigan’s expanded Medicaid program. In 2017, Dr. Patel received the Early Career Achievement award from the Behavioral Sciences and Health Services Research Assembly of the American Thoracic Society.

Dr. Nathan Price is Professor & Associate Director of the Institute for Systems Biology where he co-directs with Lee Hood the Hood-Price Integrated Lab for Systems Biomedicine.  He is also affiliate faculty at the University of Washington in the Departments of Bioengineering, Computer Science & Engineering, and Molecular & Cellular Biology.

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.

Jacob S. Sherkow is Professor of Law at the University of Illinois College of Law. His research focuses on the intersection of advanced biotechnologies and intellectual property and regulation. Prof. Sherkow is the author of over 40 articles on these and related topics in both traditional law reviews and scientific journals, including Science, Nature, the Yale Law Journal, and the Stanford Law Review. He is also the winner of the 2018 Otto L. Walter Distinguished Writing Award and the Class of 2017 Teaching Award. On matters pertaining to biotechnology and patent law, Professor Sherkow has advised both the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary and a committee of France’s National Assembly. Aside from his appointment at Illinois, Professor Sherkow is a Permanent Visiting Professor at the Center for Advanced Studies in Biomedical Innovation Law at the University of Copenhagen Faculty of Law. Previously, Professor Sherkow has held research positions at Harvard University, Stanford Law School, and Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Professor Sherkow graduated cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School, where he was an editor of the Michigan Law Review. He also holds an MA in biotechnology from Columbia University and a BSc from McGill University in molecular biology.

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.

Jonathan Watanabe, PharmD, MS, PhD, BCGP is a professor of clinical pharmacy and associate director and founding associate dean at the University of California Irvine Samueli College of Health Sciences.  He is a pharmacist, health economist, and outcomes researcher.  He serves as a Member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Forum on Drug, Discovery, Development, and Translation. In this capacity, Professor Watanabe has been involved in methods development for pragmatic clinical trials through the FDA-sponsored Real-World Evidence Series and serves on the steering committee for the Drug Research Development in Older Adults Workshop. He was a contributor to the NASEM report Making Medicines Affordable: a National Imperative. Professor Watanabe applies real-world data to develop policy solutions to improve patient care, bolster population-health, and reduce medical costs.  His research on health implications of non-optimized medication regimens has been cited in multiple successful legislative efforts to grant pharmacist provider status.  He is a consultant to the California Health Benefits Review Program of the California State Legislature and served on the Advisory Group on Pain Assessment and Management in Long-Term Care Settings for the Joint Commissions. He is currently appointed to the NASEM committee on Implications of Discarded Weight-Based Medications mandated funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  Dr. Watanabe was the first recipient of the University of Washington/Allergan Global Health Economics and Outcomes Research Fellowship. He received his BS from the University of Washington, his PharmD from the University of Southern California, and his MS and PhD from the University of Washington Comparative Health Outcomes, Policy, and Economics (CHOICE) Institute.  He is past recipient of the University of Washington Distinguished Alumnae in Pharmaceutical Science and Research award. He is a past National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Anniversary Fellow in Pharmacy sponsored by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy and the American College of Clinical Pharmacy. He currently serves as a Scholar in the NAM Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Program and serves as a Distinguished Fellow of the Get the Medications Right Institute. He is a Board-Certified Geriatric Pharmacist (BCGP).