A Different Kind of Leader

Dr. Jasjit Ahluwalia is a physician and public health scientist at Brown University’s Schools of Public Health and Medicine. He has been in academic medicine since 1992 and has been a practicing physician, faculty member, department chair, Associate Dean and Center Director in medical schools, and a School of Public Health Dean. His primary research areas are health disparities and smoking cessation and nicotine addiction in African-American smokers. He has been continuously funded by NIH...

Dr. Amelie Ramirez is Director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research, Chair of the Department of Population Health Sciences, and Associate Director of Cancer Outreach and Engagement at the Mayes Cancer Center at the University of Texas at San Antonio. The institute that Dr. Ramirez leads is the headquarters for Salud America!, a national program that uses innovative evidence-based research and communications to educate and activate an online network of more than 300,000 advocates...

Angela Bryant, JD is the Assistant Secretary for Equity and Inclusion with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Angela served in the NC General Assembly representing Halifax, Vance, Warren, and parts of Wilson and Nash Counties from 2013 to 2018. In addition to serving as an elected official, she has dedicated her career to supporting a broad range of organizations in creating welcoming and successful environments for all cultural groups. She co-founded Visions, Inc. –...

Dr. Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable is Director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He oversees NIMHD’s annual budget to advance the science of minority health and health disparities research. NIMHD conducts and supports research programs to advance knowledge and understanding of health disparities, identify mechanisms to improve minority health and reduce health disparities, and develop effective interventions to...

Dr. Debra J. Barksdale is Dean and Professor of the School of Nursing at UNC Greensboro. Dr. Barksdale is an RWJF Executive Nurse Fellow alumna and served as the only nurse appointed to the Patient-Centered Outcomes Board of Governors (PCORI) for 8 years, a past president of the National Association of Nurse Practitioner Faculties, an AACN-Wharton Executive Leadership Fellow, and a former DHHS Primary Health Care Policy Fellow and a Translational Research Fellow at the L. Douglas School of...

Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith is Associate Dean for Health Equity Research; C.N.H Long Professor of Medicine, Public Health, and Management; and Founding Director of the Equity Research and Innovation Center (ERIC) in the Office for Health Equity Research at Yale School of Medicine. She currently serves as Senior Advisor to the White House COVID-19 Response Team and Chair of the Presidential COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force at the Department of Health and Human Services. Previously, she served...

Dr. Joseph Keawe‘aimoku Kaholokula is a Professor and Chair of Native Hawaiian Health in the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and a licensed clinical psychologist. As a Native Hawaiian, he is passionate about improving the health of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders and has made a life-long commitment to improving their social and cultural determinants of health. He has led multiple, federally-funded research projects aimed at explaining,...

Angela Rosenberg, DrPH, PT, BCC is a leadership consultant who earned her Master’s in Public Health and her Doctorate in Leadership Development at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Through her company, Inside Out, Dr. Rosenberg focuses on individualized leadership development and the development, facilitation, and evaluation of executive leadership teams. She is a Board Certified Leadership Coach (BCC) and is certified to administer and train on a wide range of leadership...

Carlos del Rio, MD is a Distinguished Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Emory University School of Medicine and Executive Associate Dean for Emory at Grady. He is also Professor of Global Health and Professor of Epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health. He is co-Director of the Emory Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and co-PI of the Emory-CDC HIV Clinical Trials Unit and the Emory Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit. In this episode, Dr. del Rio...

Chandra L. Ford, PhD, MPH, MLIS is Professor of Community Health Sciences and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice and Health in the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Her work offers conceptual and methodological tools for studying racism as a public health problem. In this episode, Dr. Ford describes how her career journey pivoted unexpectedly as a result of her experiences as an undergraduate student....

Brian Smedley, PhD is chief of Psychology in the Public Interest, where he leads APA’s efforts to apply the science and practice of psychology to the fundamental problems of human welfare and social justice. In this episode, Dr. Smedley discusses how work in social justice has been instrumental in addressing the challenges of current events (e.g., COVID-19, racial inequality, etc.). He illustrates how much this body of work has grown since the late 90s, when issues of racial justice and...

Emily Wang, MD, MAS is a Professor in the Yale School of Medicine and Public Health and directs the new SEICHE Center for Health and Justice. The SEICHE Center is a collaboration between the Yale School of Medicine and Yale Law School working to stimulate community transformation by identifying the legal, policy, and practice levers that can improve the health of individuals and communities impacted by mass incarceration. She leads the Health Justice Lab research program, which receives...

Sandro Galea, MD, MPH, DrPH, a physician, epidemiologist, and author, is dean and Robert A. Knox Professor at Boston University School of Public Health. In this episode, Dr. Galea describes his early beginnings in Medicine and the decision to pivot towards a career in public health. He comments on the biomedical achievements in response to the pandemic, as well as the structural challenges that emerged and/or were exacerbated as a result of the pandemic. His advice to leaders in these...

Margaret Moss, PhD, JD, RN, is an enrolled member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation (Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota), and has equal lineage as Canadian Sioux/ Saskatchewan. She is currently, at the University of British Columbia as Director of the First Nations House of Learning, and in the Faculty of Applied Science as an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing. Dr. Moss is the first and only American Indian to hold both nursing and juris doctorates. In this episode,...

Lauren Smith, MD, MPH, is the Chief Health Equity and Strategy Officer for the CDC Foundation, a newly created role for which she brings over 25 years of experience in healthcare delivery, management, public policy and public health. In this episode, Dr. Smith describes her early interests in science and the social determinants of health, which influenced her career pursuits in medicine, government, and public health. She shares her experiences working in government, and the transition to...

Keith Norris, MD, PhD is an internationally recognized clinician scientist and health policy leader. A board certified nephrologist and member of the National Kidney Foundation's Kidney Disease Outcome Quality Initiative, Dr. Norris has been instrumental in shaping national health policy and clinical practice guidelines for chronic kidney disease. In this episode, Dr. Norris describes the three mentors who played a pivotal role in his career journey, and how their guidance molded him into...

Aletha Maybank, MD, MPH, currently serves as the Chief Health Equity Officer and Group Vice President for the American Medical Association (AMA), where she focuses on embedding health equity across all the work of the AMA and leading the Center for Health Equity. In this episode, Dr. Maybank discusses her experiences in the medical field and her desire to pursue public health. It was in her work with the Office of Minority Health that she became entrenched in health disparities work. Issues...

In this episode, Dr. Valerie Stone shares her leadership trajectory, from her early years serving in leadership roles in high school to the many roles that she has taken on over the years. She also describes her leadership approach, which involves identifying important gaps and working with others to fill them. While her approach has been consistent over the years, her leadership style has changed slightly, as she focuses on emotional intelligence. Valerie Stone, MD, MPH is the Vice Chair...

In this episode, Dr. Joseph Betancourt reflects on how early beginnings with his family upbringing influenced his journey to medicine and his outlook on how he approaches his work and opportunities. He also talks about the work he has done around diversity, equity and inclusion, in particular, how to think about and deliver cross cultural competency and communication to improve patient care. Dr. Betancourt provides advice for future leaders about learning through engagement when exploring a...