The 2023 Health And… Trust conference featured distinguished speakers who work to expand knowledge and understanding of the field.

Richard Baron, MD, MACP
President and CEO, American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) and the ABIM Foundation

Dr. Baron was a former chair of the ABIM’s board of directors and served on the ABIM Foundation board of trustees. He practiced general internal medicine and geriatrics for almost 30 years at Greenhouse Internists, PC. Following that, Dr. Baron served as group director of Seamless Care Models at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Innovation Center, where he led efforts related to accountable care organizations and primary care. From 1988 to 1996, Dr. Baron served as chief medical officer of Health Partners, a not-for-profit Medicaid HMO set up by four teaching hospitals in Philadelphia. He was the architect of the Best Clinical and Administrative Practices program, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Center for Health Care Strategies, working with medical leadership of Medicaid health plans around the country in forging collaboratives to improve the quality of care for their members.

Paul M. Barrett, JD
Deputy Director and Senior Research Scholar, NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights

Before joining NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights in 2017, Mr. Barrett, who also teaches at NYU School of Law, worked for more than 30 years as a journalist at The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek. He has written four nonfiction books, including Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun, which landed on The New York Times Best Sellers list. At the NYU Stern Center, he has written a series of reports on the effects of the social media industry on democracy.

Dave A. Chokshi, MD, MSc, FACP
Clinical Professor, Departments of Population Health and Medicine, NYU Langone Health Former New York City Health Commissioner

Dr. Chokshi was the 43rd commissioner at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYC DOHMH). He led the city’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including its historic campaign to vaccinate more than six million New Yorkers. Dr. Chokshi devised treatment strategies, navigated school and economic reopenings, and served as the principal public spokesperson for NYC DOHMH. From 2014 to 2020, Dr. Chokshi served in leadership roles at NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H), including as its inaugural chief population health officer. He was also CEO of the H+H Accountable Care Organization and a senior scholar at the CUNY School of Public Health and Health Policy. Previously, Dr. Chokshi served as a White House Fellow at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, where he was the principal health advisor in the Office of the Secretary. Dr. Chokshi has written on medicine and public health in the New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs, and The New York Times, among other publications. In 2016, President Obama appointed him to the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health. Learn more about Dr. Chokshi.

Jelani Cobb, PhD
Dean, Columbia Journalism School

Dr. Cobb joined the Columbia Journalism School faculty in 2016 and became dean in 2022. He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2015 and received a Peabody Award for his 2020 PBS Frontline film, Whose Vote Counts? He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary in 2018. Dr. Cobb has also been a political analyst for MSNBC since 2019. He is the author of The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress and To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic. He has served as editor or co-editor of several volumes including The Matter of Black Lives, a collection of The New Yorker’s writings on race, and The Essential Kerner Commission Report. Dr. Cobb is a producer or co-producer on several documentaries, including Lincoln’s Dilemma, Obama: A More Perfect Union, and Policing the Police, and has also received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, and the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Abdul El-Sayed, MD, DPhil
Public Health Director, Wayne County, Michigan

Dr. El-Sayed is a physician, epidemiologist, and public servant. He serves as director of Wayne County Department of Health, Human, and Veterans Services, and health officer for the county, serving 1.8 million residents of Michigan’s largest and most diverse county under Chief Executive Warren Evans. Dr. El-Sayed also hosts Crooked Media’s award-winning America Dissected podcast, which goes beyond the headlines to explore the intersection between health and society. His books include Healing Politics and Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide with Dr. Micah Johnson. He is a visiting scholar at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, teaching at the intersection of public health, public policy, and politics, and has more than 100 peer-reviewed publications. He was formerly a commentator at CNN, health director for the city of Detroit, and candidate for governor of Michigan in 2018. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, and The Guardian. He is a proud member of the National Writers Union, AFT Locals 477 and 6244, SEIU Local 500, and the American Association of University Professors.

Marc N. Gourevitch, MD, MPH
The Muriel G. and George W. Singer Professor of Population Health and Chair, Department of Population Health
NYU Langone Health

Dr. Gourevitch is the founding chair of the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone. His work focuses on developing approaches that leverage both healthcare delivery and policy- and community-level interventions to advance the health of populations. Dr. Gourevitch is the principal investigator of City Health Dashboard, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation–supported online resource designed to help city leaders and community stakeholders drive improvements in population health, as well as the recently launched Congressional District Health Dashboard, a first-of-its-kind resource that offers trusted data on health and its drivers for all 435 U.S. congressional districts and the District of Columbia. He co-directs the Community Engagement and Population Health Research Core of the Clinical and Translational Science Institute that bridges NYU Grossman School of Medicine and NYC Health + Hospitals and leads our participation in the New York City Clinical Data Research Network. A general internist, Dr. Gourevitch previously served as founding director of NYU Langone’s Division of General Internal Medicine and Clinical Innovation and worked with people who use drugs and other underserved populations to improve health outcomes. Learn more about Dr. Gourevitch.

Nadia S. Islam, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Population Health, and Associate Director, Community Education, Institute for Excellence in Health Equity
NYU Langone Health

Dr. Islam specializes in community-based participatory methods and cardiovascular health disparities research within Asian American and immigrant communities. Her research, marked by a collaborative approach involving multiple clinical and community stakeholders, focuses on developing culturally relevant community-clinical linkage models to promote health equity in underserved communities. Dr. Islam co-directs the NYU-CUNY Prevention Research Center and the Community Engagement and Population Health Research Core of NYU Langone’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute. She is also deputy director of the NYU Center for the Study of Asian American Health, a National Institutes of Health–funded National Research Center of Excellence dedicated to reducing health disparities in Asian American communities. Learn more about Dr. Islam.

Aisha T. Langford, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor, Department of Population Health
NYU Langone Health

Dr. Langford studies how health communication can improve individual decision-making and reduce population health disparities for conditions or behaviors that lead to preventable mortality and morbidity. Specifically, she investigates how the presentation of health information impacts how people make health decisions. Historically, she has done work in cancer prevention and clinical trial participation in community-based settings. Her research has expanded to include cardiovascular disease broadly, with a particular interest in hypertension-related decision-making within primary care settings. Dr. Langford also co-directs NYU Langone’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute’s Recruitment and Retention Core. Learn more about Dr. Langford.
 
Heidi Larson, PhD
Professor of Anthropology, Risk and Decision Science, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Founding Director, Vaccine Confidence Project

Dr. Larson’s research focuses on managing risk and building trust. She is particularly focused on public cooperation during emergencies including disease outbreaks, natural disasters, terrorism, and conflict. Dr. Larson previously headed global immunization communication at UNICEF and served on the World Health Organization SAGE Working Group on Vaccine Hesitancy. She is author of Stuck: How Vaccine Rumors Start—and Why They Don’t Go Away. In 2021 she was awarded the Edinburgh Medal, and BBC named her as one of the 100 most influential women in the world.

Thomas A. LaVeist, PhD
Dean and Weatherhead Presidential Chair in Health Equity, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine

Dr. LaVeist was appointed dean of Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in July 2018. Previously, he served as chairman of the Department of Health Policy and Management at George Washington University, Milken Institute School of Public Health. He joined George Washington University after 25 years on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he was a professor and founding director of the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions. Dr. LaVeist’s research focuses on health equity, and he has conducted major studies of cultural competency in healthcare, social determinants of health, and health policy analysis. In addition to his extensive record of publication in scientific journals, he has written for other mass media outlets. He has written or edited six books and is executive producer and narrator for The Skin You’re In, a documentary series about racial inequalities in health. Dr. LaVeist is the recipient of the Innovation Award from the National Institutes of Health and the Knowledge Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health. In 2013, he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Medicine.

Tom Nichols, PhD
Staff Writer, The Atlantic
Professor Emeritus, U.S. Naval War College

An expert on Russia and international security issues, Dr. Nichols has taught national security affairs for 25 years at the U.S. Naval War College, as well as at the Harvard Extension School, Dartmouth College, and Georgetown University. He was a fellow of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and an adjunct at the U.S. Air Force School of Strategic Force Studies. In Washington, he was a fellow of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and served on Capitol Hill as personal staff for defense and security affairs to the late Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania. Dr. Nichols is the author of several books, including The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters, an international bestseller. His most recent book is Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from Within on Modern Democracy. He is also a five-time undefeated Jeopardy! champion and was listed in the Jeopardy Hall of Fame after his 1994 appearances as one of the best players of the game.

Joseph E. Ravenell, MD
Associate Dean for Diversity Affairs and Inclusion and Associate Professor, Departments of Population Health and Medicine
NYU Langone Health

Dr. Ravenell is a leader in multi-level cardiovascular and cancer research and has been certified as a specialist in hypertension by the American Society of Hypertension. He has been a principal investigator of multiple National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant–funded clinical trials to test community-based strategies to improve colon cancer screening and cardiovascular disease prevention among Black men in urban settings. This work has led to a research network of more than 200 community-based sites, including churches, barbershops, mosques, and social service agencies. Dr. Ravenell’s community-based research was the subject of an invited TED Talk in February 2016. He co-founded the Bellevue Hospital Resistant Hypertension Program and established the Men’s Health Initiative, a community-based research and outreach program to address health inequities in New York City. Learn more about Dr. Ravenell.

Lauren A. Taylor, PhD, MDiv
Assistant Professor, Department of Population Health
NYU Langone Health

Dr. Taylor studies healthcare through an organizational lens, applying theoretical frameworks from business ethics and political philosophy to managerial and policy dilemmas. She previously worked as a consultant for the Global Fund and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and has since written on the institutionalization of global health, how to reform the World Health Organization, the responsibilities of health systems to address social determinants of health, and the problem of complicity for health policymakers. She co-authored The American Health Care Paradox: Why Spending More Is Getting Us Less with Elizabeth Bradley. Some of her recent publications have explored the hospital’s scope of legitimate responsibilities, the role of trust in healthcare delivery, and community-based organizations’ responses to Medicaid’s emphasis on social determinants. Learn more about Dr. Taylor.