Distinguished Speaker Series
The Distinguished Speaker Series is a free virtual event open to the public on the first Tuesday of each month from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. U.S. EST. The series consists of nationally and internationally renowned experts and leaders invited to share their perspectives on health services research, population health and public health.
2025 – 2026 Speakers
Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH
Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, is the inaugural dean of the Washington University School of Public Health and a leading population health scientist. He is known for advancing innovative public health education and research. A physician and prolific scholar, Dr. Galea's work focuses on the social and behavioral determinants of health, with over $100M in research funding. He is editor-in-chief of JAMA Health Forum and a member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Ann McKee, MD
Ann McKee, MD, is a William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor of Neurology and Pathology at Boston University and Chief of Neuropathology at the VA Boston Healthcare System. She directs both the BU Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and the BU Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center. A board-certified neurologist and neuropathologist, Dr. McKee is internationally recognized for her groundbreaking research on CTE and other neurodegenerative diseases linked to repetitive head trauma. Her work has been pivotal in identifying CTE in athletes, military veterans, and others exposed to brain injuries, and she leads the world’s largest brain bank dedicated to traumatic brain injury research. Dr. McKee's contributions have earned her numerous accolades, including election to the National Academy of Medicine and recognition as one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people.
Dixon Chibanda, MD, PhD
Dixon Chibanda, MD, PhD, is a psychiatrist and global mental health expert at the University of Zimbabwe and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He is the founder of the Friendship Bench, an innovative community-based mental health intervention that trains grandmothers to deliver talk therapy on park benches. This approach has been implemented in over 70 communities in Zimbabwe and adapted in countries including Malawi, Zanzibar, and the United States. As director of the African Mental Health Research Initiative (AMARI), Dr. Chibanda focuses on developing scalable, evidence-based mental health solutions in low-resource settings. His work has been featured in JAMA, TED Talks, and global media.
Rainu Kaushal, MD, MPH
Rainu Kaushal, MD, MPH is Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Research and Chair of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine. A national leader in health information technology and value-based care, she has built one of the largest urban clinical research databases in the U.S. and leads studies on telehealth, data science, and healthcare innovation. Dr. Kaushal is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, has authored over 200 scientific papers, and founded key education programs in health policy and informatics. She is double-board certified in internal medicine and pediatrics.
Dilan Ellegala, MD
Dilan Ellegala, MD, is a board-certified neurosurgeon, Co-Director of Barrow Global, and Professor of Neurosurgery at Barrow Neurological Institute. Renowned for his innovative work in global neurosurgical education, Dr. Ellegala founded Madaktari Africa, a program that trains local clinicians in low-resource settings to perform life-saving brain surgeries. His efforts have been featured in the book Gifted Hands and the documentary Madaktari. Dr. Ellegala continues to advance neurosurgical care and education worldwide through his leadership at Barrow Global.
Daniele Fallin, PhD
Daniele Fallin, PhD, is the James W. Curran Dean of Public Health at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health. An internationally recognized genetic epidemiologist, her research focuses on the interplay of genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors in neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Fallin has led numerous NIH- and CDC-funded studies, including the Study to Explore Early Development and the Early Autism Risk Longitudinal Investigation. Before joining Emory in 2022, she spent 22 years at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, serving as Chair of the Department of Mental Health and Director of the Wendy Klag Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities. In 2023, she was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.
Jon Fielder, MD
Jon Fielder, MD, is a board-certified internal medicine physician and co-founder of African Mission Healthcare (AMH), where he serves as Chief Executive. Since 2002, he has dedicated his career to strengthening mission hospitals across Africa, focusing on HIV and tuberculosis care. Dr. Fielder has served at AIC Kijabe Hospital in Kenya and Partners in Hope Medical Center in Malawi, and currently practices part-time at Maua Methodist Hospital in Kenya. Under his leadership, AMH has invested over $30 million in clinical care, training, and infrastructure, supporting more than 40 hospital partners in 18 countries. He holds degrees from Williams College and Baylor College of Medicine, and completed his residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Amber Barnato, MD, MS, MPH
Amber Barnato, MD, MS, MPH, is a distinguished physician and health services researcher at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College. She serves as the Director of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice and holds the Peggy Y. Thomson Chair in the Evaluative Clinical Sciences. Dr. Barnato's research focuses on understanding and improving decision-making processes in serious illness care, particularly at the end of life. Her work aims to enhance patient-clinician communication and align medical care with patients' values and preferences. In addition to her leadership roles, Dr. Barnato is actively involved in mentoring and teaching, contributing to the development of future healthcare professionals and researchers. Her interdisciplinary approach combines clinical expertise with insights from health policy and behavioral economics to address complex challenges in healthcare delivery.
Bruce Biccard, MBChB, PhD
Professor Bruce Biccard is an internationally recognized anaesthetist and expert in perioperative medicine. In September 2025, he will assume the role of Nuffield Professor of Anaesthetic Science at the University of Oxford, where he will lead the Nuffield Division of Anaesthetics within the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences.Currently, Professor Biccard serves as a Professor in the Department of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. His research focuses on perioperative outcomes and global surgery, with a strong emphasis on collaborative research to improve public health. He has been instrumental in leading several large-scale studies across Africa, including the African Surgical Outcomes Study, ASOS-2 Trial, African COVID-19 Critical Care Outcomes Study, African Surgical Outcomes Study in Paediatric patients, and the African Critical Illness Outcomes Study. Additionally, he co-leads the NIHR Global Health Group on Perioperative and Critical Care. Professor Biccard is also the author of the book Safer Surgery for Africa: Challenges and Solutions. Beyond his professional achievements, he is an avid endurance cyclist, having participated in events such as the Race Across South Africa and the Rhino Run. His prior experience at Oxford, from 2005 to 2008, provides him with a valuable familiarity with the institution as he steps into his new role.
Ashish Jha, MD, MPH
Ashish Jha, MD, is a prominent physician, public health scholar, and academic leader, currently serving as the Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health since September 2020. He is internationally recognized for his expertise in pandemic preparedness, health policy, and health system improvement. In March 2022, President Joe Biden appointed Dr. Jha as the White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator, a role he held until June 2023. During his tenure, he led efforts to expand access to treatments and vaccines, improve testing and surveillance, and enhance infrastructure for future public health emergencies. His pragmatic and evidence-based approach earned bipartisan praise. Dr. Jha continues to practice medicine as a general internist and remains active in public discourse on health policy and science communication. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2013.
Richard Platt, MD
Richard Platt, MD, MSc, is the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute Distinguished Professor of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He previously served as Chair of the Department of Population Medicine and President of the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute until 2024. Currently, he directs the Division of Therapeutics Research and Infectious Disease Epidemiology. Dr. Platt is renowned for pioneering the use of electronic health data to enhance public health surveillance, medical product safety, and healthcare quality. He was the founding Principal Investigator of the FDA Sentinel System, which monitors the safety of marketed medical products using data from over 175 million individuals. Additionally, he co-leads the coordinating centers for the NIH Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory and PCORI's PCORnet, and leads a CDC Prevention Epicenter.
Sheila Davis, MSN, DNP
Sheila Davis, DNP, ANP-BC, FAAN, is the Chief Executive Officer of Partners In Health (PIH), a global health nonprofit dedicated to delivering high-quality healthcare to underserved communities worldwide. Since joining PIH in 2010, she has held several leadership roles, including Chief of Clinical Operations, Chief Nursing Officer, and Chief of Ebola Response during the 2014 West Africa epidemic. Dr. Davis began her career as a nurse and HIV/AIDS activist in the 1980s, later expanding her work internationally in 1999 to address the global HIV pandemic. She co-founded a nonprofit organization that operated health projects in South Africa and Boston, including a rural village nurse clinic.
Megan Ranney, MD, MPH
Megan L. Ranney, MD, MPH, FACEP, is an emergency physician, researcher, and national advocate for innovative approaches to public health. She currently serves as the Dean of the Yale School of Public Health and holds the C.-E. A. Winslow Professorship of Public Health (Health Policy) at Yale University. Dr. Ranney is also a Professor of Emergency Medicine at Yale. Before joining Yale in July 2023, Dr. Ranney was the Deputy Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and the founding Director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health. Her research focuses on developing, testing, and disseminating interventions to prevent violence and related behavioral health problems, with a particular emphasis on the role of social media and digital health. She has authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals, including NEJM, JAMA, and Nature. Dr. Ranney's career has been driven by her front-line experiences with preventable public health crises, from her time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Côte d'Ivoire to her 20+ years as a practicing emergency medicine physician. She is nationally recognized for her advocacy and research on firearm injury prevention and her community-driven approaches to addressing longstanding and emerging public health problems.
Previous Distinguished Speaker Series Presentations
- 2024-25 Distinguished Speaker Series
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The Distinguished Speaker Series is a free virtual event open to the public on the first Tuesday of each month from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. U.S. EST. The series consists of nationally and internationally renowned experts and leaders invited to share their perspectives on health services research, population health and public health.
2024 – 2025 Speakers
June 4, 2024
Sara Bleich, PhD
Harvard UniversitySara Bleich, PhD is the inaugural Vice Provost for Special Projects at Harvard University, director of the social sciences program and Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Professor of Public Health Policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and a faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. With more than 180 peer-reviewed publications, she is a policy expert and researcher who specializes in diet-related diseases, food insecurity, and racial inequality. Prior to this, Dr. Bleich served in the Biden Administration as the Director of Nutrition Security and Health Equity at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service and as the Senior Advisor for COVID-19 in the Office of the Secretary at USDA. As a White House Fellow during the Obama Administration, she worked at USDA as a Senior Policy Adviser for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services and on First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative. Dr. Bleich was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2023 and holds a B.A. in psychology from Columbia University and a PhD in health policy from Harvard University.
July 2, 2024
Dorry Segev, MD, PhD
New York UniversityDorry Segev, MD, PhD, is Professor of Surgery and Population Health and Vice Chair of Surgery at NYU, and the founding director of the NYU Center for Surgical and Transplant Applied Research. With an undergraduate degree in computer science and a graduate degree in biostatistics, Dr. Segev focuses on novel statistical and mathematical methods for simulation of medical data, analysis of large healthcare datasets, and large multi-center innovative clinical trials and cohort studies. Dr. Segev has published over 900 peer-reviewed research articles, and is ranked #1 worldwide in organ transplantation expertise and influence by ExpertScape. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, a recipient of the prestigious Global Thinker Award by Foreign Policy Magazine, and was named an Innovator of the Year by TIME Magazine. He has written two successful Congressional bills and received Letters of Commendation from President Barack Obama and Dr. Anthony Fauci.
August 6, 2024
Victor M. Montori, MD
Mayo ClinicVictor M. Montori, MD is the Robert H. and Susan M. Rewoldt Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic. An endocrinologist, health services researcher, and care activist, Dr. Montori is the author of more than 750 peer-reviewed publications and is among the most cited researchers in clinical medicine and in social science. He is a recognized expert in evidence-based medicine, shared decision making, and minimally disruptive medicine. He works in Rochester, Minnesota, at Mayo Clinic's KER Unit, to advance person-centered care for patients with diabetes and other chronic conditions. He is the author of the book Why We Revolt, and is leading a movement, a Patient Revolution, for Careful and Kind Care for all.
September 3, 2024
Devi Sridhar, PhD
University of EdinburghDevi Sridhar is a Professor at the University of Edinburgh Medical School and holds a Personal Chair in Global Public Health. She is the founding Director of the Global Health Governance Programme and holds a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award. She was previously Associate Professor in Global Health Politics and a Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford University and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University. She was also a visiting Associate Professor at LMU-Munich and guest lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Public Health Foundation of India. Her books include ‘Preventable - How a pandemic changed the world & how to stop the next one’ (Penguin, 2022), ‘Governing Global Health: Who Runs the World and Why?’ (OUP, 2017) and ‘the Battle against Hunger: Choice, Circumstance and the World Bank’ (OUP, 2007) and she has published in Nature, Science, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet and the British Medical Journal. She served on the board of Save the Children UK, on the World Economic Forum Council on the Health Industry and co-chaired the Harvard/LSHTM Independent Panel on the Global Response to Ebola. She holds a DPhil and MPhil from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and a B.S. from the University of Miami in the Honors Medical Program. Her work is concentrated in three areas: international health organizations, financing of global public health and developing better tools for priority-setting.
October 1, 2024
Georges Benjamin, MD
American Public Health AssociationGeorges C. Benjamin is known as one of the nation’s most influential physician leaders because he speaks passionately and eloquently about the health issues having the most impact on our nation today. From his firsthand experience as a physician, he knows what happens when preventive care is not available and when the healthy choice is not the easy choice. As executive director of APHA since 2002, he is leading the Association’s push to make America the healthiest nation.His academic career has consisted of a full range of endeavors from teaching and policy research to academic program development and management. Benjamin has combined his practice and academic experience as an emergency physician with public health to become one of the nation’s experts in public health emergency preparedness.
November 5, 2024
Nakela Cook, MD, MPH, MD
Patient-Centered Outcomes Research InstituteNakela L. Cook, MD, MPH, is the executive director at PCORI. She is a cardiologist and health services researcher with a distinguished career leading key scientific initiatives engaging patients, clinicians and other health care stakeholders at some of the nation’s largest health research funders. Cook leads PCORI’s research, engagement, dissemination and implementation, and research infrastructure development work. She also provides oversight to a growing number of programs and initiatives designed to create a more efficient, effective, equitable and patient-centered system of health. Under her leadership, and with extensive engagement of stakeholders, PCORI established a bold strategic vision to address the challenges, including social determinants of health, facing patients and communities in our nation’s complex, fast-changing health system. Prior to her current role, Cook served as senior scientific officer and chief of staff at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the third largest institute of the National Institutes of Health. At NHLBI, she spearheaded the development and implementation of its strategic plan as well as initiatives in cardiovascular outcomes, precision medicine, data science, sickle cell disease and women’s health. Cook earned her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and a Master of Public Health in health care policy and management from Harvard School of Public Health. She completed her clinical training at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and is an alumna of the Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy. Throughout her career, Cook has worked to enhance diversity and equity in research and care delivery and has been a leader in efforts to reduce disparities in health access and outcomes. She has received numerous awards for her excellence in clinical teaching and mentorship as well as her leadership of complex scientific initiatives and programs.
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December 3, 2024
David H. Rehkopf, PhD
Stanford University
Presentation Not Recorded
January 7, 2025
John Browne, PhD
National Health Services Research Institute, IrelandProfessor John Browne is a health services researcher at the School of Public Health, University College Cork, Ireland. His primary interest interested is ways to improve the quality and safety of healthcare. After completing his PhD at Trinity College Dublin he worked at the Health Services Research Unit of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) from 1998 to 2008, where he oversaw the development of the NHS Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) programme and the acute care clinical guidelines programme for the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. He was also the Principal Investigator on the Health Research Board funded 'SIREN' programme (Study of the Implementation of Reconfiguration on Urgent and Emergency Care Networks). He is a Senior Editor at BMJ Quality & Safety. His vision for how to make progress within the academic field of healthcare quality is summarised in this recent editorial https://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/33/3/141.
February 4, 2025
Tumaini R. Coker, MD, MBA
University of Washington
Presentation Canceled
March 4, 2025
Mark Holmes, PhD
University of North Carolina at Chapel HillMark Holmes, PhD is Thomas W. Lambeth Distinguished Chair of Public Policy at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. He also serves as the Director of the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. His work focuses on rural health, healthcare access, and the financial sustainability of healthcare providers. With a keen interest in how geographic and policy factors shape healthcare systems, Dr. Holmes has contributed significantly to the field through research on hospital closures, rural health disparities, and innovative healthcare delivery models.
April 1, 2025
Joseph Betacourt, MD, MPH
The Commonwealth FundJoseph R. Betancourt, M.D., M.P.H., is the president of the Commonwealth Fund. A national leader in health care policy, equity, quality, and community health, Betancourt formerly served as the senior vice president for Equity and Community Health at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and as founding director of the Disparities Solutions Center. He has devoted his career to improving the quality and value of health care for diverse populations.
May 6, 2025
Mike English, MBBChir, MRCP, MD
University of Oxford