Rico Beuford is an Emergency Medicine resident physician at Duke University Medical Center who is passionate about addressing social inequalities among BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities through legislative change and community activism. He currently serves as the liaison for the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) committee where he informs and updates faculty and residents of current policy changes throughout the United States. Several reviews he’s done include the Supreme Court’s decision on vaccines mandates, the Public Health Emergency extension, Medicaid and Medicare extension in North Carolina, and the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Of all of his efforts, he is most proud of coordinating a successful emergency medical response team with Durham Pride and the LGBTQ Center of Durham during the first in person Pride event since the Covid-19 pandemic. From this success he has partnered with the North Carolina AIDS Action Network to further increase access to healthcare needs.

Rebeca graduated summa cum laude from the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Florida, where she currently resides. As a Real Estate Broker, she witnessed the need to address barriers for safe, stable, and affordable housing. Driven by the passion to advocate for vulnerable populations, she started at Operation New Hope, which seeks to empower those recently released from the penal system with the tools necessary to obtain sustainable employment. Currently, she works at UF Health as the Grant Administrator for the Center for Health Equity and Social Justice. The mission of The Center is to create lasting and impactful tools that eliminate challenges and systemic barriers to health equity and social justice where all Floridians have an opportunity to be healthy, prosper, and thrive. Rebeca’s primary interests lie in women’s health, housing, and LGBTQ+ inclusivity. In her spare time, she enjoys gardening with her two cats, cooking, and traveling to cosplay conventions.

Nabiha Nuruzzaman MD MPH is an Emergency Medicine physician at Stanford University’s Emergency Medicine Residency. She has an undergraduate degree in Anthropology from Princeton University and a Masters of Public Health from Columbia University. She received her Doctor of Medicine at the Frank H Netter MD School of Medicine, where she piloted interdisciplinary health equity programming and curricula at the graduate medical education level. Her research focuses on the use of archival materials to understand disparities in healthcare access and medicine, with an interest in climate justice, social movement organizing around health, and rights-based approaches to health systems development.

James Hudspeth is an internist practicing hospital medicine at Boston Medical Center, Boston's safety net hospital, with particular expertise working with patients who are homeless or who have substance use disorders. Beyond clinical work he focuses on medical education and global health. He is an associate program director for the BMC internal medicine residency. He worked from 2011-2019 on medical and nursing education initiatives with various partners in Haiti, and chaired the Education Committee for the Consortium of Universities for Global Health. Presently he is working on expanding health equity education at his institution and increasing patient-centered care for hospitalized patients.

Raj Sundar was born in Chennai, India, and grew up loving feasts of Dosa & Appam (with grandma’s homemade coconut milk). After eight years in India, I came to the US via a solo trip on a Lufthansa flight and joined my parents on the east coast. I spent most of my childhood in North Carolina, where my loyalty to the UNC Tarheels grew. I came to Seattle, WA, to join Group Health (now Kaiser Permanente) for residency join 2016 and have remained in staff since then. My fight in life is to work with others to create systems that treat each person with dignity, respect their histories, celebrate their joys, and honor their hopes. My leadership vision is to create conditions that enable others to achieve a shared purpose. It’s a leadership based on enabling, facilitating, and sharing power. I hope I can be part of work that can help all of us achieve our shared purpose for creating institutions and communities that are diverse, equitable, and inclusive.

Dr. Andrea “Drea” Jones is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at UNMC and a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She attended medical school at UNMC and then the Family Medicine Residency program. Born in Austin, Texas, the daughter of a career Air Force serviceman, at the age of nine she moved to Omaha, her mother’s hometown. As a multi-racial woman of color from the community, it has long been her goal to earn, and then use her medical degree back in the community, particularly North Omaha’s largely African American population. She also serves as the Medical Director at Girls Inc and the Medical Director for Equity and Community Health at Nebraska Medicine. She has two daughters and when not working Dr. Jones enjoys spending time with family, yoga, biking, hiking, record collecting, and music festivals. 

Melissa Chen MD is the course director and creator of the new health equity longitudinal curriculum at Chicago Medical School. As the Medical Director of the Interprofessional Community Clinic (ICC), the student-led free clinic at Rosalind Franklin University, she has years of experience in caring for the historically marginalized, and a keen interest in infusing health equity into the education of future clinicians. Her interests also include integrative medicine and knitting.

Faith Summersett Williams, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. More specifically, she is trained as a psychologist, and currently works as a behavioral scientist in the Potocsnak Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine (DAYAM) at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital where she leads the research program for DAYAM's Substance Use and Prevention Program. Her academic interests are focused on health equity and justice to center the values and needs of historically marginalized communities. She combines this perspective with organizational, implementation and dissemination science frameworks to examine health inequities in relation to structural disenfranchisement.

Her current research is focused on scaling up an evidence-based substance use program in the inpatient setting at pediatric hospitals. Through this program she hopes to serve a particularly vulnerable pediatric population – youth with chronic medical conditions who are at high-risk for secondary substance use disorder and health-related complications of substance use.

Dr. Summerset Williams is dedicated to establishing a universal standard of equitable healthcare for communities on the periphery. Her interest in studying and addressing substance use in youth, especially among those with chronic medical conditions, came about due to her deep awareness of the role substance use often plays as a driver of poor and inequitable health outcomes. In addition to her research, Dr. Summersett Williams is currently completing a one-year bioethics fellowship through the Maclean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago. Her goal during this fellowship is to prioritize underrepresented issues within bioethics such as health justice. Dr. Summersett Williams is also the Faculty Lead for DEI Initiatives within DAYAM and serves as a committee member on the President's Council for DEI and on the Health Equity Rounds at Lurie Children's Hospital. Her hope is that this work informs health care policies and practices to improve the quality of care delivered to youth and families.

Dr. Rachel Fabi is an Assistant Professor in the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. She serves as a member of SUNY Upstate University Hospital’s ethics consultation service and as a faculty research affiliate of the Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion at Syracuse University. Dr. Fabi completed her Ph.D. in Health Policy and Management in the Bioethics and Health Policy track at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In 2019, Dr. Fabi was awarded the Greenwall Fellowship in Bioethics by the National Academy of Medicine, and in 2021 she was elected to the position of Director-at-Large of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. Her research focuses on the ethics of policies that affect immigrant health. Outside of work, Dr. Fabi solves and creates crossword puzzles, and she also writes the New York Times “Wordplay” column about the daily crossword.

Dr. Saida Yassin was born in Tanzania; gained her medical degree at Dokuz Eylul University in Izmir, Turkey and practiced in Tanzania before immigrating to USA. She has completed Internal Medicine residency and pursued a geriatric medicine fellowship at Hennepin Healthcare in Minnesota. Dr. Yassin has experience working in the immigrant and underserved population in different leadership capacities. She is passionate about primary care, global health, addressing health inequity & disparities and promoting patient advocacy. She enjoys traveling, volunteering and spending time with her global family. She speaks Kiswahili and Turkish.

Dr. Marilyn Sampilo is a pediatric psychologist at Cleveland Clinic Children’s specializing in integrated behavioral health and health equity. Clinically, she provides behavioral health services within pediatric primary care. Academically, she serves as Health Equity and Social Justice Lead for the Center of Pediatric Behavioral Health, where she has designed a year-long residency curriculum focused on health equity and social justice. She also serves as Chair for DEI within the Pediatrics Institute and works on several enterprise-wide DEI initiatives. She also consults with various local, state, and national entities on training and professional development in the areas of health equity, cultural proficiency, and social justice.

Dr. Sampilo received her doctoral degree in clinical child psychology from the University of Kansas and a Master of Public Health with a concentration in social and behavioral aspects of public health from the University of Kansas Medical Center.

My passion for child health equity was ignited when I read a paper on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) during a health policy class in my fourth year of medical school. As an aspiring pediatrician at the time, I was inspired to focus on this topic in residency to help protect children from circumstances outside their control and interrupt the intergenerational cycle of trauma. With great mentorship, I helped complete a project in our residency clinic to improve conversations with families about ACEs and relational health while also focusing on positive and actionable aspects. Now, I am an PICU Hospitalist and am excited to continue to help advance health equity through my project and meet and receive mentorship from this amazing program.

Tumani Jackson is a registered nurse who originates from Los Angeles, CA. She became passionate about nursing and helping BIPOC individuals reduce health disparities during her matriculation in undergrad. In 2017, she graduated from the illustrious North Carolina A&T State University’s accelerated nursing program. She has served as a missionary nurse to the people of Nairobi and Mombasa, Kenya. For 3 years, Tumani worked as an Emergency and Cardiac nurse in Durham, North Carolina. There, she also served in several leadership roles. Currently, she is enrolled as a DNP student at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, as a student in the Health Innovation and Leadership Program. She also is the proud owner of her own LLC which teaches BIPOC youth and individuals CPR. Tumani is passionate about her community and advancing the knowledge and standards of health for BIPOC individuals.

Dr. Clements is a pediatric hospitalist and assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Originally from Cleveland, OH, he obtained his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Toledo. He completed his residency and chief residency in pediatrics at Riley Hospital for Children and the IU School of Medicine. He serves as medical director for well newborn care at Riley Hospital for Children, where he advocates for best policies and practices for infants and their families. He is co-chair of the IU School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice Committee. In addition, Dr. Clements is a member of the executive board of the Indiana Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Graduate of Wayne State University Medical School in Detroit Michigan. Practiced Internal Medicine and Hospital Medicine at the University of Michigan. Currently Associate Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine and Vice Chair of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at the University of Arizona Department of Internal Medicine.

Dr. Ebele Mary-Anne Umeukeje is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). She is the Diversity Liaison for VUMC Nephrology Division, and a member of the Diversity Committee of the American Society of Nephrology. Dr. Umeukeje completed Internal Medicine training, including a year as Chief Resident, at Meharry Medical College, and completed Nephrology training at VUMC. She advanced her training in patient-oriented research through the MPH Program at VUMC. Her research aims to address kidney health disparities by optimizing self-care in vulnerable populations and addressing psychosocial determinants to promote kidney health equity. She has successfully built her research program with combined expertise in motivational interviewing, provider cultural competence, community engagement, and health education. She is the recipient of an NIDDK F32 award, a BIRCWH K12 award, and NIDDK K23, R03, R01 awards.

Giovanna Leddy is an Associate Director of the Social Justice Track for Internal Medicine residents at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She studied at The College of William and Mary, The University of Vermont College of Medicine, and completed her internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.  She previously practiced primary care and now specializes in the treatment of obesity and weight-related conditions at Atrius Health. While practicing primary care, she participated in The Kraft Practitioner Program, where she worked to expand resident education to incorporate more training in community health and on topics of structural determinants of health, social justice and health equity. In her role as an Associate Director for the Social Justice Track, she aspires to train a new generation of physicians who will be well positioned to lead necessary change and to improve health equity.

Judy is currently a Labor & Delivery nurse at New England's largest safety net hospital. She began her career in health care twenty years ago as a community health worker as one of Boston Medical Center’s Birth Sisters (on-staff doulas), working almost exclusively with immigrant families. In addition to working directly with pregnant people and their families as a bedside nurse, she also staffs triage and is well-practiced as charge nurse. She served as a trained pastoral visitor in immigration detention for nine years, coordinated the program for three years, and has testified at State House hearings on the impact of legislation in the lives of immigrant families.

Dr. Philippa Soskin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and Washington Hospital Center in Washington DC. She serves as the Director of Health Equity & Global Health for MedStar Academic Affairs and directs the Social Medicine & Health Equity Track and the MedStar Emergency Medicine Health Policy Fellowship Program. Philippa received her Master in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government prior to obtaining her medical degree from Stanford University and completing her residency in emergency medicine at UCSF-San Francisco General. Philippa has a particular interest in health care disparities, caring for underserved populations, and social medicine education. She also loves to sing, travel, hike, and go to the theater!

Nikita Rodrigues, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in providing integrated behavioral health services in a pediatric primary care setting. Dr. Rodrigues is an assistant professor of pediatrics and psychology and behavioral health and works as a consultation psychologist. She currently serves as the Associate Director of Whole Bear Care: Primary Care Behavioral Health Services at Children’s National.

Dr. Rodrigues specializes in providing mental health consultation and brief intervention for children ages 0-22. She is committed to increasing access to high-quality, culturally competent care for under-resourced children and families. Additionally, Dr. Rodrigues is involved in initiatives to improve the recruitment and training of the psychology workforce to better partner with communities to improve health outcomes. Her research focuses on intervention development and the implementation of evidence-based interventions in clinical settings.

Lia J. Smith, M.A., L.P.A. is a pre-doctoral clinical intern with Cambridge Health Alliance/ Harvard Medical School and the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion. Lia is a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at the University of Houston and NIAAA F31 Predoctoral Fellow. Her study is entitled, An Examination of the Effects of Global Sleep Disturbance and PTSD on Alcohol Cue Reactivity. Overall, Lia's research and clinical interests focus on risk (e.g., sleep, distress tolerance) and resilience (e.g., mindfulness, psychological flexibility) processes at the intersection of addictions, trauma, and health equity. She is passionate about methods to improve clinical care and outreach within community healthcare settings. In her free time, Lia enjoys spending time with her family, playing with her dog, and traveling.

Sonia Bharel, MD is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Department of Medicine within Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. She received her MD from Stony Brook University School of Medicine and completed both her internal medicine residency and Chief residency at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital (TJUH). She is currently Core Faculty and the Health Systems Science director of the internal medicine residency program at TJUH. Her clinical and academic interests include addressing health equity through the lens of inpatient medicine and medical education.

Jacqueline is a servant leader focused on improving health and communities. After graduating from Vanderbilt University, she supported Federally Qualified Health Centers, cultivating interests in health equity and population health. Jacqueline joined Children’s Wisconsin in 2012, where supporting clinicians inspired her to seek a Masters in Nursing from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Bedside care further moved Jacqueline to focus on integrating health services –from the hospital to the pediatrician’s office to care in the community. She is inspired to provide equitable care and focuses on connecting families with sustainable community resources. Jacqueline volunteers with multiple non-profits, including as Board President for the Caneille Regional Development Fund which seeks to advance opportunity through education in rural Haiti. Jacqueline lives in Greendale, Wisconsin, with her husband, son, and daughter and enjoys Bucks basketball, community events, and spending time outdoors.

Dr. Raynald Samoa is a graduate from the University of Washington School of Medicine. He completed his residency and fellowship training at USC Los Angeles County General Hospital. He is currently an endocrinologist at the City of Hope. Dr. Samoa served as the Lead for the National Pacific Islander COVID-19 Response Team and has authored several manuscripts describing the impact of COVID-19 on Pacific Islander communities. He has testified to the House of Representative Ways and Means Committee during a session entitled THE DISPROPORTIONATE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON COMMUNITIES OF COLOR. Dr. Samoa serves on the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian American, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders and is the Co-Chair of the Data Disaggregation Subcommitte. He currently is the technical advisory lead for the Healing Association of Pacific Islander Physicians and the Data and Research Council of the National Association of Pacific Islander Organizations (NAOPO).

Rosha Forman, CNM, is the Director of Midwifery Services at Boston Medical Center. She leads a team of 28 talented, diverse, driven midwives to provide evidence based care in a large academic safety net hospital. She is dedicated to promoting and protecting a midwifery model of care, and strives to do so with excellent traditional care as well as innovative programs. Her most recent projects include helping to develop the first tri-lingual pregnancy app, advising on content for a text message based educational program for pregnant people, and getting a dyadic mobile van on the road to serve moms and babies after birth. When she is not at work, she enjoys nagging her three children (and loving on them too), biking and walking all over Cambridge and Boston, and has aspirations to pick up her knitting again one day.

Dr. Stacie Schmidt completed her undergraduate studies at Xavier University of Louisiana, where she obtained a BS in chemistry in 2003. She completed medical school at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA in 2007, and went on to train at the Emory J. Willis Hurst Internal Medicine Residency Program. Upon completion of her residency in 2010, she joined the Division of General Internal Medicine at Emory University as Clinical Instructor of Medicine. She was promoted to Assistant Professor in 2013. Dr. Schmidt serves as Medical Director of the Primary Care Center (PCC) at Grady Memorial Hospital, an academic, safety net, hospital-based clinic accommodating approximately 70,000 visits a year, mostly to uninsured and underinsured patients with multiple chronic illnesses.

Dr. Schmidt believes that effective primary care delivery requires active patient involvement and enhanced interdisciplinary communication regarding the care plan; this requires effective multidisciplinary team functioning, collaborative care, shared decision-making, empowered communication with patients using motivational interviewing, and enhancing patient self-efficacy under the Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) model. Her past efforts involved helping vulnerable patients with chronic illnesses make healthy behavior choices around diet, exercise, and disease management, and developing motivational interviewing skills to assist patients in making choices. One example of that effort is the Healthy Living Group Class, which we began in 2014 at the Grady Primary Care Center (PCC). The class provides opportunities for PCC patients suffering from obesity to meet weekly for group and individualized education and goal-setting around healthy eating and exercise. The group class is complimented by collaborations with local farmers markets and community organizations to provide cooking classes and skill building, as well as free prescriptions and access to fresh fruits and vegetables (FVRx).

Dr. Schmidt also co-designed an ambulatory experiential module to help Internal Medicine residents at our academic safety-net institution better understand how social constructs might hinder the health of patients. Half of the US population has chronic illness, accounting for approximately three-quarters of US healthcare costs, yet many disparities exist in healthcare for poorer individuals, including decreased access to healthy foods, homelessness, and difficulty navigating large hospital systems due to low health literacy. Residents choose from a menu of experiences, which include sleeping outside for a night to understand homelessness, attempting to make it to a primary care appointment on a five dollar budget and using public transportation without electronic navigation tools, or visiting the neighborhood of a patient to access its safety, nearness to healthy food stores, and social support. Residents were asked to submit a reflective narrative of their experience, which yielded moving lessons learned, as well as an enhanced desire to advocate for, and learn about, community resources for patients. This curriculum was recently published in MedEdPortal with the Editor’s Choice Special Distinction.

Currently, Dr. Schmidt co-chairs the Connectivity and Partnerships Subcommittee for the Emory Education and Transformation Steering Committee for Health Professions Programs. The subcommittee is tasked with creating a 21st century health professions’ workforce that can address evolving care models through a team-based, interdisciplinary focus. Members of the subcommittee desire educational curricula that allow our health professions learners to (1) address dynamic public health issues, (2) design and continuously improve health care systems, and (3) eliminate healthcare disparities and discrimination in medicine. The above leadership roles, curricular programming, and service experiences are proud examples of Dr. Schmidt’s dedication to implementing innovative methods to teach healthcare professionals about the social determinants of health and health inequities. It is her hope that it will lead to broader impact in the world— and in our local communities— for patients both now and in the future, as learners move forward to become our next generation of leaders.