The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) has announced the election of 90 regular members and 10 international members. Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service. Of the new members from the United States, it appears that 11 are Black. Nine of the 11 have current ties to the academic world. Nine of the new Black members are women.
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure is the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services at U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. She was honored for her long career of service in health policy, during which she helped to draft and implement the Affordable Care Act while working in Congress and the Obama administration. She is the first Black woman to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Brooks-LaSure received a bachelor’s degree in politics from Princeton University in New Jersey. She holds a master of public policy degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
Robert D. Bullard is a distinguished professor and director of urban planning and environmental policy at the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University in Houston. Dr. Bullard has conducted groundbreaking research, and offered sustained leadership to identify and end injustices affecting vulnerable people and places disproportionately harmed by pollution and climate change. Known as “the father of environmental justice,” he has long led the charge to dismantle systems and structures that create and maintain inequality. Dr. Bullard is the author or co-author of several books including Race, Place, and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to Reclaim, Rebuild, and Revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast (Westview Press, 2009).
Dr. Bullard is a graduate of Alabama A&M University, where he majored in government. He holds a master’s degree is sociology from Clark Atlanta University and a Ph.D. in sociology from Iowa State University.
Janine Austin Clayton is the director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health for the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. She is being honored for advancing policy, program, and practice innovations to improve the health of all women by catalyzing integration of sex/gender factors across the biomedical research continuum to galvanize discovery and equity. She is the architect of NIH’s high-impact 2016 Sex as a Biological Variable policy, a landmark upgrade for research.
Dr. Clayton received her undergraduate degree with honors from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and her medical degree from Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C.
Shawna Veleura Hudson is vice chancellor for dissemination and implementation science for Rutgers Health and professor of family medicine and community health at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She has conducted seminal work to address vital U.S. health system implementation challenges for vulnerable populations. Her research shapes policy and practice to integrate care of cancer and other chronic illnesses for patients and families in the context of their communities during the critical transitions between specialty and primary care, and long-term cancer survivorship.
Dr. Hudson holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in sociology, all from Rutgers University.
Erica Elizabeth Marsh is the S. Jan Behrman Collegiate Professor of Reproductive Medicine and vice chair and division chief of reproductive endocrinology and infertility in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan Medical School. Dr. Marsh has conducted research on uterine leiomyomas and has worked to eliminate disparities in reproductive health. Her commitment to building research capacity in women’s health, both nationally and globally, and her cultivation of the next generation of leaders in reproductive health will have a lasting impact.
Dr. Marsh is a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Medical School. She also earned a master’s degree in clinical investigation from Northwestern University in Illinois.
Dayna Bowen Matthew is the dean and the Harold H. Greene Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. She is receiving recognition for advancing the understanding of how policies and legal systems have produced health inequities. Her work has resulted in actionable federal policy changes in the United States. She is the author of the bestselling book Just Medicine: A Cure for Racial Inequality in American Health Care (New York University Press, 2015) and Just Health: Treating Structural Racism to Heal America (New York University Press, 2022).
Dr. Matthew is a graduate of Harvard University. She earned a juris doctorate at the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in health and behavioral sciences from the University of Colorado Denver.
Priscilla Eyikojoka Pemu is a professor of medicine at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. She has conducted research on clinical trial diversity, centering on the importance of regaining trust, fostering transparent collaboration, and ensuring the equitable participation of diverse populations in medical research. She has worked with the Grady Health system, a large public hospital, primary care practices, and historically Black churches and institutions.
Dr. Pemu earned her medical degree at the University of Benin.
Selwyn O. Rogers Jr. is the Dr. James E. Bowman Jr. Professor of Surgery, chief of the Section for Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, and executive vice president for community health engagement for University of Chicago Medicine. His research involves paradigm-shifting hospital-based violence interventions including Medical-Legal Clinics that address the social drivers of violent trauma to reduce gun violence and reduce recidivism. He is a leading national advocate for a holistic public health approach with an equity lens to prevent firearms injuries. Before coming to the University of Chicago, Dr. Rogers was vice president and chief medical officer at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Before joining the University of Texas in 2014, Dr. Rogers was chair of the department of surgery at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia. From 2008 to 2012, he was an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Rogers is a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Medical School. He also holds a master of public health degree from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee.
Eugenia South is the Ralph Muller Presidential Associate Professor at the Perelman School of Medicine and associate vice president of health justice for the University of Pennsylvania Health System. She also serves as the faculty director for the university’s Center for Health Justice. She is among the country’s foremost leaders in developing and testing interventions to dismantle structural racism and prevent firearm injury in Black neighborhoods. She has made substantive, field-changing scientific and real-world contributions to advancing health via the lens of racial, environmental, and economic justice.
Dr. South is a graduate of Harvard University. She earned her medical degree at Washington University in St. Louis and holds a master of public health degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
Alexis A. Thompson is chief of the Division of Hematology and holds the Elias Schwartz MD Endowed Chair in Hematology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She is also a professor of pediatrics for the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Her research focuses on sickle cell disease (SCD) and has created the first national SCD learning community, the largest SCD data repository, and collaborations to improve care for children with SCD in sub-Saharan Africa. She is also being recognized for her role in recent FDA approval of gene therapy and other novel SCD therapeutics.
Dr. Thompson earned her medical degree at Tulane University in New Orleans. She holds a master of public health degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Donna L. Washington is the director of Health Equity-QUERI National Partnered Evaluation Center at the Veterans Health Administration. She is also a professor of medicine for the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System and the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles. She is being honored for groundbreaking research that has enhanced the understanding of the health and health care needs of U.S. veterans and to ensure equitable access to the highest quality health care and outcomes for this diverse population. Her work informs health policy and strategic-planning initiatives to eliminate health disparities by sex, race, and ethnicity.
Dr. Washington is a graduate of Harvard University. She earned a master of public health degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a medical degree from the Boston University School of Medicine.
