Improving Health Through
Equity-Centered Solutions
Featured Speakers
FXB Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Former New York State’s Health Commissioner
Bio
Mary T. Bassett, MD, MPH
FXB Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Former New York State’s Health CommissionerMary T. Bassett, MD, MPH, is the Director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University and FXB Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights in the department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. From December 1, 2021 to December 31, 2022 Dr. Bassett was on leave from Harvard and served as New York State’s Health Commissioner.
Prior to that, she served as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Director for the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s African Health Initiative and Child Well-Being Prevention Program; and as Deputy Commissioner of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
Early in her career, Dr. Bassett served on the medical faculty at the University of Zimbabwe and went on to serve as Associate Director of Health Equity at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Southern Africa Office. After returning to the United States, she served on the faculty of Columbia University, including as Associate Professor of Clinical Epidemiology in the Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Bassett received a B.A. in History and Science from Harvard University, an M.D. from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, and an M.P.H. from the University of Washington.
Associate Professor, Institute for Health Equity Research; Vice Chair of Community Engagement, Department of Psychiatry Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Bio
Sidney Hankerson M.D, M.B.A
Associate Professor, Institute for Health Equity Research; Vice Chair of Community Engagement, Department of Psychiatry Icahn School of Medicine at Mount SinaiDr. Hankerson is an Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Community Engagement in the Department of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is also Director of Mental Health Equity Research in the Institute for Health Equity Research (IHER) at Mount Sinai. His research focuses on reducing racial/ethnic disparities in mental health treatment. He is a nationally recognized expert at engaging faith- and community-based organizations to increase access to culturally relevant mental health care.
Dr. Hankerson has presented at the White House, United Nations, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Gracie Mansion (NYC Mayor’s Office), and numerous national academic conferences. He currently serves on the National Football League’s (NFL) Mental Wellness Committee. The National Academy of Medicine selected Dr. Hankerson as one of 10 physicians in the U.S. for its Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Program in 2021. He was an inaugural member of the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Council of Faith and Community Partnerships and served on the APA Council of Minority Mental Health and Health Disparities.
He has been featured on several TV series: the PBS Documentary Mysteries of Mental Illness; a Pix11 News Special focused on mental health in the Black community; and a CBS segment about Mount Sinai’s partnerships with faith-based organizations.
Dr. Hankerson completed a dual MD/MBA program from Emory University, where he was Medical School Class President. He completed his psychiatry residency at Emory and was appointed Chief Resident of Psychiatry at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. He then completed a NIMH-funded research fellowship at Columbia University Medical Center and was on faculty at Columbia for 12 years before transitioning to his current leadership roles at Mount Sinai.
Associate Director for Gender Equity in the Office of Gender Equity at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Bio
Devin Madden, PhD
Associate Director for Gender Equity in the Office of Gender Equity at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount SinaiDevin Madden (she/they) is the Associate Director for Gender Equity in the Office of Gender Equity at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City where they also collaborate on community-engaged research efforts within the Institute for Health Equity Research. Devin has worked in public health for over a decade on community-centered initiatives from improving active design in schools and facilitating healthier local food retail environments to building safe, supportive school spaces for LGBTQ youth and fostering access to youth-friendly clinic providers. Devin recently received their PhD in education and leadership at Pacific University where she applied a diversity, equity, inclusion and systems thinking lens to participatory narrative inquiry research on bisexual+ mental wellbeing disparities and belonging. Collaboration, participatory methods of engagement and research, and storytelling are pillars of Devin’s work towards equity.
Executive Director of the HOPE Center
Bio
Lena Green, DSW, LCSW
Executive Director of the HOPE CenterDr. Green currently serves as the executive director of the HOPE Center, a community based mental health clinic connected to the historic First Corinthian Baptist Church. Prior to her role at the HOPE Center, Dr. Green held several positions in NYC government including the Deputy Director of the Office of Substance Use, Policy, Planning and Monitoring at NYC’s Human Resources Administration (HRA). In her more than 20 years of direct practice and management experience as a clinical social worker, psychotherapist, fatherhood practitioner, professor and administrator, Dr. Green has had a tremendous impact on countless New Yorkers. She is skilled in various areas of mental health, program planning, development, clinical supervision and building strategic partnerships.
A licensed clinical social worker, Dr. Green’s research interests include mental health, trauma informed clinical practices, fatherhood, maternal health, pregnant and parenting families, child-parent attachment and perinatal mood disorders. Dr. Green has a deep commitment to community, working with underserved and marginalized populations. Her work explores the experiences of young fathers and the impact on paternal involvement on family dynamics. She is devoted to promoting open dialogue around the de-stigmitazation of father absence, men’s mental health, and ensuring that all children have access to both parents in a safe co-parenting environment.
Dr. Green, a native of Harlem, NYC, holds both a doctorate and master’s degree in social work from New York University (NYU) and received her undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Dr. Green completed post-master’s certificates in Advance Clinical Practice from Hunter College, and the Treatment of Alcohol and Drug Addicted Clients from NYU. Dr. Green serves on several boards throughout the northeast and is an active member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
Program Director, Institute for Health Equity Research
Bio
Michelle Ramos, MPH
Program Director, Institute for Health Equity ResearchMichelle Ramos, MPH, was born and raised in the Mission District of San Francisco, California by a single mother and grandmother, who immigrated to the U.S. from El Salvador. She completed her undergraduate education at The University of California at Berkeley, then worked at Stanford University in chronic disease management research. Ms. Ramos went on to receive her MPH from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2008, she began working at Mount Sinai and since then has managed numerous clinical trials and other research projects focused on the inclusion of highly diverse populations spanning the life cycle. Ms. Ramos is married and has three children, ages 12, 10, and 7. You can usually find her and her family on a soccer or baseball field, enjoying a little of the upstate New York life or traveling and exploring new places worldwide. Ms. Ramos is currently a Program Director in IHER overseeing a portfolio of genomics research projects.
Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, Institute for Health Equity Research
Bio
Kimberly Souffront, PhD, RN, FNP-BC, FAAN
Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, Institute for Health Equity ResearchDr. Kimberly Souffront, PhD, RN, FNP-BC, FAAN (She/Her), is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Faculty of the Institute for Health Equity Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She also serves as the Director of the Center for Nursing Research & Innovation for the Mount Sinai Health System.
As an emergency-trained Nurse Practitioner, Dr. Souffront is nationally recognized for her expertise in emergency-based clinical research, focusing on asymptomatic hypertension and healthcare disparities. Dr. Souffront has been supported as Principal Investigator by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and numerous private foundations. Notably, she is an alumna of a Betty Irene Moore Fellowship for Nurse Leaders and Innovators, awarded to only 10 exemplary Nurse Scientists across the country in 2021. Her innovative research advances health equity for emergency department patients who have asymptomatic hypertension, using blood biomarkers, bioinformatics, and telehealth. Dr. Souffront established a first-of-its-kind NIH-funded program that offers translational research opportunities for underrepresented minority nursing students.
In 2021, she founded and serves as the Editor-in-Chief of an international peer-reviewed journal, Practical Implementation of Nursing Science, highlighting diverse perspectives in clinical nursing and advancing the nursing profession. She has been recognized as Nurse Researcher of the Year by the Black Nurses Association (2019) and Junior Faculty of the Year by the ISMMS (2023). A Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Nursing, Dr. Souffront earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Northeastern University (’01), her Master of Science in Nursing and Family Nurse Practitioner degree from Pace University (’05), and her PhD (’13) and Post Doctoral Fellowship (’14) from NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing.
Kimberly T. Souffront PhD, RN, FNP-BC, FAAN
Director, Center for Nursing Research and Innovation
Mount Sinai Health System
Associate Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine
Faculty, Institute for Health Equity Research
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Founder and Editor in Chief, Practical Implementation of Nursing Science
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Institute for Health Equity Research
Bio
Marcee Wilder, MD, MS, MPH
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Institute for Health Equity ResearchMarcee Wilder, MD, MS, MPH, is a board-certified emergency medicine physician, health services researcher, and is an Assistant Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai 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. She completed an M.D. at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington D.C, and returned to New York to attend residency at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. While at Mount Sinai, she participated in and developed several clinical studies examining racial disparities in emergency department care. After residency she completed a 2-year clinical research fellowship at George Washington University (GWU), focusing on disparities and health outcomes. During her fellowship she was awarded funding from the National Institute of Health (NIH) to examine social determinants of health and their effect on health outcomes. She also completed a master’s degree in clinical and translational research during this time. After serving as faculty at GWU for 5 years, Marcee returned to Mount Sinai to continue as research faculty at the Institute of Health Equity Research in 2023.
As a full-time researcher, she now focuses on how social determinants of health impact healthcare utilization and health outcomes in uncontrolled hypertensive patients. She hopes to identify effective interventions that link emergency patients to ongoing care while addressing social adversities such as food insecurity, housing instability, etc., which will significantly improve health outcomes through increased self-efficacy. Marcee believes this research has the potential to mitigate the number of patients who will develop hypertensive heart failure or hypertension related renal failure in the future, which may change the landscape of the racial and ethnic disparities in patients diagnosed with this chronic disease.
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Population Health and Policy
Bio
Utsha Khatri, MD, MPH
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Population Health and PolicyUtsha G. Khatri is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Population Health and Policy, and a research faculty member at the Institute for Health Equity Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She is an emergency physician and health services researcher with a focus on enhancing access, outcomes, and equity in health care for structurally marginalized populations. Dr. Khatri’s research primarily addresses the healthcare needs of individuals and communities impacted by mass incarceration and substance use disorders.
Her current work is supported by a career development award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Dr. Khatri practices as an attending emergency physician at both Mount Sinai Hospital, an academic medical center, and Elmhurst Hospital Center, a public hospital, in New York City, where she also teaches and mentors students and residents. She currently serves on the Board of Directors and as co-chair of the Research Committee of the Academic Consortium on Criminal Justice Health.
Mount Sinai Endowed Professor of Emergency Medicine and Health Equity Science, Co- Director, Institute for Health Equity Research
Bio
Lynne D. Richardson, MD, FACEP
Mount Sinai Endowed Professor of Emergency Medicine and Health Equity Science, Co- Director, Institute for Health Equity ResearchLynne D. Richardson, MD, FACEP, is the Mount Sinai Endowed Professor of Emergency Medicine and Health Equity Science and founding Co-Director of the Institute for Health Equity Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. A practicing emergency physician, she is a nationally recognized expert in health services research who has made highly influential contributions to eliminating healthcare disparities in both the research and policy arenas. Her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Centers for Disease Control, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. She is skilled in the use of clinical and administrative data to investigate issues of access, quality and equity; in developing and assessing the effectiveness of strategies to eliminate healthcare disparities; and in designing innovative models of care. A native of Harlem, New York, Dr. Richardson graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Bachelor’s degrees in Life Sciences and Management and received her MD degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Richardson is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, and serves on the Board on Health Sciences Policy of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Assistant Professor within the Institute of Health Equity Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Bio
Dinushika Mohottige
Assistant Professor within the Institute of Health Equity Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount SinaiDr. Dinushika Mohottige MD, MPH (she/her) is an Assistant Professor within the Institute of Health Equity Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Barbara T. Murphy Division of Nephrology and a general nephrologist. She engages in patient and community-centered, inequity-focused research around the impact of socio-structural factors/racialized medicine on kidney health and kidney transplantation. As part of this work, she has interrogated the role of race and other sociopolitical variables in clinical algorithms including kidney function estimation and considered the role of racism and related socio-structural factors on kidney disease. Dr. Mohottige is a member of the National Kidney Foundation Health Equity Taskforce, the National Kidney Foundation Transplant Advisory Committee, the 2022 NIH PhenX Social Determinants of Health Committee, and the End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) National Coordinating Center Health Equity Committee, and the Medical Advisory Board of NKF Greater NY and CT. Dr. Mohottige received a B.A. in Public Policy and a Health Policy Certificate from Duke University in 2006, where she was a Robertson Scholar. She then earned an MPH in Health Behavior/Health Education from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and a medical degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, followed by Internal Medicine/Chief Residency and Nephrology training at Duke University.
Associate Professor, Director of the Geospatial Health Research Lab at the Institute for Health Equity Research
Bio
Andrew Maroko, PhD
Associate Professor, Director of the Geospatial Health Research Lab at the Institute for Health Equity ResearchAndrew is the Director of the Geospatial Health Research Lab at the Institute for Health Equity Research, and Associate Professor in the Department of Population Health and Health Policy at Icahn School of Medicine at Mt Sinai. Andrew’s background is in Public and Environmental Health as well as Environmental Science and Geography. His research is centered around social determinants of health, exposure, access, environmental (in)justice, and methodological improvement in the spatial sciences. This has resulted in a wide variety of studies and topics, ranging from analyses of extreme weather events on HIV care, to spatio-statistical exploration of neighborhood social determinants of health and COVID, to equity issues around public restrooms and menstrual health and hygiene.
Assistant Professor, Departments of Population Health Science and Policy, Environmental Science and Medicine, Institute for Health Equity Research
Bio
Diddier Prada, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor, Departments of Population Health Science and Policy, Environmental Science and Medicine, Institute for Health Equity ResearchDr. Diddier Prada is an environmental and molecular epidemiologist focusing on environmental toxicants’ role in age-related conditions. Dr. Prada attended his Medical School in Colombia (South America), was trained in Internal Medicine and did his PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the National University of Mexico (UNAM). After this, he did his postdoctorate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, MA. For some years, Dr. Prada was a Researcher in Biomedical Science at the National Cancer Institute in Mexico City and then an Associate Research Scientist at the Mailman School of Public Health in NYC. Since 2023, Dr. Prada has been an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Health Equity Research, affiliated with the Department of Population Health Science and Policy and the Department of Environmental Medicine and Climate Science at the Icahn School of Public Health in Mount Sinai. Dr. Prada’s research was selected as NIEHS/NIH’s Paper of the Month in 2017 and again in 2023, as well as the 2023 NIEHS Paper of the Year. Since 2024, Dr. Prada has also been a Mount Sinai Biomedical Laureate at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Some other Dr. Prada honors include two National Awards in Clinical Research in Mexico in 2017 and the Health Disparities Program Enrichment Award at Harvard University in 2015. Dr. Prada’s current research interests aim to discover how environmental injustices, including those related to climate change, ‘get under the skin’ of those more vulnerable and increase disease risk.
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Institute for Health Equity Research
Bio
Donald "DJ" Apakama Jr., M.D., M.S.
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Institute for Health Equity ResearchDr. Donald “DJ” Apakama Jr., M.D., M.S., is a pioneering figure in Emergency Medicine and Artificial Intelligence. As an Assistant Professor at Mount Sinai Beth Israel and Mount Sinai Hospital, he applies data science to enhance healthcare outcomes.
Dr. Apakama’s diverse academic background includes an M.S. in Clinical Nutrition from Columbia University, an M.D. from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and an ongoing M.S. in Biomedical Informatics at Oregon Health and Science University. He completed his Emergency Medicine residency at Mount Sinai Hospital, where he also served as Chief Resident and undertook a T-32 Clinical Research Fellowship.
His current research focuses on using data science for identifying Social Determinants of Health in Emergency Department heart failure patients, investigating EMR documentation bias, and developing automated ED triage systems. These initiatives aim to improve patient care, health equity, and emergency service efficiency.
Dr. Apakama co-hosts the Stat AI Podcast, exploring the intersection of AI and Emergency Medicine. Available on major platforms, it offers insights into healthcare’s future. Through his work, Dr. Apakama is not just practicing medicine—he’s reshaping its future at the crossroads of technology and patient care.
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Insititute for Health Equity Research
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Louisa Holaday, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Insititute for Health Equity ResearchDr. Holaday is a primary care physician and health services researcher whose work focuses on the effects of neighborhood and community on health, particularly the spillover effects of mass incarceration. She completed medical school at the University of Michigan, where she did her undergraduate work with a focus in Metropolitan Studies. She was born and raised in New York City, and returned home for residency in Primary Care/Social Internal Medicine at Montefiore, where she was Chief Resident. Following residency, she did a research fellowship at the National Clinician Scholars Program at Yale University.