The Legacy of Rebecca Lee Crumpler: What is Possible?

Dr. Reede has a lifelong passion for and experience with mentoring and supporting diversity in the biosciences. She is Harvard Medical School’s first Dean for Diversity and Community Partnership, responsible for the development and management of a comprehensive program that provides leadership, guidance, and support to promote the increased recruitment, retention, and advancement of underrepresented minority faculty. She also serves in a number of other positions, including Faculty Director of Community Outreach at HMS, Professor at HMS and at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Assistant in Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital.

While at HMS, Joan created more than 20 diversity and leadership-focused programs, including founding the HMS Minority Faculty Development Program and the Biomedical Science Careers Program. Before joining Harvard, she served as the medical director of a Boston community health center and worked as a pediatrician in community and academic health centers, juvenile prisons, and public schools. She has held a number of advisory roles including serving on the Health and Human Services Advisory Committee on Minority Health and the Secretary’s Advisory Committee to the Director of NIH. In 2020, she became an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow.

Dr. Reede graduated from Brown University and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. She holds an MPH and an MS in Health Policy Management from Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and an MBA from Boston University.

Dr. Deas is Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences, the Mark and Pam Rubin Dean of the School of Medicine, and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California Riverside (UCR). Since joining UCR, she led the opening of UCR Health which includes primary care and multispecialty clinical services, and under her leadership UCR School of Medicine has expanded its clinical affiliations, increased its National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, and increased student, staff and faculty diversity. Most recently, UCR School of Medicine was awarded one of 13 National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities Center grants.

Prior to joining UCR School of Medicine, Dr. Deas served as interim dean of the College of Medicine and professor of psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). During her tenure at MUSC, she served as senior associate dean for medical education, chief academic officer, associate dean for admissions, senior associate dean for diversity and led the College of Medicine’s committee on accreditation for the Liaison Committee on Medical Education.

Dr. Deas is board certified in adult psychiatry, child/adolescent psychiatry and addiction psychiatry, and is a fellow with the American College of Psychiatrists and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. She was the Founding Director of the Adolescent Substance Abuse Program at the Medical University of South Carolina.  She has been honored with several national awards in the areas of diversity and inclusion as well as in the field of psychiatry.

Her research interests include pharmacotherapy and psychosocial treatments for adolescents and adults with substance use disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) and anxiety disorders. She has received NIH funding (R01) as well as industry funding for her research and published articles in several peer-reviewed journals.

Dr. Jackson-Williams has always been an educator at heart.  Her passion for education has culminated with her current position as the Vice Dean for Medical Education at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine.  She began her journey in education because of her parents who were both educators in the Mississippi Delta.

Dr. Jackson-Williams grew up in Indianola, MS where she attended the public schools.  In 1987 she completed her undergraduate studies at the historic Tougaloo College with a degree in chemistry. While in college she was engaged in the campus and local communities and became a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

In 1994 she completed her studies at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and earned a doctorate in biochemistry and a medical degree. She often jokingly states that while she is not engaged in bench research now, she uses the analytic skills developed during this period of time daily.  While in Boston she continued to serve in campus and local communities as she developed advocacy skills as an elected officer for local, regional and national positions with the Student National Medical Association.

Dr. Monroe has served as the Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic and Faculty Affairs, and Professor of Family Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas since 2014. At Baylor, Dr. Monroe oversees Academic Affairs, Faculty Development, Faculty Affairs, Institutional Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity and Center for Professionalism. She currently serves as the chair of the AAMC Advisory Committee on Advancing Holistic Review, and she is a member of the Baylor University Board of Regents and IU Health Board of Directors.

She formerly served as the Chief Academic Officer, Vice Dean for Educational Affairs and Professor of Family Medicine at the Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla. from 2008-2014. At USF, Dr. Monroe provided oversight for the undergraduate medical education program, the physical therapy program and the masters programs in graduate studies, and she guided the development of a branch campus and a new medical education curriculum.

Dr. Monroe spent her early career at the Alpert Medical School at Brown University where she served as the Associate Dean for Minority Affairs and Professor of Family Medicine. Dr. Monroe earned her MD from Indiana University School of Medicine, and completed an internship in psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, DC, and a residency in family medicine at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, IN. She is the recipient of numerous teaching and mentoring awards.

Her scholarly interests include physician-patient communication, cross-cultural communication, diversity and inclusion, leadership development and mentoring training for students and faculty.

Dr. Prothrow-Stith is Dean and Professor at the Charles R. Drew University College of Medicine.  She advised top-tier healthcare institutions on leadership as a principal at Spencer Stuart and served as the Henry Pickering Walcott Professor of Public Health Practice and Associate Dean for Diversity at Harvard School of Public Health where she created the Division of Public Health Practice and secured over $14 million in grant funding for health programs.

While working in inner-city Boston, she broke new ground with efforts to define youth violence as a health problem.  She developed The Violence Prevention Curriculum for Adolescents, a forerunner of violence prevention curricula for schools and authored or co-authored Deadly Consequences (HarperCollins 1991); Murder Is No Accident (Jossey Bass Publishers, 2004); Sugar and Spice and No Longer Nice, (Jossey Bass Publishers, 2005); a high school textbook, Health (Pearson 2014); and over 100 articles. In 1987, Governor Michael Dukakis appointed her Commissioner of Public Health for Massachusetts where she led a department with 3,500 employees, eight hospitals and a budget of $350 million.  She and her family lived in Tanzania during her husband’s tenure as U.S. Ambassador.

Dr. Prothrow-Stith is a graduate of Spelman College and Harvard Medical School and a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine.  In 2003, she was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Medicine.  She has received ten honorary doctorates and in 2017, she was named Woman of the Year for the 2nd District by the LA County Board of Supervisors.

Dr. Willock was one of nine women in the 1962 graduating class of Howard University College of Medicine, where she served as Class Treasurer, and one of the 19 black females graduates of US Medical Schools that year.   After establishing a successful academic career, she was elected as an alumna to HUCOM  Alpha Omega Alpha, and gave the graduation address to the Class of 1982.

Dr. Willock’s initial specialty interest was surgery, an unusual choice for a woman at the time. After an internship in surgery at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y., she then switched to anesthesiology, and  completed her residency at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York under the chairmanship of Emanuel Papper, MD. Her initial academic appointment was at New York University School of Medicine where she rose to Associate Professor and was Director of the Anesthesiology Residency Program and Associate Director of the Anesthesia Department at Bellevue Hospital, the first woman to hold both those positions. Her research activity was investigating operating room deaths with the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office and Dr. Michael Baden.  She then took a hiatus into private practice for three years. Realizing her calling was academic medicine, she returned to Presbyterian Hospital, and was appointed to the faculty at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.  She was a pioneer in introducing simulation instruction at Columbia. She was one of the earliest physicians to recognize that formal training in education would be useful and she obtained a Masters in Higher Education at Teacher’s College at Columbia University.

In 1982, she was appointed Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology at BUSM, the first woman to chair a department in the medical school, also becoming only the third woman to chair an academic anesthesiology department and one of less than 50 women among chairs in the US medical schools.  She may have been the first woman of color to chair an academic department in a non-HCBU institution.   She revamped the department and led it  until 1998, at which time she became the Assistant Provost for Community Affairs.

Recognizing the importance of management training for running a department or an Operating Room, she was among the first physicians to seek an MBA, which she earned from Boston University in 1989.

In 2002, she became the first woman to become Dean of the College of Medicine at Charles R.  Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, a two year medical school affiliated with UCLA. Upon retirement as dean, she returned to Boston and was made Professor Emerita at Boston University, the first woman of color to be so appointed.

She was actively involved in her professional societies and was elected to leadership positions in New York, Massachusetts and nationally.  She was the first woman of color to be President of the Massachusetts Society of Anesthesiology, and on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, and to serve on its Administrative Council as the Assistant Secretary.  She made a number of contributions these societies, and the Massachusetts Medical Society. She was the first woman and/or person of color elected President of the Society of Academic Anesthesiology Chairs. Her legacy includes training over 100 anesthesiologists.  Two of her Hispanic residents, Ruben Azocar, MD, and Rafael Ortega, MD,  became chairs of academic anesthesiology departments.

Her grandparents started a family foundation in Panama which she has led for fifty years. The foundation has donated to a variety of charitable causes, but primarily concentrates on education of the needy students and has helped over 3000 students.  The main focus of the Foundation currently is scholarships for STEM studies in Panamanian universities. Now in retirement, she continues to be active in the foundation and in her community in Boston.

Ms. Green received a BS in Psychology and Master’s in Interdisciplinary Studies with a dual concentration in Public Health and Urban Education from the University of Central Florida. Currently she is in between her second and third year of medical school and is serving as the inaugural Diversity & Inclusion Fellow for Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine with a joint appointment as a Research Fellow at BU’s Institute of Health Systems Innovation & Policy. Ms. Green’s research interests include pediatric trauma, medical education reform and upstream divers of health disparities.

Dr. Ellis is currently serving at the Whitman Walker Health Center in Washington, D.C. Prior to her tenure there she held a position at the Southwest Community Health Center in her hometown, Bridgeport Conn. Inspired by a deep love of her hometown, Simone’s drive to become a doctor was fueled by a desire to work to improve the health outcomes for marginalized persons in our society.

While earning her medical degree at BUSM, Simone successfully founded and piloted the BUSM STEP initiative. She is proud to see that this important service-initiative continues on today. In 2017, Simone was awarded a community service achievement award from Yale University, where she also earned an undergraduate degree. After completing her medical degree at BUSM, she went on to complete a Family Medicine residency at Georgetown University where she was recognized as the Best Resident Clinician in her graduating class.

When not working, Simone enjoys spending time with her puppies, Marley and Bailey. She also enjoys reading the Alex Cross series by James Patterson, and she loves watching suspense/thriller movies.

Dr. Kelley is a board-certified Family Medicine physician with training and expertise in correctional and preventive medicine. Her passion and commitment throughout her career have always been the advancement of evidenced-based medicine to improve patient outcomes. Dr. Kelley currently serves as the Senior Clinical Education Consultant for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Health Service Corps (IHSC). She is considered a national expert in clinical education for detention healthcare, ensuring that over 1700 employees in 21 detention facilities across the country are competent to provide premier healthcare to the most international and multicultural, underserved population of 400,000 detainees. Prior to her current role, she served as Clinical Director of a medium-security federal prison and Medical Director of a prestigious White House clinic in which she led a team of healthcare providers impacting the health of generals, admirals, White House staff, congressmen, senators and U.S. Supreme Court justices.

Dr. Kelley commissioned as an active duty officer in the United States Public Health Service in 2015 and holds the rank of Lieutenant Commander. In light of her professional excellence, Dr. Kelley has been recognized many times, earning Top Doctor of Who’s Who 2020, South Carolina Innovative Partner Award, a nomination for the National Minority Equality Forum’s 40 Under 40 Leaders in Minority Health Award in 2018 and the 2017 Military Health Systems Female Physician Leader Award. Although her career has been filled with highlights, she is especially proud of receiving the Humanitarian Response Medal for her oversight and direction of critically ill patients during the Harvey, Irma and Maria hurricanes.

Dr. Kelley earned her Bachelor of Science degree with honors from Morgan State University and is a proud graduate of Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine Class of 2007. Her husband and two beautiful daughters sustain her and keep her motivated. She is an adventurer at heart and loves to travel. Dr. Kelley lives by the motto, “have courage and be kind.” During her spare time, she can be found surfing the waves believing that because we can’t stop the waves, we must have courage and learn to surf.

Dr. Reed, is a double-boarded obstetrician/gynecologist and medical geneticist who has a passion for equity and inclusion, telemedicine, genetics education, and providing sensitive and culturally competent care to women and families during pregnancy and when confronted with uncertainty around a genetic diagnosis.

She holds a BS in Biology from Dillard University in New Orleans, La. and an MD from Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. She completed her residency in Obstetrics/Gynecology at Bridgeport Hospital in Bridgeport, Conn. and her fellowship in Medical Genetics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, N.Y. Following her fellowship, Dr. Reed joined Tufts Medical Center as an attending in the Departments of OB/GYN and Pediatrics. She is an Assistant Professor in OB/GYN at Tufts University School of Medicine. Her clinical responsibilities include being the Division Chief of Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics at Tufts Children’s Hospital; Director of Perinatal Genetics and Attending Physician in the generalist division in the Department of OB/GYN at Tufts Medical Center.

Dr. Reed’s other leadership responsibilities in the hospital include being the Chair of the Tufts Medical Center Physicians Organization’s (TMC PO) Telemedicine Steering Committee, an inaugural member of the TMC PO Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and a member of the TMC PO Women in Medicine and Sciences Committee and the TMC PO Policy and Procedures Committee. She is also on the TMC PO Board of Trustees. At Tufts University School of Medicine she is an inaugural member of the Anti-racism Task Force. She is also a member of the Boston Board of Directors for the March of Dimes and an Alumni Director at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine.

Dr. Reed has extensive experience in educating medical students, genetic counseling students, residents, fellows, physicians, and other medical professionals in various prenatal, cancer, and clinical genetics topics. She has leadership experience in establishing and growing telemedicine programs for ambulatory and inpatient encounters and consultations. She conducts research around genomic sequencing in stillbirth and seriously ill newborns with possible genetic disorders.

Dr. Woolcock is a generalist Obstetrician/Gynecologist at Boston Medical Center with a special interest in health disparities, community medicine, and diversity initiatives that increase the number of underrepresented groups in medicine. At Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine she currently serves as an Assistant Dean of Diversity and Inclusion and the interim Director of the Early Medical School Selection Program, which is the diversity pipeline program into BUSM. She is also the Associate Director of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Clerkship. Prior to joining the faculty at Boston Medical Center, Dr. Woolcock was a generalist OB/GYN at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where she completed the Kraft Center for Community Health’s Leadership Program, created and chaired the department’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and served as co-course director for the OB/GYN and Women’s Health in the Urban Community Settings for Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Woolcock earned her Bachelor of Science degree with honors from Hampton University. As a proud Bostonian, she received both her MD and MPH from Boston University, and completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Boston Medical Center.

Dr. Absalon is currently a Senior Medical Director, Vaccine Clinical Research ＆ Development. She is the Global Clinical Program Lead of the Group B Streptoccocus (GBS) vaccine program and a core clinical team member on the COVID-19 vaccine development program.

Dr. Absalon earned her medical degree at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, School of Medicine. She completed her internal medicine residency at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and her combined CDC STD Prevention and Adult Infectious Diseases fellowships in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Columbia University and the Division of Infectious Diseases, Harlem Hospital Center, Columbia University. She completed an MPH in Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. Prior to attending medical school, Dr. Absalon earned a BA in Mathematics at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.

Dr. Absalon is a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and member of the American Medical Association, the National Medical Association, and the American College of Physicians.  

Congresswoman Beatty is the Chair of the powerful Congressional Black Caucus. A native Ohioan, with a strong history of connecting people, policy and politics to make a difference, Beatty has proudly represented Ohio’s Third Congressional District since 2013. She currently serves on the exclusive House Financial Services Committee and is first-ever Chair of the Financial Services Diversity and Inclusion Subcommittee. Previously named one of Ebony Magazine’s 150 most powerful African-Americans in the United States. Congresswoman Beatty was the first African-American female to chair the Columbus Urban League Board, and is a life member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and the NAACP, as well as a member of The Links, Inc., the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, National Council of Negro Women, the American Heart Association, and numerous other organizations.

Dr. Pierre is an Assistant Professor at the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine; she serves as the Medical Director of Public Health Programs and the acting Hospital Epidemiologist at Boston Medical Center; and as the Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Council for the Boston University Medical Group.

Her focus is on population and public health in communities struggling with racial, economic and social marginalization. Dr. Pierre’s research is focused on infection prevention in vulnerable populations. Her clinical interests include HIV management in special subpopulations (including immigrants of color and pregnant women).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, she has led Boston Medical Center’s multidisciplinary Infection Prevention and PPE response, designed ambulatory and operative re-opening protocols and advised Occupational Health and department leadership on COVID-19 prevention in healthcare workers. Dr. Pierre has also collaborated with local community organizations to develop and implement strategies to reduce COVID-19 infection in communities of color. 

Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott has been the Director of the Rhode Island Department of Health since 2015. In her time as Director of Health, Dr. Alexander-Scott has made it the Department’s principal focus to give every person and every community in Rhode Island an equal opportunity to be as healthy as possible. She brings tremendous experience to this position from her work as a specialist in infectious diseases for children and adults, and from her time in academia as an associate professor of pediatrics, medicine, and public health (with a focus on health services, policy, and practice). Dr. Alexander-Scott is board certified in Pediatrics, Internal Medicine, Pediatric Infectious Diseases, and Adult Infectious Diseases. In 2018, Dr. Alexander-Scott was elected President of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, the national organization for state health directors. She earned her undergraduate degree at Cornell University. She graduated from SUNY Upstate Medical University at Syracuse. After completing a combined internal medicine-pediatrics residency at SUNY Stony Brook University Hospital, Dr. Alexander-Scott did a combined fellowship in adult and pediatric infectious diseases at Brown University. She also holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health from Brown University.

Liz Walker is Pastor of Roxbury Presbyterian Church in the heart of Boston where she leads the Cory Johnson Program for Post Traumatic Healing (CJP). Named after a promising young church member who was murdered in 2010, CJP is a faith-inspired, clinically supported, community based program that addresses the epidemic of Post-Traumatic Stress in a neighborhood too often overrun by violence. CJP offers weekly community gatherings where residents are encouraged to share painful often unspeakable experiences, increase their understanding of psychological trauma and learn coping skills. The program also offers access to mental health support that some residents might not otherwise receive. Since its inception in 2014, CJP has served more than 7,000 people and is in the process of replicating its ‘Can We Talk’ community conversations in 8 different locations around the country.

Reverend Walker has taken a lead role in vaccine education for communities disproportionately impacted by COVID 19, serving on Governor Baker’s Advisory group for COVID vaccine distribution.

A 2005 graduate of Harvard Divinity School, Reverend Walker has long been actively involved in healing the world. She helped found the Jane Doe Safety Fund, a multi-million dollar statewide anti-violence initiative that works on policy and supports domestic abuse shelters and safe houses around the Commonwealth. She spent 11 years as a humanitarian working in South Sudan, one of Africa’s most troubled countries. Reverend Walker became a minister after a television career spanning 21 years as the city’s first African American News Anchor on WBZ TV.

Reverend Walker is a member of the Core Strategy Team of the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization and serves on the Board of Trustees for Boston Medical Center.  She has served on the Board of Trustees for Andover Newton Theological Seminary, the Tufts Health Foundation and Board of Overseers for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Reverend Walker has been awarded honorary degrees from numerous institutions including University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth, Boston College, Simmons College, Salem State University and Bridgewater State University.  She is the mother of three and grandmother of two.