Clinical Public Health Faculty and Clinical Public Health Mentors

GW’s Clinical Public Health curriculum includes student access to and leadership by faculty members who are clinicians who are also expert and experienced in public health, population health, health policy, health systems, health advocacy or related practice and health professional education.

GW SMHS Clinical Public Health faculty lead various courses, degree programs and activities related to the GW SMHS Clinical Public Health curriculum and efforts including the course, “Patients, Populations and Systems,” Clinical Public Health Summits, the Culinary Medicine Program, the Criminal Justice Health Program and Community Service Learning.

Clinical Public Health Mentors facilitate student case discussions that are part of the “Patients, Populations and Systems” course, provide mentorship and guidance for students, give expert lectures as part of the Clinical Public Health curriculum and also work with basic and clinical faculty to support curricular development around Clinical Public Health topics.

The Clinical Public Health Mentors, along with faculty from the GW Milken Institute School of Public Health (MISPH), also serve as advisors for GW medical students who participate in the GW SMHS/MISPH Combined Degree Program (MD/MPH and MD/Certificate in Public Health).

The GW SMHS faculty members who lead these Clinical Public Health efforts each have exceptional clinical experience and collectively provide GW students and faculty with deep and wide knowledge and experience in public health, population health, health policy, leadership and advocacy.

The Clinical Public Health Faculty and Mentors are:

Ashely Alker, MD, M.Sc. Public Health

Clinical Public Health Mentor

Read Dr. Ashely Alker's Bio: Ashely Alker, M.D., M.Sc., is a nationally published speaker and writer, with a focus on patient education and healthcare policy. Dr. Alker studied at Harvard School of Public Health’s International Institute in Cyprus, where she lived near the United Nations’ Green Zone and worked at the Unit for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture. After attending George Washington University School of Medicine, Ashely worked as a healthcare advisor for a U.S. Congressman. She completed her medical residency at The University of California, San Diego, where she gave a TEDx talk on end-of-life care. She is currently the Chief Medical Media Officer of Doctorpedia, a patient education organization, and produced and co-hosted the “COVID Frontlines” public health education webcast. Ashely also works as a medical technical consultant for network television and major motion pictures. She currently is under contract for a new HBO series. Dr. Alker is a nationally published writer on topics including gun violence prevention, equity in medicine, and narrative medicine. She has been a featured writer in USA Today, TEDMED, KevinMD, the San Diego Union-Tribune, and has published a children’s book on understanding death.

Hana Akselrod, MD, MPH

Director, HIV Summit
Clinical Public Health Mentor Emeritus

Read Dr. Hana Akselrod's Bio

Hana Akselrod, MD, MPH, is an infectious disease physician and assistant professor of medicine at the George Washington University (GW). Her areas of interest include travel medicine, LGBTQ health, and HIV across the lifespan. She conducts research on HIV and aging as part of the DC Center for AIDS Research, and serves as the GW site principal investigator for the DC Cohort, a city-wide longitudinal cohort that follows over 10,000 people in care for HIV across 15 clinical sites.

Prior to medical training, Dr. Akselrod worked for the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, supporting research on tuberculosis in Russia. She then attended the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where she was a leader in the American Medical Student Association and received the Physicians for Human Rights 2011 National Emerging Leaders Award for her work on a human rights curriculum. She completed her MPH and the Climate Change and Health program at the Yale School of Public Health. She completed her internal medicine residency training at the Maine Medical Center, and her ID fellowship at GW.

Dr. Akselrod is passionate about interdisciplinary work and physician leadership on issues affecting the health of marginalized patients and communities. She has served on the American Medical Association (AMA) Resident and Fellow Section Public Health Committee, is a reviewer and occasional contributor for the AMA Journal of Ethics, and has been a member of several Capitol Hill delegations with the Infectious Disease Society of America. She is actively involved in medical education at GW, serving as a faculty mentor in the Quality Improvement Curriculum and as course co-director for the IM-EM Residency Global Health Elective.

Kaylan Baban, MD, MPH

Clinical Public Health Mentor Emeritus
Director, Clinical Pubic Health Summit #4 Emeritus
Founding Director, GW Wellness Center

Read Dr. Kaylan Baban's Bio

Kaylan A. Baban, MD MPH is Chief Wellness Officer and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and Director of the Lifestyle Medicine program at the GW Medical Faculty Associates. She is board-certified in Preventive Medicine and Lifestyle Medicine with a focus on holistic care and patient empowerment.

Dr. Baban earned her bachelor’s degree from Columbia University as an I. I. Rabi Science Scholar. She received her MD and MPH from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai as a George James Epidemiology awardee with Distinction in Research. She completed residency and a chief year in Preventive Medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai as a Delta Omega Public Health Honor Society inductee, Harvard Macy Future Academic Clinician Educator, and Mount Sinai Beth Israel Integrative Medicine interdisciplinary fellow.

As a clinician and educator, Dr. Baban believes that a holistic approach personalized to the individual is the key to success, and she enjoys working with her patients and students to find the path right for them. Dr. Baban’s research and curricular efforts address mindful provision of healthcare and digital health for prevention, patient empowerment, and optimized health outcomes. She currently leads a mixed methods evaluation of individualized lifestyle management for primary and secondary prevention of non-communicable conditions.

Dr. Baban is an active member of both the American College of Preventive Medicine and the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, serving as core faculty for the colleges’ joint Lifestyle Medicine Core Curriculum course, and serving as an active member of the ACLM Provider Wellness committee.

Jodi Balis, RD

Culinary Medicine Program
Chef-Instructor in Medicine

Read Ms. Jodi Balis' Bio: Jodi Balis RD has worked in public health nutrition as a culinary instructor and dietitian for 18 years, working within the nonprofit sector to develop and manage cooking and nutrition programs for underserved communities. Jodi developed hundreds of low budget healthy recipes that were distributed throughout Giant Foods in the mid-Atlantic and co-authored a cookbook highlighting healthy budget friendly meals, for the management and prevention of chronic diet related diseases. She is currently a wellness consultant, a personal chef, and a writer.

Asad Bandealy, MD, MPH

Clinical Public Health Mentor Emeritus
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics

Read Dr. Asad Bandealy's bio

Asad Bandealy is a board-certified community pediatrician at Children’s National Health System in Washington, DC. In his clinical and community work, Dr. Bandealy endeavors to incorporate the tenets of community-oriented primary care (COPC), engaging with patients, families, and the community beyond the four walls of the clinic to address the social determinants of health that impact the wellness of our communities. As this can improve patient care and provider satisfaction, Dr. Bandealy envisions a world where COPC is a standard part of medical education.

Dr. Bandealy has a passion for firearm injury prevention. During his pediatric residency training, he worked with the Chicago Police Department and the State’s Attorney’s office on a gun violence education program for middle school students. Dr. Bandealy has also worked with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America to develop a training module for primary care clinicians to discuss firearm injury prevention and safe storage with families in clinic. He has conducted research into lethal means restriction as a strategy for suicide prevention and served on the planning committee for the AAP’s recent national summit on gun injury prevention: Mobilizing for Action to Protect Children & Youth. Most recently Dr. Bandealy is serving as the co-Chair for Advocacy at Children’s National’s SAFER firearms injury reduction working group.

Aside from his deep commitment to firearm injury prevention, Dr. Bandealy engages in various projects around reducing health disparities, including work with the DC Pediatric Oral Health Coalition and early childhood caries reduction efforts at Children’s National, as well as DC Mayor Bowser’s Every Day Counts Taskforce to reduce chronic school absenteeism.

In his spare time, Dr. Bandealy enjoys basketball, astronomy, and, most importantly, fatherhood!

April Barbour, MD, MPH

Clinical Public Health Mentor
Associate Professor of Medicine

Read Dr. April Barbour's Bio

April Barbour, MD, MPH, is an internist with The GW Medical Faculty Associates and an associate professor of medicine with The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She completed her undergraduate degree at University of Virginia and graduated from medical school at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. After completing her internal medicine residency at Emory University, she joined the Division of General Medicine at the Emory Clinic.

During her stint at Emory, she received her Master’s in Public Health from the Rollins School of Public Health. In 2003, she relocated to D.C. and joined the Medical Faculty Associates. In 2005, she became the Program Director for the Primary Care residency program, and has been very involved in medical-student and resident education ever since. Her approach to patient care is holistic and patient-centered.

Dr. Barbour has several clinical and scholarly interests including preventative care, consultative medicine, patient safety, medical education, transitions in care and cancer survivorship care.

Charles Baron, MD, MPH

Theme Director, Evidence-Based Medicine

Read Dr. Charles Baron's Bio

Charles Baron, MD, MPH, is a primary care provider and assistant professor of medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the George Washington University (GW) Medical Faculty Associates and GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

He obtained his undergraduate degree in chemistry at Wesleyan University and his medical degree at Thomas Jefferson University. He went on to complete his residency in the primary care internal medicine program at GW and is excited to join the GW faculty as a primary care physician.

Dr. Baron has focused much of his education on promoting health equity and practicing harm reduction. During medical school, he obtained a Master of Public Health degree, focusing on population health and the importance of involving local communities in health program design.

He understands and focuses on patient-centered care and shared decision-making, appreciating that every patient has their own goals with regard to optimizing their health. He is passionate about teaching and is excited to continue working at the GW MFA in both a primary care and educational role for medical students and resident physicians. He is well placed to capitalize on his experience within the GW system to help his patients navigate the complexities of health care and to serve as a capable primary care physician as well as care coordinator.

Karla Bartholomew, PhD, JD, MPH, PA

Assistant Dean for Clinical Public Health
Co-Director, Patients, Populations and Systems course
Director, Medicine/Public Health Degree Programs
Assistant Clinical Professor, Physician Assistant Studies Program

Read Dr. Bartholomew's Bio

Dr. Bartholomew's education background:

BS, University of Maryland, College Park, 1985
BMS Physician Associate, Emory University, 1987
MPH, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1993
JD, Vanderbilt University School of Law, 2002
PhD, Vanderbilt University, 2010

Sonal Batra, MD, MST

Director, Clinical Public Health Summit #4
Co-Director, Patients, Populations and Systems Course
Clinical Public Health Mentor
Assistant Professor of Medicine

Read Dr. Sonal Batra's Bio

Sonal Batra, MD, MST, FACEP is a board-certified emergency medicine physician and an Assistant Professor in the School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She holds a secondary appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Milken Institute School of Public Health and is a lead researcher in the Fitzhugh Mullan Institue for Health Workforce Equity. Dr. Batra practices clinically at GW University Hospital and United Medical Center, the only public hospital in the nation’s capital.

Dr. Batra serves as associate residency director for The George Washington University Emergency Medicine Residency and is primarily responsible for overseeing the educational curriculum of the residency. Dr. Batra was also a founding board member of the Beyond Flexner Alliance, an organization dedicated to advancing social mission in health professions education. Her current research projects include serving as co-PI of the Social Mission Metrics Initiative, a project aimed at developing a framework for measuring the social mission of health professions schools. She is particularly interested in diversifying the healthcare workforce and has worked on several pipeline programs for high school students across Washington, D.C. who are interested in entering the health professions.

Dr. Batra also has interests in global health and volunteers with the Physicians for Human Rights Asylum Network, conducting forensic medical exams to corroborate asylum seekers’ claims of persecution and torture. She also works as global health faculty for the department’s post-graduate training programs across India.

Dr. Batra received her bachelor of arts in psychology and medical degree from Northwestern University. She completed residency in emergency medicine at The George Washington University, serving as chief resident in her final year. Between undergraduate and medical school, Dr. Batra spent two years teaching middle school science with Teach for America. During that time, she earned a Master’s of Science in Teaching (MST) from Pace University in New York City.

Lee Beers, MD

Clinical Public Health Mentor Emeritus
Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Director for Municipal and Regional Affairs, Child Health Advocacy Institute

Read Dr. Lee Beers' Bio

Lee Ann Savio Beers, MD, is associate professor of pediatrics and the medical director for Municipal and Regional Affairs within Children’s National’s Goldberg Center for Community Pediatric Health and Child Health Advocacy Institute. She is also the director of the DC Mental Health Access in Pediatrics (DC MAP) program and co-director of the Early Childhood Innovation Network. She oversees the DC Collaborative for Mental Health in Pediatric Primary Care, a public-private coalition that serves as a catalyst to elevate the standard of mental health care for every young person in the city by increasing primary care provider capacity and achieving systemic policy change.

She earned her medical degree from Emory University School of Medicine and completed a pediatric residency at the Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth, Virginia. Prior to joining Children’s National, she was a general pediatrician at the Naval Hospital in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

Dr. Beers has held numerous leadership positions in the American Academy of Pediatrics, and serves in a wide variety of leadership and advisory positions within the Washington, D.C. community, including the Mayor’s State Early Childhood Development Coordinating Council. Her clinical and research interests include adolescent pregnancy and parenting, the integration of mental health and pediatric primary care, the impact of adversity and stress on child well-being and advocacy education.

Janice Blanchard, PhD, MD, MPH

Clinical Public Health Mentor

Read Dr. Janice Blanchard's Bio

Janice Blanchard MD PhD is a Professor at the George Washington University School of Medicine and School of Public Health and an Adjunct Affiliate Researcher at the RAND Corporation. Dr. Blanchard is Chief of the Health Policy Section in the George Washington Department of Emergency Medicine. She obtained her B.S. at Stanford University and her M.D and M.P.H degrees at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health. After completing residency in emergency medicine at George Washington University, she completed a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars fellowship at UCLA and RAND during which time she obtained her PhD in health policy at the RAND Graduate School.

Her research interests include access to health care populations and the impact of policy changes on health and health care access. Dr. Blanchard is a mixed-methods researcher who has worked with a number of large data sets including hospital and emergency department discharge data. Her particular projects have focused on racial disparities in health and behavioral health issues.

In addition to her research and policy work, she continues to be an actively practicing emergency medicine physician at the George Washington Department of Emergency Medicine. She has written extensively in mainstream and academic publications including CNN, The Hill, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun and Academic Emergency Medicine.

Nia Bodrick, MD, MPH, FAAP

Clinical Public Health Mentor

Read Dr. Nia Bodrick's

Dr. Bodrick is a general pediatrician at Children’s National Hospital at the Town Hall Education Arts Recreation Campus (THEARC) and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington, DC. Dr. Bodrick’s areas of interest include equity and resilience in communities, obesity prevention and global health advocacy and policy. She has leadership roles in the Early Childhood Innovation Network and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

She holds her Doctorate of Medicine from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, TN, Master of Public Health from Emory University in Atlanta, GA and Bachelor of Science from Hampton University in Hampton, VA. She completed her pediatric residency training at the University of Florida at Orlando Health in Orlando, Florida.

Binny Chokshi, MD

Clinical Public Health Mentor Emeritus
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics

Read Binny Chokshi' Bio: Binny Chokshi completed her pediatric residency and chief residency at Children’s National Medical Center, with a focus on community health. Binny Chokshi's research and clinical interests are focused on adverse childhood experiences and trauma informed care, specifically how to transform physician education and patient care to meet the unique needs of our vulnerable patients. She has a passion for education and completed the Master Teacher and Leadership Program in 2018.

Lawrence Deyton, MSPH, MD

Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Public Health
Murdock Head Professor of Medicine and Health Policy

Read Dr. Lawrence Deyton's Bio

Dr. Deyton is Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Public Health and the Murdock Head Professor of Medicine and Health Policy in the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

As Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Public Health, Dr. Deyton is creating new curriculum and pedagogy for medical education to teach medical students the principles of public health, population health, and leadership in medical care and health systems decision-making. These are the tools that are required of clinicians who practice in 21st Century health care systems.

Dr. Deyton returned to GW in March 2013 after 31 years in national leadership research and clinical positions in several Federal health and public health agencies including the Food and Drug Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, National Institutes of Health and the HHS Office of the Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health and as a Congressional aide.

From 2009-2013, Dr. Deyton oversaw the implementation and enforcement of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act signed into law by President Obama on March 22, 2009. Described by FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg as “the rare combination of public health expert, administrative leader, scientist, and clinician,” Dr. Deyton became the Center for Tobacco Product’s first director on August 19, 2009 and rapidly established and enforced FDA’s new authorities to regulate tobacco products.

Prior to joining FDA, Dr. Deyton was Chief Public Health and Environmental Hazards Officer for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. His responsibilities there included oversight of all public health programs for the National VA health care system.

Dr. Deyton served for 11 years in clinical research and leadership positions in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) where he was Chief of the Antiretroviral Treatment Branch during which he oversaw the development and approval of drug treatment strategies including the first trials of combination therapies which are the cornerstone of current HIV treatments.

Dr. Deyton was a founder in 1978 of Washington DC’s Whitman Walker Clinic, a community based service organization specializing in LGBT and now HIV care in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of University of Kansas, the Harvard School of Public Health and the George Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Deyton’s post-doctorate medical training in medicine was at the University of Southern California/Los Angeles County Medical Center and in infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health. He has published over 60 scientific articles in the peer-reviewed literature. Dr. Deyton continues to care for patients on a regular basis at the Washington, DC VA Medical Center.

In 2011, Dr. Deyton was a finalist for the prestigious Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal for his career of government service and outstanding contributions to the health, safety and well-being of Americans – 20 finalists are chosen from 4.8 million Federal employees nation-wide. And in 2014, Dr. Deyton received the George Washington University Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award. In 2019, Dr. Deyton was inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society and received the James D. Bruce Memorial Award for Distinguished Contributions in Preventive Medicine from the American College of Physicians.

Luis Dominguez, MD, MPH

Co-Director, Patients, Populations and Systems Course
Clinical Public Health Mentor
Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine

Read Dr. Luis Dominguez' Bio

Dr. Dominguez grew up in the DC area and attended Dartmouth College. He then matriculated at SGU, earning a dual MD/MPH degree with distinction. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Jersey City Medical Center - RWJ Barnabas Health. While there, he served as the House-Staff Representative, liaising between residents and the administration, and negotiating the contracts for all training programs.

He also established multiple Quality Improvement projects, including a resident-run bedside IV access/mid-line program, and improved transfusion protocols based on thromboelastography. He also sat on the Graduate Medical Education Committee, and helped restructure residency schedules to alleviate inpatient burden, and enhanced outpatient training, graduating with multiple publications and awards for scholarship. He then entered the GW Health Policy Fellowship, working part time as a clinician, and part time on the Energy and Commerce, Healthcare Subcommittee in the US House of Representatives.

His work focused mainly on drug pricing, Medicare and Medicaid. He is currently the Associate Medical Director and Clinical Quality Officer for the GW-MFA Immediate and Primary Care ambulatory services, and is faculty at the GW School of Medicine.

Danielle Dooley, MD, MPhil

Clinical Public Health Mentor Emeritus
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Director, Community Affairs and Population Health, Child Health Advocacy Institute

Read Dr. Danielle Dooley's Bio

Danielle G. Dooley, MD, MPhil, FAAP, is medical director of Community Affairs and Population Health in the Child Health Advocacy Institute at Children’s National Health System in Washington, D.C., and an assistant professor of pediatrics at George Washington University. She develops collaborations and strategies to improve population health for children, provides advocacy education for pediatric residents, and engages faculty in advocacy work. Her interests include health care for children and families who have immigrated, teenage pregnancy prevention, and school health. She has extensive community experience, having served in a federally qualified health center, Unity Health Care, for a decade. At Unity, she was the medical director of adolescent health services and five school-based health centers.

She received a BS degree in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an MPhil degree in community health from the University of Edinburgh as a British Marshall Scholar, and an MD degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons as a National Health Service Corps Scholar. She completed her residency in pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Hospital Children’s Center. She received the Community Champion Award from the U.S. Surgeon General in 2008 for her work on obesity prevention in the school setting. She is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Nominating Committee, which identifies and selects candidates for national leadership in the AAP. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing and the Milbank Memorial Fund.

Kerri Dotson, RDN, LDN

Director of Operations, GWU Culinary Medicine Program
Executive Chef

Read Kerri Dotson's Bio: Bio coming soon!

Katherine Douglass, MD, MPH

Clinical Public Health Mentor Emeritus
Associate Professor, Emergency Medicine

Read Dr. Katherine Douglass's Bio

Dr. Kate Douglass is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Global Health at George Washington University. She completed her residency training in Emergency Medicine at Drexel University in 2005, then came to GWU to complete fellowship training in International Emergency Medicine as well as a Masters of Public Health. She has served as the director of the International Emergency Medicine Fellowship at GWU since 2007.

Dr. Douglass is specifically interested in international emergency medical systems development with a focus on sustainability, cost effectiveness, and effective educational interventions. She also focuses on the global impact of road traffic injuries, and implications for emergency medical systems development. She has worked extensively with international medical programs and policy initiatives, including projects in India, Peru, Ethiopia, Jordan, Colombia, and Turkey. She currently directs ten post-graduate EM education programs across the nation of India, graduating trained and qualified Emergency Physicians to address India’s severe Emergency Medicine Human Resource shortage and injury epidemic. She has worked over her career with consensus groups at the national and international level to develop guidelines for trainees embarking on global health experiences.

Dr. Douglass also serves as the Director of the Center for Injury Prevention and Control at GWU, with a focus on building education, research and advocacy programs to better understand the epidemiology of injuries and optimize prevention strategies. The Center has active projects both domestically and internationally, in the areas of elderly falls prevention, the epidemiology of electric scooter injuries, and childhood injury prevention strategies in India.

Kofi Essel, MD, MPH

Director, Clinical Public Health Summit on Obesity
Clinical Public Health Mentor Emeritus
Director, Community Health/Urban Health Scholarly Concentration
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics

Read Dr. Kofi Essel's Bio

Kofi D. Essel, MD ’11, MPH ‘17, FAAP, is a board-certified community pediatrician at Children’s National Health System in Washington, D.C. with over 10 years of experience in nutrition and obesity education. As an alumnus of the George Washington University (GW) School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS), Dr. Essel initially trained in the community/urban health track. Since then, he has spent the last several years working closely with a variety of community organizations throughout Washington, D.C., on a diverse set of health initiatives. He has dedicated his career to advocacy and research around healthcare training, health disparities, and community engagement, with a special interest and national recognition in the areas of obesity and food insecurity in families.

Dr. Essel is a key participant in the GW School of Medicine and Health Science’s Clinical Public Health Team and serves as a leader in the Clinical Public Health Summit for second- and third-year medical students, “How Physicians Can Turn the Tide of Obesity in Washington, D.C.” He was nationally recognized by the Alliance for a Healthier Generation for helping to create an innovative curriculum to enhance pediatric resident trainee skills on obesity management. He also assisted with developing a national toolkit for pediatric providers to better identify and screen for food insecurity in their clinical settings while serving as an anti-hunger advocate at D.C. Hunger Solutions and the Food Research & Action Center. He is actively engaged in population health initiatives that strengthen community-clinical ties to improve the prevention, management, and treatment of obesity in underserved areas in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Essel serves on several local and national committees and is actively engaged in improving the pipeline for the recruitment and maintenance of underrepresented minorities into varying fields of medicine.

Dr. Essel grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, and attended the infamous Little Rock Central High School. He earned a BS from Emory University with a focus on human biology/anthropology. While there he was named to the College Hall of Fame, received the Universities Humanitarian Award, and later was recognized as one of the top 20 champions of health promotion in the last two decades. Dr. Essel earned his MD and MPH in epidemiology from the GW SMHS and was inducted into the Golden Humanism Honor Society, and bestowed with the Benjamin Manchester Humanitarian Award and Leonard Humanism in Medicine Award. He completed pediatric residency training in a select community advocacy track and further academic training in a specialized General Academic Pediatric fellowship at Children’s National.

Dr. Essel is invested in improving the scope of medical education to include upstream factors involving the social determinants of health. In his free time, you can find Dr. Essel with his family and friends, cooking flavorful meals, playing on the basketball court, or volunteering and mentoring in his church and community.

Twitter: @DrKofiEssel

Lisa Fitzpatrick, MD, MPH, MPA

Professional Lecturer
Clinical Public Health Mentor Emeritus
Clinical Professor of Medicine

Read Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick' Bio

Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick is an infectious diseases physician and CDC-trained medical epidemiologist. Her career has spanned research, clinical medicine, global health, community health education and patient advocacy. Most recently she served as the medical director for Washington DC’s Medicaid program.

Dr. Fitzpatrick is a professorial lecturer for the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health and an adjunct clinical professor at the George Washington University School of Medicine. She is an Aspen Institute Health Innovator fellow and member of the Aspen Institute Global Leadership Network.

She has a Masters in Public Health from the University of California-Berkeley School of Public Health and Masters in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

In addition to public health and infectious diseases, Dr. Fitzpatrick's areas of professional interest include health literacy, patient engagement and health innovation for underserved communities, specifically digital health solutions.

Olanrewaju (Lanre) Falusi, MD

Clinical Public Health Mentor
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Associate Medical Director of Municipal and Regional Affairs, Child Health Advocacy Institute

Read Dr. Olanrewaju (Lanre) Falusi's Bio

Olanrewaju (Lanre) Falusi, MD, FAAP, is an assistant professor of pediatrics and the associate medical director of Municipal and Regional Affairs at the Child Health Advocacy Institute of Children’s National Medical Center. Dr. Falusi is also the assistant program director for the Community Health Track of Children’s National’s Pediatric Residency Program, a track that trains residents to become leaders in policy, advocacy, and community health care delivery. She is the principal investigator of a 5-year HRSA-funded project to create and evaluate a curriculum on the care of children living in poverty for medical students, residents, and other health professions trainees. She is a graduate of the Master Teacher Leadership Development Program in Medical Education at the George Washington University Graduate School of Education.

Prior to joining the faculty at Children’s National, Dr. Falusi was the director of Pediatrics and Educational Programs at CCI Health and Wellness Services, a federally-qualified health system that serves over 50,000 individuals in Maryland. Her role at CCI included precepting students and residents in the largely Spanish-speaking health center. Dr. Falusi is the past president of the DC Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (DC AAP) and is a member of national AAP’s Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion and the Task Force on Policy Development Process Improvement.

Dr. Falusi has spoken at national conferences on the topics of urban poverty and social determinants of health, and she regularly provides legislative testimony on local and federal levels to promote child health and well-being. She is a Spokesperson for the AAP and has television, radio, blog, and print media experience.

Dr. Falusi attended medical school at the University of Virginia and completed residency and chief residency at Children’s National Medical Center. Dr. Falusi’s professional interests and activities include child health advocacy, immigrant and minority health, early childhood development, toxic stress and resilience, and education across the continuum from medical students through faculty.

Farnaz Farhi, MD, MSc

Clinical Public Health Mentor

Read Dr. Farnaz Farhi's Bio

Farnaz Farhi, MD, MSc (she/her) is an obstetrician and gynecologist with The GW Medical Faculty Associates.

Dr. Farhi is committed to providing evidence-based care and cultivating relationships founded on compassion and respect. An advocate for social justice and health equity, she uses her training in global and public health to care for individuals of all backgrounds.

Dr. Farhi studied Biology and Women's Studies along with Civic and Community Engagement as an undergraduate at the Pennsylvania State University. She completed graduate studies in Global Health at the University of Oxford prior to medical school. She graduated from the Boston University School of Medicine and completed her Obstetrics and Gynecology Residency at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.

Dr. Farhi speaks Persian. Outside of the hospital and clinic settings, she enjoys long-distance running, backpacking, and cooking plant-based meals.

Tamara Gayle, MD, MEd

Clinical Public Health Mentor

Read Dr. Tamara Gayle's Bio

Tamara Gayle, MD, MEd is a board-certified pediatric attending at Children's National Hospital (CNH). Prior to medical school her passion for education lead her to complete theTeach for America program, serving as a high school biology teacher in the Bronx. She completed her Master’s in Education at Pace University in New York City, NY. Following hertime in the Bronx, she completed her MD at the University Of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Miami, FL. Dr. Gayle stayed in Miami for her residency training completing her training at Jackson Memorial Hospital. During her residency Dr. Gayle was awarded the honor of being a New Century Scholar by the Academic Pediatric Association (APA).

After her residency Dr. Gayle went on to pursue a Hospital Medicine Fellowship at CNH. During her fellowship training she was awarded a grant as a RAPID Scholar to research food insecurity and asthma in disadvantaged African American children. She was also part of a team awarded the AAP International Community Access to Child Health (ICATCH) award. She stayed on after fellowship to become faculty at CNH. Dr. Gayle is currently pursuing a Master’s in Public Health at GWU. Her current research is focused around developing a protocol and instituting screening for social determinants of health in the inpatient setting.

Dr. Gayle is active in a Senior Residents’ teaching skills program, an integral part of the MSSP – Minority Senior Scholarship Program, an affiliate faculty member of the Children's Health Advocacy Institute (CHAI), and is the co-chair for the Intern Advocacy Day.

Dr. Gayle is an active member of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Academic Pediatric Association (APA). She lives with her husband in Northeast DC and enjoys cooking, traveling, and volunteering in her community.

Timothy Harlan, MD, FACP

Director, GWU Culinary Medicine Program Associate Professor of Medicine

Read Dr. Timothy Harlan's Bio

Timothy S. Harlan, MD, FACP, CCMS is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine and the Executive Director, GWU Culinary Medicine Program.

Dr. Harlan practiced Internal Medicine in New Orleans. His love of food began as a teenager working in the restaurant business. Starting as a dishwasher, he worked his way up to managing his first restaurant by the age of eighteen and owning his first restaurant at twenty-two. After operating Le Petit Café as a chef/owner he closed the restaurant to return to school. Dr. Harlan originally intended to pursue a degree in hotel and restaurant management but events led him toward medicine and the decision to become a physician.

After finishing an undergraduate degree in Anthropology Dr. Harlan went on to study medicine at Emory University. Working as a caterer throughout school, he continued to be involved with food and cooking but noticed a lack of knowledge in the medical field around food, eating healthy and eating well. Neither patients nor health care providers understood much about a healthy diet. Patients, it seemed, were usually told not what they could eat but, rather, what they could not eat.

In medical school, Dr. Harlan wrote It's Heartly Fare a food manual for patients with cardiovascular disease. Since then he has published numerous books focusing on translating evidence based diet and nutrition information for the lay public. He is publisher of the popular Web site DrGourmet.com where information from the Mediterranean diet literature is translated in a practical way for the American kitchen.

He served as Associate Dean for Clinical Services at Tulane University School of Medicine is the Executive Director of the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine, the first of its kind teaching kitchen operated by a medical school. The center offers an innovative program teaching medical students about diet and lifestyle that bridges the gap between the basic sciences, clinical medicine, the community and culinary education. Medical students work side-by-side in the kitchen with culinary students to teach each other and, most importantly, teach the community and patients how to return to their kitchens and transform their health.

Dora Hughes, MD, MPH

Clinical Public Health Mentor Emeritus
Associate Research Professor of Health Policy & Management
GW School of Public Health

Read Dr. Dora Hughes' Bio

Dora Hughes, MD, MPH, is Associate Research Professor of Health Policy & Management at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at The George Washington University, where her work focuses on the intersection of clinical and community health, social determinants of health, health equity, healthcare quality and workforce. Previously, Dr. Hughes was a Senior Policy Advisor at Sidley Austin, where she advised on regulatory and legislative matters in the life science industry. Prior to that, she served for nearly four years in the Obama Administration as Counselor for Science & Public Health to Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at HHS. Her areas of responsibility included implementation of the ACA, as well as signature legislation for tobacco, Alzheimer’s and FDA reform. She served in leadership roles for several White House initiatives, including the Childhood Obesity Task Force, President’s Food Safety Working Group, Committee on STEM Education and Let’s Move.

Dr. Hughes began her career in health policy as Senior Program Officer at the Commonwealth Fund, and subsequently as Deputy Director for the HELP Committee under Senator Edward M. Kennedy. She then served as the Health Policy Advisor to former Senator Barack Obama. Dr. Hughes received a BS from Washington University, MD from Vanderbilt and MPH from Harvard. She completed internal medicine residency at Brigham & Women’s Hospital.

Seema Kakar, MD

Director, Culinary Medicine Program Emeritus
Co-Director, Community Service Learning Emeritus
Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine

Read Dr. Seema Kakar's Bio: Seema Kakar, MD, is an internist and medical educator. She was born in New Zealand and attended Auckland Medical School before moving to the United States where she completed a research internship at Johns Hopkins and an Internal Medicine Primary Care Residency at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS). She remained on faculty at SMHS where she has had varied teaching and curriculum design roles and currentlyserves as the director of Culinary Medicine and co-director of the Community Service Learning Program. She has particular interests in urgent care, teaching about the role of nutrition in preventing and treating diseases with cooking skills for patients, and understanding food insecurity in Washington, D.C.

Newton Kendig, MD

Director, Criminal Justice Health Program
Clinical Public Health Mentor
Clinical Professor of Medicine

Read Dr. Newton Kendig's Bio: Dr. Newton E. Kendig was appointed clinical professor of medicine at George Washington University (GW) School of Medicine and Health Sciences in 2017 to spearhead a criminal justice health initiative for the university. He received his subspecialty training in infectious diseases from Johns Hopkins University and subsequently served as the medical director for the Federal Bureau of Prisons from 1999 to 2015. Dr. Kendig believes that addressing the health needs of justice-involved patients will help reduce health care disparities and result in healthier and safer communities. Furthermore, he believes the academic community can make valuable contributions toward this goal through educational programming, meaningful research, and health care delivery to justice-involved patients. “I am excited to forge new justice-health initiatives for GW students from on-line training, to public policy discussions, to clinical care opportunities managing incarcerated patients and those justice-involved patients under community supervision.”

Natalie Kirilichin, MD, MHP

Clinical Public Health Mentor
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine
Co-Director, Health Policy Scholarly Concentration

Read Dr. Natalie Kirilichin's Bio

Natalie Kirilichin, MD, MPH, is a board-certified attending emergency medicine physician and assistant professor with the George Washington University (GW) School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) Department of Emergency Medicine. As faculty, she works at GW and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center clinically caring for patients and teaching/training medical students and residents. Her education leadership roles include co-directing the GWU MFA Health Policy Fellowship and the Health Policy Scholarly Concentration Program at SMHS. Dr. Kirilichin is also Co-Director for the Residency Fellowship in Health Policy.

Dr. Kirilichin developed an interest in behavioral health while working for the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) as a health policy fellow. There, her portfolio included mental health and substance abuse policy, and her work supported Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act passage and the opioid funding provisions of 21^st Century Cures. Dr. Kirilichin went on to join National Safety Council, a nonprofit that eliminates preventable deaths through leadership, research, education, and advocacy. She serves as a medical advisor and member of the Physician Speaker’s Bureau for this organization, working with colleagues in multiple disciplines across the country on constructive interventions to combat the opioid epidemic.

Dr. Kirilichin received her undergraduate degree (BS, Biology) from Georgetown University, and remained at Georgetown’s School of Medicine to complete her MD. She earned her MPH from the GW Milken Institute School of Public Health. During her residency at University of Chicago Hospitals, she worked with the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) in an advocacy capacity. She currently serves as President of the DC Chapter of this organization and as a member of the Pain Management and Addiction Medicine Section. Finally, Dr. Kirilichin serves on the Advisory Committee for DC Health’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP).

Michael Knight, MD, MSHP

Co-Director, Patients, Populations and Systems Course
Clinical Public Health Mentor Emeritus
Assistant Professor of Medicine and Chief Patient Safety Officer

Read Dr. Michael Knight's Bio

Michael G. Knight, MD, MSHP, is a physician and the Patient Safety Officer at the George Washington University (GW) Medical Faculty Associates, and assistant professor of medicine at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Originally from New York City, Dr. Knight completed undergraduate studies at Oakwood University, and attended the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. He then completed residency training at New York Presbyterian – Weill Cornell Medical Center, and was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, where he completed a Masters in Health Policy Research. In his current role as Patient Safety Officer for the GW Medical Faculty Associates, he is involved with the analysis of medical errors and adverse events, and leads the development of responsive programs to build a culture of safety throughout the organization. Dr. Knight is board certified in internal medicine and obesity medicine, and practices clinically at the GW Medical Faculty Associates in Washington, D.C.

Outside of his clinical practice, Dr. Knight has been instrumental in developing community health education programs throughout the United States. Dr. Knight served as the 48^th National President of the Student National Medical Association, and currently serves as the founder and president of the Renewing Health Foundation, a non-profit organization working to empower urban minority communities through health education. He served on various boards and committees of organizations such as the American Medical Association Residents and Fellows Section and the National Medical Association, where he currently serves as Region II chairperson. Dr. Knight has received numerous awards including the American Medical Association Foundation Leadership Award, Top 30 under 30 Alumni of Case Western Reserve University, Top 40 Under 40 Leaders in Health Award by the National Minority Quality Forum, and Top Healthcare Professionals Under 40 Award by the National Medical Association.

Jennifer Leon, BS, RDN, LD

Clinical Instruction and Program Development, Culinary Medicine Program
Dietician, GW Cancer Center

Read Ms. Jennifer Leon's Bio

Jennifer Leon, BS, RDN, LN, is the dietitian for the George Washington University (GW) Cancer Center. Ms. Leon provides nutrition education and counseling for patients treated at the GW Cancer Center. She also leads the Nutrition Club support group - a monthly meeting open to patients, caregivers, providers, and community members, where nutrition topics are presented and good food is enjoyed. Ms. Leon focuses on mindfulness, enjoys healthy cooking, works within each patient’s health history and current environment, and works to use nutrition as prevention, treatment, and support.

Ms. Leon is the dietitian teacher for the GW Culinary Medicine elective. She is also working to develop the GW Culinary Medicine Program.

Ms. Leon earned Bachelor of Science degrees from Indiana University, Bloomington and the University of the District of Columbia. She completed a dietetic internship through Virginia Tech’s Northern Virginia Campus.

Before becoming a dietitian, Ms. Leon was a management consultant, focusing on higher education institutions and government organizations. She brings years of professionalism and attention to detail, along with a passion for healthful living, to her patient care.

Lia Losonczy, MD MPH

Clinical Public Health Mentor

Read Dr. Lia Losonczy's Bio

Dr. Losonczy's educational background:

BA, Columbia College, Columbia University, 2006
MPH, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2011
MD, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, 2012

Matthew Magyar, MD MPH

Co-Director, Patients, Populations and Systems Course
Clinical Public Health Mentor
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics

Read Dr. Matthew Magyar's Bio

Matt Magyar, MD is an attending physician in the Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine at Children’s National Hospital. Originally growing up near Cleveland, he attended undergrad at The Ohio State University and then medical school at the University of Toledo. Residency was completed at the University of Illinois – Chicago where he participated in a community health and advocacy track. He then moved to Washington, DC to complete a fellowship in Pediatric Hospital Medicine at Children's National. After graduating he was subsequently hired on as faculty at Children's and now splits time between the DC campus and a community site in Fredericksburg, VA. Outside of work he is completing his Master of Public Health with a health policy concentration at GWU and is currently enrolled in a health policy scholar program through the Academic Pediatric Association.

His research interests broadly include health policy, advocacy and global health. During fellowship he completed a medical elective in Lesotho, Africa and has continued to give lectures online to international trainees. He is a member of both the local and national chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics and is active in the Section on Early Career Physicians. Current research includes projects in health services research and immigrant health.

David Popiel, MD, MPH

Director, Clinical Public Health Summit on HIV Emeritus

Read Dr. David Popiel's Bio: Dr. Popiel is a tech-empowered physician with Forward, a health tech startup based in San Francisco. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and a general internist with over a decade of academic clinical practice experience. He is also a clinical assistant professor with The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Science where he serves as the Director of the Clinical Public Health Summit on HIV. He holds a degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Chicago and a master's degree in Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Popiel earned his medical degree from the Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons and subsequently completed his residency medical training at the George Washington University Medical Center.

Maria Portela-Martinez, MD, MPH

Clinical Public Health Mentor
Chief, Family Medicine Section, Department of Emergency Medicine

Read Dr. Maria Portela-Martinez' Bio

Dr. Portela is the chief of the Family Medicine Section within the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Medical Faculty Associates at George Washington University (GW). She is also the medical director of the George Washington Immediate Primary Care Clinics. Through these roles, she works towards expanding GW’s footprint of primary care and family medicine. At the Medical Faculty Associates, she seeks to improve access and quality of care in the community as well as increase family medicine exposure and mentorship opportunities for students. Dr. Portela is an assistant professor at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences, where she serves as a Professional Development Mentor and a Public Health Mentor for medical students.

Prior to GW, Dr. Portela worked in HHS at the Health Resources Services Administration leading efforts to re-envision primary care training focused on transforming health care delivery systems aimed at improving access, quality of care, and cost-effectiveness. Dr. Portela previously provided volunteer clinical services at Unity Health Care, a Federally Qualified Health Center in Washington, D.C. and in 2017 was an Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity at GW.

Previously, while pursuing medical school training in her native Puerto Rico, she shared in the development of an assessment on the health and education sectors for President Obama's Task Force on Puerto Rico's Economic Development. Subsequently, she pursued residency training at Duke, and completed the Commonwealth Fund Mongan Fellowship in Minority Health Policy at Harvard, where she obtained her master's degree with concentrations in Public Health Leadership and Health Policy and Management.

Dr. Portela has taken diverse leadership roles and has served in local, state and national health equity boards and committees. She is passionate about increasing access and quality of health care services to vulnerable populations, and about teaching, mentorship, diversity, and inclusion.

Nathalie Quion, MD, MPH

Co-Director, Patients, Populations and Systems Course
Clinical Public Health Mentor
Associate Professor of Pediatrics

Read Dr. Nathalie Quion's Bio: Nathalie Bernabe Quion has been a practicing pediatrician for the past 25 years. The focus of her practice has been on medically underserved communities particularly in Springfield Massachusetts, Arlington Virginia and for the past 15 years in Washington DC. During her time in DC, she has been active in medical student and pediatric residency education as a member of the faculty of Children’s National Health Systems. She currently serves as Medical Director of the Children’s Health Center at Adams Morgan and Shaw. The core of her work has been on the health of immigrant communities. She is currently co Chair of the Committee on Immigrant Child Health of the DC Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics . She is also in the Executive Committee of the Children’s National Health System Global Health Initiative.

Jamar Slocum, MD, MBA, MPH

Clinical Public Health Mentor
Assistant Professor of Hospital Medicine

Read Dr. Jamar Slocum's Bio

Jamar Slocum, MD MBA MPH is a clinical assistant professor of medicine at the George Washington University (GW). He practices hospital medicine and serves as faculty for the Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity and Beyond Flexner Alliance.

During the course of his career, he has combined his skills and experience in clinical medicine and public health to build a healthcare system that is based on equity and prevention. He is a former board member of the Tennessee Health Campaign, one of the leading non-profit advocacy organizations working to ensure affordable and high quality health care for all Tennesseans. Jamar completed his residency training in internal medicine at Brown University in Providence, RI and fellowship training in general preventive medicine at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins.

Aisha Terry, MD, MPH

Clinical Public Health Mentor
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine

Read Dr. Aisha Terry's Bio

Dr. Aisha T. Terry was born and raised in Goldsboro, North Carolina. She was elected as president of her high school class and graduated with honors from Duke University with a bachelor of science degree in biology, and minors in chemistry and Spanish. In 1999, she began her medical training at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine on a 4-year full scholarship. While in Chapel Hill, she reaped the benefits of mentorship from great icons in the field of emergency medicine, which led to her completing key, nationally-recognized research in neurological emergencies as a medical student. Dr. Terry then joined the ranks of the reputable emergency medicine residency program at the University of Maryland Medical System in Baltimore, Maryland in June 2003. Here, she sharpened her clinical acumen and was groomed for leadership in academics and organized medicine.

During residency in the fall of 2005, Dr. Terry was elected president of the national Emergency Medicine Residents' Association (EMRA). Under her leadership, EMRA’s budget reached an all-time high of $1 million and she spearheaded the implementation of the ACEP/EMRA Mini-Health Policy Fellowship in Washington, DC, which successfully continues today. As she completed her three-year presidential term in 2008, she was honored with the American College of Emergency Physician's (ACEP) Heroes in Emergency Medicine Award for commitment to and achievement within the specialty.

In 2011, she completed her Executive Master of Public Health degree with a focus on health policy and hospital management, from the esteemed Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York, New York. Her areas of public health and health policy interests include access to care, disparities, and quality in health care.

At present, Dr. Terry serves at the George Washington University (GW) School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) in Washington, DC, where she fulfills her true passion for clinical practice, teaching, and mentoring as an assistant professor of emergency medicine at SMHS and health policy at the GW Milken Institute School of Public Health. Since joining GW in 2012, she has served as director of the Department of Emergency Medicine’s Health Policy Fellowship, which trains physicians to be future public health and health policy leaders. In this capacity, she provides didactic teaching, fosters professional development, and facilitates fellows’ office placements in Congressional offices, government agencies, and/or think tanks. She has directly supervised 10+ emergency medicine health policy fellows who have gone on to leadership positions in departments of health, in health policy educational programs for medical students and residents, and in innovative public health/health policy education programs related to social media. Additionally, Dr. Terry currently serves as co-director of the GW SMHS Clinical Skills and Reasoning Theme Curriculum for medical students wherein she develops and executes curricula for all 4 classes of GW medical students. She also serves as a Professional Development Mentor and Group Leader in the School of Medicine, wherein she teaches professionalism skills to medical students through small group sessions focused personal reflection and team-building exercises, and additionally conducts faculty development sessions.

Dr. Terry has always been very active in her national specialty organization, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP). Most recently, she was elected to the ACEP Board of Directors which advocates for emergency physicians and patients worldwide. She also currently chairs ACEP’s Diversity and Inclusion Task Force which seeks to increase awareness on the topic, identify barriers and solutions to diversifying the physician workforce, and linking patient outcomes with workforce diversity. Additionally, she serves as a voting ACEP Councilor and is a member of its Public Health and Injury Prevention committee. In the past, she has additionally chaired ACEP’s Disparities in Emergency Medicine Subcommittee, Sobering Centers Subcommittee, and Associate Membership Task Force.

At the state level, Dr. Terry is a past president and current board member of the District of Columbia Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians. Under her presidential leadership from 2013 to 2016, the Chapter’s activity soared and its revenue more than doubled. Other state level service includes having served two terms on the Maryland College of Emergency Physicians Board of Directors from 2007 to 2012, and having been a member of its public policy committee from 2005 to 2012.

She is the chief executive officer of the Dr. Aisha Terry Minority Women in Science Foundation (MWSF), a non-profit organization that empowers the dreams of future leaders with interest in science careers. The MWSF provides mentorship, tangible resources, networking opportunities, and career-long support to its beneficiaries. In 2013, the Foundation provided 13 scholarships ($8,000) to aspiring youth, followed by giving a block grant of $7,000 to Sister Mentors through the EduSeed organization, which funded SAT preparatory courses for 10 high school juniors in 2015. In 2016, the MWSF provided academic and merit based scholarships to another 10 rising college freshmen totaling approximately $25,000. Each year, the Foundation seeks to double its giving.

Dr. Terry is a published author who most recently co-authored peer reviewed journal articles about subarachnoid hemorrhage management, national first-time seizure guidelines, and sobering centers. She has given numerous local, state, national, and international lectures and speeches on topics such as the triage of emergency department patients to a medical home, sustained growth formula (SGR) reform, coordinated and integrated health care, physician reimbursement, innovative health policy training for physicians, and racial inequity in health care and public health. Dr. Terry has also led health policy and stroke research efforts, partially through grant funding from the National Institute of Health (NIH).

Marcee Wilder, M.D., M.S.H.S., M.P.H

Clinical Public Health Mentor
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine

Read Dr. Marcee Wilder's Bio

Marcee Wilder is a board-certified emergency medicine physician and is an Assistant Professor at George Washington University in the Department of Emergency Medicine. She received a B.S. in Biology from Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia in 2003. After college, she completed a master’s degree in Public Health at Brooklyn College. She then worked for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for 4 years as a research associate and served as an adjunct professor at the Brooklyn College School of Public Health. Although she found her work fulfilling, she left these positions to complete an M.D. at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington D.C. She fell in love with emergency medicine and returned to New York to attend residency at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. While at Mount Sinai, Marcee participated in and developed several clinical studies examining racial disparities in emergency department care. She then completed a 2-year clinical research fellowship at George Washington University, focusing on disparities and health outcomes.

She was recently awarded funding from National Institute of Health (NIH) to examine social determinants of health and their effect on outcomes including medication adherence and emergency department visits. Her current research focus is examining effective interventions that may reduce health disparities through improving social determinants. She is passionate about health equity and disparities and hopes to contribute to the field through research. In her spare time, she mentors at risk female youth in DC. She lives with her husband Chaz, and three children: Cynthia, Miah and Myles in Washington D.C.