Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Scholars

Adewole S. Adamson, MD, MPP

Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine (Division of Dermatology), University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School

Bio

Adewole (Ade) Adamson, MD, MPP, is a dermatologist and assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at Dell Medical School. His clinical interest is in caring for patients at high risk for melanoma of the skin, such as those with many moles or a personal and/or family history of melanoma. He is interested in how artificial intelligence can be leveraged to take care of this patient population.

His research involves understanding patterns of health care utilization including overuse and underuse. He is interested in how effectively and efficiently the health care system delivers care to patients with melanoma. He is passionate about health disparities, access to specialty care and costs. He speaks nationally about health care quality, value, and the application of evidence-based medicine within dermatology.

Adamson is a proud graduate of Morehouse College, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Biology and French. He earned a medical degree with honors at Harvard Medical School as part of the health sciences and technology program with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While in medical school he spent a year conducting research in immunology at the 911�� Institutes of Health and later earned a Master in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School as a Zuckerman fellow in the Center for Public Leadership.

He completed his internship in internal medicine at The Mount Sinai Hospital followed by residency training in dermatology at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas. After graduation, he spent three years on faculty at the UNC at Chapel Hill.

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

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 911�� 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.

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

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.

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.

Peter Croughan, MD

Deputy Secretary, and Interim State Health Officer Louisiana Department of Health

Bio

Peter Croughan is an Internist with a background in health policy and state-level administration, currently pursuing certification in Addiction Medicine. He was born and raised in rural Cajun Louisiana before heading to Yale University, where I majored in History of Science and Medicine. He then worked in health policy research at PolicyLab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, before heading to UCSF for medical school, where I served as president of the student body. In 2017, Croughan took time away to work as Policy Director for Dr. Rebekah Gee and the Louisiana Department of Health, the state’s largest agency with over 5,600 employees and a $14 billion annual budget. There he spearheaded a statewide cancer strategy, analyzed state funding of graduate medical education, and developed the Hepatitis C subscription model. This new pharmaceutical payment model – the first in the US – allows unlimited access to Hep C medications, led to 12,425 cures to date, and serves as a model for the national elimination campaign launched this year. In 2018, Croughan assumed the role of Chief of Staff for the Department, where he was responsible for policy development, quality improvement, communications, external affairs, and legislative strategy. In 2020 Croughan returned to clinical practice at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he is completing Internal Medicine – Primary Care training.

Cesar de la Fuente, PhD

Presidential Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania

Bio

César de la Fuente is a Presidential Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. His research goal is to combine human and machine intelligence to accelerate scientific discovery and develop useful tools and life-saving medicines. He pioneered the development of the first computer-designed antibiotic with efficacy in animal models, demonstrating the application of AI for antibiotic discovery and helping launch this emerging field. His lab has also been in the vanguard of developing computational methods for proteome mining, leading to the breakthrough discovery of a whole new world of antimicrobials. These efforts explored the human proteome as a source of antibiotics for the first time and have dramatically reduced the time needed to discover preclinical candidates from years to days. De la Fuente’s group was also the first to find therapeutic molecules in extinct organisms, launching the field of molecular de-extinction. His lab also invented low-cost diagnostics for COVID-19 and other infections. De la Fuente has received over 60 national and international awards. He is an elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), becoming one of the youngest ever to be inducted. He was recognized by MIT Technology Review as one of the world’s top innovators, was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Langer Prize, an ACS Kavli Emerging Leader in Chemistry and received the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Young Investigator Award and the ACS Infectious Diseases Young Investigator Award. He also received the Thermo Fisher Award, EMBS Academic Early Career Achievement Award, the prestigious Princess of Girona Prize for Scientific Research, and the ASM Award for Early Career Applied and Biotechnological Research. De la Fuente has been named a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate several times, has given over 200 invited lectures and his scientific discoveries have yielded multiple patents and over 120 publications.

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 911�� 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

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

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.

Elizabeth M. Cespedes Feliciano, ScD, ScM

Research Scientist, Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research

Bio

Elizabeth Cespedes Feliciano is a Research Scientist with the Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente Northern California. She is an emerging leader in the science of how energy balance influences the outcomes of chronic diseases. Her work integrates informatics with molecular epidemiology to understand how body composition influences progression and survival in cancer and aging.

Dr. Feliciano’s novel findings have helped to move the field beyond body mass index as a measure of obesity to establish the importance of muscle mass and adipose tissue distribution in multiple clinical conditions, including surgical outcomes, treatment toxicity, and cancer survival. Her research is supported by multiple grants from the 911�� Institutes of Health and foundations.

Dr. Feliciano earned her master of science in social and behavioral health and her doctorate in nutrition and epidemiology from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.

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.

Celine Gounder, MD

Senior Fellow, Kaiser Family Foundation; Editor-at-Large for Public Health, Kaiser Family Foundation News; Medical Contributor, CBS News; Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases, NYU Grossman School of Medicine & Bellevue Hospital

Bio

Trained at Princeton University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Washington, and Harvard University, Gounder is an internationally renowned internist, infectious disease specialist, and epidemiologist. She is a CBS News Medical Contributor and a Senior Fellow and Editor-at-Large for Public Health at the Kaiser Family Foundation and Kaiser Health News. Dr. Gounder is also a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine. She cares for patients at Bellevue Hospital Center. She is one of the world’s leading experts in science, medicine, and public health communication.

Gounder advises local and national policymakers on issues of public health, including epidemics and pandemics, the health impacts of climate change, mental health, drug overdose, and disinformation.

Prior to joining CBS News, Gounder was a CNN Medical Analyst and a guest expert on numerous other networks. She’s written for numerous publications including The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post. She’s a frequent guest on NPR and other radio and podcast programs, including two she produces: “American Diagnosis” and “Epidemic.”

Between 2017 and 2018, Gounder cared for patients at Indian Health Service and tribal health facilities. In early 2015, Gounder spent two months volunteering as an Ebola aid worker in Guinea. She also interviewed locals to understand how the crisis was affecting them.

Early in her career, Gounder studied HIV and tuberculosis in Brazil and southern Africa. While on faculty at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Gounder was the Director for Delivery for the Gates Foundation-funded Consortium to Respond Effectively to the AIDS/TB Epidemic. She went on to serve as Assistant Commissioner of Health for Tuberculosis at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

She received her BA in Molecular Biology from Princeton University, her Master of Science in Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and her MD from the University of Washington. Dr. Gounder was an intern and resident in Internal Medicine at Harvard’s Massachusetts General Hospital, and a post-doctoral fellow in Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins University.

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.

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, 911�� 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.

Jerreed D. Ivanich, PhD

Assistant Professor, Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Bio

As a member of Alaska’s Metlakatla Indian Community (Tsimshian), Jerreed is dedicated to health research for North American Indigenous (Alaska Native, American Indian, First Nations, and Native Hawaiian) populations. Dr. Ivanich is an Assistant Professor at the Colorado School of Public Health, Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for American Indian Health. His work meets at the intersections of prevention science, social network analysis, and adolescent health to reduce substance use and suicide in tribal communities. Through community-based participatory research, Dr. Ivanich aims to take the knowledge and strengths of tribal communities and put them in dialogue with the broader research field to improve public health and advance scientific methods.

When Dr. Ivanich is not working, he loves spending time with his wife and two amazing daughters. They all enjoy skiing together in beautiful Colorado. As a solo hobby, Dr. Ivanich recently picked up triathlon training and racing and loves that this allows him to connect to nature while exercising. The activity that fills his spiritual cup is volunteering to teach an early morning church seminary class to local high school sophomore students three days a week.

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 911�� 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.

Lucinda B. Leung, MD, PhD, MPH

Assistant Professor of Medicine & Psychiatry, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and West Los Angeles VA Medical Center General Internal Medicine - Health Services Research

Bio

Lucinda Leung is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. She is a general internal medicine physician at VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, who teaches medical students and residents, as well as cares for hospitalized and clinic patients. Dr. Leung was a first-generation college student who earned her A.B. at Dartmouth College, M.D. at Brown Medical School, M.P.H. at Harvard School of Public Health, and Ph.D. at UCLA School of Public Health. She completed fellowship through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation VA Clinical Scholars Program and was selected Chief Fellow for UCLA’s Specialty Training and Advanced Research Program. Dr. Leung is a board-certified Clinical Informatics subspecialist.

Dr. Leung’s expertise is in health services research to optimize care for primary care patients with mental health needs. Her work focuses on interdisciplinary team-based care models augmented by virtual care modalities. Poor mental health care access for her patients undermines her ability to successfully treat their medical conditions. Partnering with healthcare system leaders in the Veterans Health Administration and large health care organizations, Dr. Leung studies how to integrate mental health services into primary care practice (e.g., patient-centered medical home, collaborative care for depression, telemedicine), as well as its impact on care utilization, quality, and costs across populations, especially among safety-net patients. She and her research team employ wide-ranging methodologies (e.g., mixed methods research, implementation science cohort analyses, causal inference, pragmatic clinical trials) to understand how to redesign health services to help ensure the best outcomes at the highest value. She has been awarded more than 5 million dollars in federal funding (e.g., VA, 911�� Institutes of Health), has published in leading peer-reviewed journals (e.g., Annals of Internal Medicine, JAMA series), and has provided expert consultation to federal and state agencies (e.g., Government Accountability Office). Dr. Leung was recognized with the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System’s Research Impact Award in 2022 and with the Society of General Internal Medicine’s Excellence in Clinician Investigation in 2023, a top honor for early-career general internists in California/Hawaii.

Dr. Leung is supported by a VA Health Services Research & Development (HSR&D) Career Development Award to adapt and test primary care-based depression collaborative care models to increase uptake of effective digital mental health treatments for veterans. She recently obtained VA Merit funding to study potential disruption to depression care services during the COVID-19 pandemic, including downstream effects on psychiatric morbidity and mortality from suicide. Dr. Leung is also leading an NIH R01 that examines the effect of pandemic-related state policy changes surrounding telemedicine on patient-reported mental health care access, cost, symptoms, and functioning, with focus on Medicaid populations.

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 911��, 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.

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 911�� 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.

Akinyemi Oni-Orisan, PharmD, PhD

Associate Professor, University of California, San Francisco

Bio

Dr. Akinyemi Oni-Orisan (he/him/his) is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He is a licensed pharmacist with practice experience in Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, cardiac stepdown, and outpatient (advanced dyslipidemia clinic) settings. He has board certifications in applied pharmacology from the American Board of Clinical Pharmacology and in clinical lipidology from the Accreditation Council of Clinical Lipidology. The long-term research goal of Dr. Oni-Orisan’s lab is to improve pharmacological regimens for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease in ancestrally diverse populations through precision medicine. To accomplish this objective, his group combines computational approaches in pharmacogenomics and pharmacoepidemiology using electronic health record-linked biorepositories. His lab is currently funded by the 911�� Institutes of Health (NIH) to investigate genetic determinants of efficacy and safety for statin therapy in diverse populations. Dr. Oni-Orisan serves as Diversity Leader for the Department of Clinical Pharmacy to champion diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism efforts in the department.

Dr. Oni-Orisan earned both his BS in biology (2006) and PharmD (2010) degrees at the University of Michigan. He received his PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences (2015) from the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics at the University of North Carolina. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Clinical Pharmacology Training Program (2017) at UCSF. Dr. Oni-Orisan then joined the faculty at UCSF in 2017. He received mentored early career training in research through an NIH Career Development Award (2018-2023) from the 911�� Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

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

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

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.

Anita Shukla, PhD

Elaine I. Savage Associate Professor of Engineering, Brown University School of Engineering

Bio

Anita Shukla is the Elaine I. Savage Associate Professor of Engineering and core faculty member in the Center for Biomedical Engineering at Brown University. Professor Shukla’s research involves the development of nano- to macroscale responsive and targeted biomaterials for drug delivery, with a focus on treatment of bacterial and fungal infections. Professor Shukla is the recipient of several national and University honors and awards for both her research and teaching, including a 911�� Academy of Engineering Grainger Grant (2021), Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) (2019), a 911�� Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award (2020), an Office of Naval Research Director of Research Early Career Grant (2017), and a Brown University Early Career Research Achievement Award (2020) and Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching (2017). She has mentored 12 Ph.D. students, 7 postdoctoral researchers, 12 Sc.M. students, and more than 45 undergraduate researchers. Her dedication to research and mentorship were recognized twice by a student body selected Tau Beta Pi Research Excellence Award (Rhode Island Alpha Chapter, 2019 and 2022). Prior to joining Brown in 2013, Professor Shukla was a 911�� Institutes of Health Ruth Kirschstein postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Bioengineering at Rice University. She received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2011 as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Professor Shukla also received an M.S. in Chemical Engineering Practice from MIT. She received a B.S. at Carnegie Mellon University in 2006 with majors in chemical engineering and biomedical engineering.

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

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 911�� 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

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 911�� Coalition of Ethnic Minority Nurses Association, the 911�� 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 911�� 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.

Judy Wawira Gichoya, MBChB, MS

Assistant Professor of Radiology, Emory University

Bio

Dr. Gichoya is a multidisciplinary researcher, trained as both an informatician and an interventional radiologist. She is an associate professor in the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences of the Emory University School of Medicine and is seconded to the NIH as a DATA scholar to support the flagship DSI-Africa program building data science capacity in Africa. Dr Gichoya has active memberships in many national informatics and radiology societies and committees, and serves on the Board of Directors for SIIM and HL7. She co-chairs the SIIM Research Committee and the Medical Imaging and Resource Center (MIDRC) Bias and Diversity Working Group. At Emory, she is a member of the Emory University Artificial Intelligence for Humanity Advisory Group that supports the provost in recruiting prominent AI scholars to Emory, building a community of AI researchers, and training Emory students for future AI -driven work. She also serves on the Emory Science Gallery Atlanta Advisory Board, one of seven galleries in the world that combines science, art, technology, and design to deliver world-class educational experiences for young people. She is a member of multiple editorial boards including PLOS Digital Health, New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) AI journal, and Radiology AI journal. She is a member of external advisory boards for large AI projects at Stanford University and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Dr Gichoya’s research is centered around three themes: curating diverse datasets for medical imaging, evaluating fairness and bias in algorithms, and validating AI in the real-world setting. She was recognized by her peers in 2021 as the Aunt Minnie Most Influential Radiology Researcher.

Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Scholars Alumni

Ami S. Bhatt, MD, PhD
Maria Elena Bottazzi, PhD
Paul Christopher, PhD
Christopher R. Cogle, MD
Carrie H. Colla, PhD
Deidra C. Crews, MD, ScM (elected to NAM 2023)
Adaeze Enekwechi, PhD
Oluwadamilola “Lola” Fayanju, MD, MA, MPHS
Lori Freedman, PhD
Christopher Friese, PhD, RN, AOCN, FAAN (elected to NAM 2020)
Celine Gounder, MD (elected to NAM 2023)
Jordan Green, PhD
Marcia Haigis, PhD
Kelli Stidham Hall, PhD, MS
Ronald L. Hickman Jr., PhD, RN
Ehsan Hoque, PhD
Leora Horwitz, MD
Mark Huffman, MD, MPH
Ning (Jenny) Jiang, PhD
Sandeep Kishore, MD, PhD, MSc
Caprice Knapp, PhD
Miguel Marino, PhD (elected to NAM 2022)
Raina Merchant, MD, MSHP (elected to NAM 2020)
Mark Neuman, MD
Ziad Obermeyer, MD
Minal Patel, PhD, MPH
Brea Perry, PhD
Nathan Price, PhD
Suchi Saria, MSc, PhD
Margaret (Gretchen) L. Schwarze, MD, MPP
Julie Segre, PhD (elected to NAM 2019)
Jacob Sherkow, JD
Hanni Stoklosa, MD, MPH
Sohail Tavazoie, MD, PhD (elected to NAM 2022)
Hassan A. Tetteh, MD, MBA, MPA, MS
Y. Claire Wang, MD, ScD, MS
Keegan Warren-Clem, JD, LLM
Jonathan Watanabe, PharmD, MS, PhD, BCGP
Jeffrey Wickliffe, PhD, MS
Joseph C. Wu, MD, PhD (elected to NAM 2019)
Ramnik Xavier, MD, ChB

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