FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Media Relations
APHA is proud to announce that five of the newly elected members of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) are current APHA members. Debra M. Furr-Holden, PhD; Yvonne (Bonnie) Maldonado, MD; Keshia M. Pollack Porter, PhD, MPH; Joseph B. Richardson Jr., PhD, MA; and Ali Rowhani-Rahbar, MD, MPH, PhD are among the new members whom NAM President Victor J. Dzau declared are “essential to helping the NAM tackle today’s urgent health challenges, inform the future of health care, and ensure health equity for the benefit of all around the globe.”
“These members have made extraordinary contributions to health and medicine,” said Georges C. Benjamin, MD, Executive Director of APHA and a current NAM member. “We are proud to see that their leadership and expertise are being recognized.”
Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and credits individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.
You can see these new members’ election citations below:
Debra M. Furr-Holden, PhD, dean and professor of epidemiology, New York University School of Global Public Health, New York City. For her community-partnered research that has fueled multiple policy initiatives to improve behavioral health and eliminate racial, economic, and geographic disparities in intentional and unintentional injury including opioid-involved overdose death, gun violence, and community violence.
Yvonne (Bonnie) Maldonado, MD, Taube Professor of Global Health and Infectious Diseases; professor of pediatrics and epidemiology and population health, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. For her contributions in the epidemiology and control of pediatric infectious diseases, including polio and measles elimination from the Americas, prevention of maternal-infant HIV transmission, and the national COVID-19 pandemic response. She is a first-generation Latina and a role model for her academic accomplishments.
Keshia M. Pollack Porter, PhD, MPH, Bloomberg Centennial Professor and Bloomberg Centennial Chair, department of health policy and management, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. For her national leadership and major contributions to research, practice, and education related to health in all policies, and development of methodologies that promote health and equity considerations in policy decisions across multiple sectors, including transportation, housing, and education.
Joseph B. Richardson Jr., PhD, MA, MPower Professor of African American Studies and Anthropology, department of African American studies and department of anthropology, University of Maryland, College Park. For being a nationally and internationally recognized pioneer in research on gun violence, firearm injury, trauma, and interventions. His work includes translating science into the development of innovative interventions to reduce gun violence and firearm-related morbidity and mortality, especially as it impacts youth in poverty and Black men.
Ali Rowhani-Rahbar, MD, MPH, PhD, Bartley Dobb Endowed Professor for the Study and Prevention of Violence, department of epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle. For being a national public health leader whose innovative and multidisciplinary research to integrate data across the health care system and criminal legal system has deepened our understanding of the risk and consequences of firearm-related harm and informed policies and programs to reduce its burden especially among underserved communities and populations.
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The American Public Health Association champions the health of all people and all communities. We are the only organization that combines a 150-year perspective, a broad-based member community and the ability to influence federal policy to improve the public’s health. Learn more at www.apha.org.