Panel 2: Career Paths

Moderator
Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, MBA

University Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor of Population Health and Health Equity, University of Pennsylvania;
President Emerita and Former CEO, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
SUMR Mentor

Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, MBA is the president emerita and former CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), a position she held for nearly 15 years. In January 2018 she was named the RWJF Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) Professor of Population Health and Health Equity at the University of Pennsylvania, with appointments in the Perelman School of Medicine, the School of Nursing and the Wharton School.

A specialist in geriatrics, Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey came to the Foundation from the University of Pennsylvania, where she served as the Sylvan Eisman Professor of Medicine and Health Care Systems. She also directed the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute on Aging and was chief of geriatric medicine.

She worked as Deputy Administrator for the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research under President George H.W. Bush’s administration and continued to direct policy for the subsequent administration, serving as Quality of Care Chair for President Bill Clinton’s panels on health care. She has served on numerous federal advisory committees and she was appointed by President Barack Obama to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition.

She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and The American Philosophical Society. She currently serves on the Smithsonian Institution Board of Regents, as well as on several other boards of directors, including the Bipartisan Policy Center, Hess Corporation, General Electric Company and Intel Corporation.

Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey is the recipient of numerous awards, including honorary doctorates from Colby College, Brown University and Tufts University. Forbes included her on their most important women in the world list eight times and Modern Healthcare included her on their 100 most influential people in health care list eleven times. Most recently in 2018, she received the National Network of Public Health Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the American Public Health Association’s Sedgwick Memorial Medal for Distinguished Service in Public Health.

Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey earned her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and her MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Derek Mazique, MD

Associate Chief Quality Officer and Patient Safety Officer, New York-Presbyterian/The Allen Hospital
SUMR 2006

Derek C. Mazique, MD is the Associate Chief Quality Officer and Patient Safety Officer at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Allen Hospital. In that role, he oversees the Quality Improvement and Patient Safety activities at NYP-AH, including review of significant events, surveillance of publicly-reportable metrics, and implementation of quality improvement projects. He also serves on the Quality & Patient Safety Executive Committee of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and co-leads hospital's High Value Care working group. Derek is a board-certified Hospital Medicine internist, and continues to practice medicine at the Allen Hospital. He earned his MD from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a Gamble Scholar and completed a certificate in Health Care Management, Entrepreneurship, and Technology. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, where he served as the Chief Resident in Quality/Patient Safety.

Sudha Meghan, MD

CEO of RozieAl
SUMR 2007

Sudha Meghan is a medical doctor and entrepreneur with an academic background in economics and neuroscience. RozieAi is a firm dedicated to creating care experiences that remember an individual across their care journeys, and apply this memory to deliver proactive advisory and services. The company’s vision is to help organizations deliver personalized care and patient advocacy programs in a scalable manner. As the Chief Executive Officer, Sudha leads the commercial operations of RozieAi and guides the technology vision. She also manages RozieAi's innovation consulting practice, helping clients identify the nuances of current challenges and create a roadmap for growth. Current project focus areas include care practices for substance use disorders and management of traumatic brain injuries.

Prior to founding RozieAi, Sudha worked in strategy and operations consulting, starting her career at Deloitte, and has helped leading healthcare organizations with patient engagement and process innovation. Sudha studied in the Vagelos Life Sciences & Management Program at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating with a BS in Economics and a BA in Biological Basis of Behavior. She earned her MD at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

Victoria Perez, PhD

Assistant Professor, Indiana University, School of Public and Environmental Affairs
SUMR 2007

Victoria Perez joined O'Neill as an assistant professor in 2015. She earned her PhD in managerial science and applied economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where her dissertation focused on the effects of private managed care on Medicaid. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Perez’s research interests include private and governmental financing of healthcare, insurance economics, and regulation. Her research has been published in American Journal of Health Economics, Health Economics, and the International Journal of Services, Economics and Management. She has also worked as a research assistant and programmer in the health policy division at Mathematica Policy Research.

Leah Taylor, MPH, PMP, CSM

Principal of Leah Taylor Consulting Services, Inc.
SUMR 2011

Leah Taylor is the Principal of Leah Taylor Consulting Services, LLC, a firm that provides project management, healthcare research, program evaluation, and content writing expertise to small businesses and start-ups. Previously, Leah worked in federal healthcare consulting for five years. She worked as a Program Manager for Guidehouse where she led a team of healthcare planners assessing Veteran Affairs (VA) Medical Centers around the country. At LMI, she co-led a team of consultants on a project that sought to gather information to better understand the encounter data submission process from the provider to the Medicare Advantage Organization (MAO) to the government Encounter Data System (EDS). Leah provided both project management and data analytic support to the team.

Prior to joining LMI, Leah processed demographic changes for congressional staff as a part of the DC Health Benefit Exchange Authority (HBX) account management team. In addition, Leah worked closely with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as a member of the State Data Resource Center (SDRC). As a SDRC team member, Leah provided technical assistance to state Medicaid agencies requesting Medicare data for care coordination and program integrity activities of their Medicare-Medicaid enrollees.

Leah has a BA degree in Public Health from the University of Pennsylvania and an MPH from Eastern Virginia Medical School. In addition, she holds Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Scrum Master (CSM) certifications.

Ahmed Whitt, PhD

Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Austin
SUMR 2004

Ahmed Whitt is an Assistant Professor at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin. His research includes investigating neighborhood determinants of mental health, using geographic information systems to inform policy interventions to address neighborhood risk factors, and assessing predictors of future delinquent behavior in juvenile justice populations. Dr. Whitt completed his PhD in Social Work and Geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and MSW at the University of Pennsylvania.