Virginia A. Caine, M.D., 125th President, National Medical Association
Virginia A. Caine, MD is the Director and Chief Medical Officer of the Marion County Public Health Department. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine Infectious Diseases Division. She is the Past President of American Public Health Association, President of the National Medical Association (NMA), Chair of the Infectious Diseases Section, and member of the NMA and Indiana COVID-19 Task Forces. Recently appointed a member of the federal committee for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Board of Scientific Counselors, Deputy Director for Infectious Diseases. In 2020, the Indianapolis Business Journal (IBJ) named her as one of 40 Influential People of the past 40 years, as they celebrated 40 Years of Progress in Indianapolis.
Dr. Caine works tirelessly to promote and advance public health through innovative programs and unprecedented collaborations. Her boundless energy, vision, and drive to serve people, especially disadvantaged areas, have led Dr. Caine to have her fingerprints on numerous projects. She helped set up the first HIV/AIDS healthcare delivery system of all major hospitals in Indianapolis.
Senator Mattie Hunter
A native Chicagoan, State Senator Mattie Hunter has served in the Illinois General Assembly since 2003. Hunter holds a leadership position as the Assistant Majority Leader and is the vice chair of the Executive Appointments and Public Health Committees. She serves on the Senate Appropriations – Public Safety and Infrastructure, Energy and Public Utilities, Executive, and Health and Human Services Committees. She is also a member of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus.
The former grassroots community organizer earned a bachelor’s degree in government from Monmouth College, a master’s degree in sociology from Jackson State University, and holds a Doctor of Humane Letters from Monmouth College. Hunter is a licensed alcohol and drug counselor and prevention specialist, equipping her with the expertise to craft legislation addressing substance abuse and prevention.
As state senator of the 3rd District, Hunter’s priorities remain focused on protecting schools, increasing public safety, creating economic opportunities, expanding access to health care and fighting for equality. Over 400 bills regarding breast cancer, childhood vaccines, health care access, substance abuse treatment, youth employment, environmental issues and education have been passed during Hunter’s career.
Working abroad, Hunter headed the Center for Health and Human Services in Johannesburg, South Africa as a managing director and participated in coordinated U.S. State Department Demand Reduction Workshops addressing substance abuse in South Africa.
Hunter served for years as vice president of the Human Resources Development Institute Inc., where she developed and managed programs focusing on abused women and children, behavioral health, youth and ex-offenders.
In 2006, Hunter was appointed a Lifetime Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. She has been named Legislator of the Year by numerous organizations in the fields of health care, youth, child welfare and education.
Senator Hunter co-chairs the Task Force on Missing and Murdered Chicago Women, Health and Human Services Task Force, Kidney Disease Prevention and Education Task Force and Medicaid Managed Care Oversight Commission. She is an active member of numerous organizations, including Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. (Theta Omega Chapter), the National Conference of State Legislatures, Credit Union of Illinois board of directors, co-chair of the Durban committee for Chicago Sister Cities International, treasurer of Women in Government and convener of the South Side Heroin/Opioid Task Force.
Leslie Walker, MD
Dr. Leslie R. Walker is the Ford/Morgan Endowed Professor and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics as well as Associate Dean for the University of Washington. She is also the Chief Academic Officer and Senior Vice President for Seattle Children’s. She is also Co-Chair of the Forum for Children’s Well Being: Promoting Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Health for Children and Youth in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM). She is a co-founder and executive sponsor of the UW/Seattle Children’s Health Equity Institute for Healthy Pregnancy, Children and Families and the current President for the American Medical School Pediatric Department Chairs (AMSPDC) and Past President of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine.
Just prior to assuming her current role at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s, Dr. Walker served as the Chair of Pediatrics and Medical Director at Penn State Children’s Hospital. Before moving to the East Coast, she spent 9 years at the University of Washington as the Division Chief of Adolescent Medicine and was the co-director for the Seattle Children’s Adolescent Substance Abuse Program (ASAP). She was also the Vice Chair of Faculty Development for the Department of Pediatrics. Her first faculty position after fellowship was at Georgetown University School of Medicine where she developed and led the Section of Adolescent Medicine. She has been dedicated to the health and wellbeing of children and adolescents for over 25 years, particularly in the areas of prevention of adolescent substance use and promotion of healthy adolescent development. Her current focus is to raise awareness of and bring to national scale, evidence-based interventions to prevent substance use and mental health conditions in children and adolescents.
Dr. Walker’s research has been focused on prevention of adolescent risk behaviors spanning adolescent and young adult substance abuse and depression to adolescent pregnancy prevention. Another local and national focus of hers has been equity and inclusion and leadership in our workforce of health providers to achieve excellence in healthcare and to eliminate health disparities.
Roger A. Mitchell, MD
Dr. Roger A. Mitchell Jr. is the President of Howard University Hospital where he oversees complex community hospital operations. He is a board certified forensic pathologist and recently served as tenured Professor of Pathology and Chair of the Department of Pathology at Howard University Hospital. He also served as Chief Medical Officer for the Faculty Practice at Howard University. Dr. Mitchell is a highly respected physician leader with decades of experience in healthcare who takes a multifaceted and dedicated approach to improving healthcare outcomes through strategic leadership and collaborative strategies.
Dr. Mitchell serves as President-Elect for the National Medical Association (NMA), the oldest and largest group of Black physicians in the United States. Over the decade that Dr. Mitchell has been a member of the NMA, he has held numerous positions, including Speaker, Vice-Speaker, and Secretary to the House of Delegates. In additional, Dr. Mitchell led the NMA to the creation of the Council on Violence Prevention.
Dr. Mitchell’s leadership also included service as Chief Medical Examiner for Washington, DC as well as Interim Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice. There he developed programs and policy for violence prevention. He is the co-author of the book entitled Death in Custody: How America Ignores the Truth and What We Can Do About It, published by John Hopkins Press. He recently appeared on the PBS Frontline documentary, Documenting Police Use of Force. He is the co-host of the recent NAACP Image Awards nominated podcast entitled Official Ignorance – The Death in Custody Podcast.Dr. Mitchell received his bachelor of science degree from the Howard University, medical degree from Rutgers – New Jersey Medical School, pathology residency from the George Washington University Hospital, and forensic pathology fellowship from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner – New York City.
Lisa Harris, MD
Practicing medicine for more than 30 years at nationally recognized Eskenazi Health, Lisa E. Harris, M.D. has dedicated her career to improving health care for vulnerable and underserved populations. Since 2003, Dr. Harris has served as Eskenazi Health’s chief executive officer, leading one of America’s essential health care systems that also serves as a vital training ground for the Indiana University School of Medicine. In addition to her leadership role at Eskenazi Health, Dr. Harris remains actively engaged in patient care, research and teaching.
Long before health care reform began to take shape in the United States, Dr. Harris concentrated Eskenazi Health’s resources on prevention, health promotion and primary care, asserting that the greatest opportunity to improve the health and vitality of a community is to keep people well in the first place. With a deep appreciation for the societal issues which impact health, she is intensely focused on improving access to patient-centered, comprehensive and community-based primary and mental health care as well as health promotion. And, as past chair of America’s Essential Hospitals (formerly the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems), Dr. Harris has nurtured the organization’s strong presence on Capitol Hill, advocating for our nation’s most vulnerable populations.
Also an active and engaged leader in the local community, Dr. Harris serves as past chair of the board of directors and current medical director of the American Red Cross of Indiana, as well as on the boards of directors for the Regenstrief Institute, Indianapolis Coalition for Patient Safety, Second Helpings, United Way of Central Indiana, MESH (Managed Emergency Surge for Healthcare), the American Pianists Association, and the Phoenix Theatre. She also served as the 2015 chair of the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women initiative.
In 2009, Dr. Harris helped successfully lead a campaign seeking voter approval for a new Wishard Hospital campus. Prior to the 2009 special election calling upon voters to approve the construction, Dr. Harris helped build a coalition of community and business leaders and participated in more than 200 meetings to share information about the
project. An astounding 85 percent of voters said yes to the referendum; in 33 precincts, not one opposing vote was cast. In 2011, the organization received a $40 million gift from Indianapolis couple Sidney and Lois Eskenazi, in honor of whom Health & Hospital Corporation of Marion County named the new hospital facilities. The Eskenazi Health campus opened in December 2013 and is among the first and largest hospital campuses in the United States and the first in Indiana to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Gold certification.
Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, MPH, MPA, MBA, MACP, FAAP, FAHA, FAMWA, FTOS
Dr. Stanford is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics who practices and teaches at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)/ Harvard Medical School (HMS) as one of the first fellowship-trained obesity medicine physicians worldwide. She is among the most highly cited obesity medicine physician-scientists, with over 200 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Stanford received her BS and MPH from Emory University as an MLK Scholar, her MD from the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine as a Stoney Scholar, her MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government as a Zuckerman Fellow in the Harvard Center for Public Leadership and her executive MBA as a merit-based scholarship recipient from the Quantic School of Business and Technology. She completed her Obesity Medicine & Nutrition Fellowship at MGH/HMS after completing her internal medicine and pediatrics residency at the University of South Carolina. She has served as a health communications fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and as a behavioral sciences intern at the American Cancer Society. Upon completing her MPH, she received the Gold Congressional Award, the highest honor Congress bestows upon America’s youth.
Dr. Stanford has completed a medicine and media internship at the Discovery Channel. An American Medical Association (AMA) Foundation Leadership Award recipient in 2005 and an AMA Paul Ambrose Award for national leadership among resident physicians in 2009, she was selected for the AMA Inspirational Physician Award in 2015. The American College of Physicians (ACP) selected her as the 2013 Joseph E. Johnson Leadership Award recipient, and the Massachusetts ACP selected her for the Young Leadership Award in 2015. She is the 2017 recipient of the HMS Amos Diversity Award and the Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) Award for Women’s Health. In 2019, she was selected as the Suffolk District Community Clinician of the Year for the Reducing Health Disparities Award for MMS. She was chosen for The Obesity Society Clinician of the Year in 2020. In 2021, she was awarded the MMS Grant Rodkey Award for her dedication to medical students and the AMA Dr. Edmond and Rima Cabbabe Dedication to the Profession Award, which recognizes a physician who demonstrates active and productive improvement to the profession of medicine through community service, advocacy, leadership, teaching, or philanthropy. She is the 2021 Recipient of the Emory Rollins School of Public Health Distinguished Alumni Award. In 2022, the National Academy of Medicine selected her as a Scholar in Diagnostic Excellence. She was named to the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA). The National Medical Association selected her for the Meritorious Award, which recognizes a physician with national and international achievement and prominence for exceptional work in medical service, medical research, and academic medicine.
David Bowman, MD
Dr. David Bowman is double board certified in lifestyle medicine and in pediatrics. The Indianapolis native attended Howard University for undergrad and Indiana University for medical school. After residency at Children’s National in DC, the initial part of his career focused on global health and HIV; he worked in Botswana with Baylor College of Medicine and in Nigeria and Haiti with University of Maryland. Dr. Bowman started working in the pediatrics at Howard University College of Medicine in 2017 and is now the Assistant Dean of Student Health and Wellness and the Director of the Center for Spiritual Health and Wellness at Howard University College of Medicine. After his own health transformation using lifestyle medicine and his faith, he has been passionate and innovative in empowering health care providers, patients, churches, and the general public about the power of applying the pillars of lifestyle medicine in their lives to revolutionize their health. He served a 3-year term on the Board of Directors of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) from 2021-2024, and he is the co-chair of the Health Equity Achieved by Lifestyle (HEAL) Initiative with ACLM. In addition, he is one of the first 5 African Americans to earn the distinction of Fellow of ACLM. He and his wife, Keisha, started Lifestyle Med Revolution, LLC, to transform health using nutrition, physical activity, spirituality, and group support; they run spiritual health challenges several times a year and have had hundreds of people go through their program with many testimonies of transformed health. They live in Maryland with their beautiful and brilliant 12-year-old daughter, Amara.
Carree Cotright, PhD, RDN
Dr. Caree Jackson Cotwright describes her work as the place where nutrition meets community and creativity. She blends science and storytelling to nourish a healthier generation. Whether she’s crafting nutrition policy or colorful plays, she turns veggies into superheroes and classrooms into stages for change—one bite, one story, one community at a time.
Dr. Cotwright is a distinguished leader in nutrition, passionately dedicated to advancing food and nutrition security. As the former Director of Nutrition Security and Health Equity for the Food and Nutrition Service at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Dr. Cotwright was essential in orchestrating a comprehensive approach to enhance nutrition security. She also played a pivotal role in advancing the goals of the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. Her commitment to promoting health for all is reflected in her extensive communication efforts, having presented over 200 keynote addresses, speeches, podcasts, and webinars. Dr. Cotwright is an esteemed scholar who has received numerous accolades, including the prestigious 2024 President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition Hero Award.
Currently serving as an Associate Professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Georgia, Dr. Cotwright’s research focuses on improving dietary habits among young children, particularly within underserved communities. Her innovative approach, utilizing community-based participatory research, seeks to create healthy and sustainable best practices in the early care and education setting. Renowned for her ability to integrate the arts and media into nutrition education, Dr. Cotwright has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and secured over $1 million in grants for obesity prevention.
Dr. Cotwright, a registered dietitian, is the visionary behind Dr. Caree, LLC, an organization dedicated to strategic planning, nutrition policy, and transforming the dietary habits of young children and their families. She is the author of the play, Lil’ Red Riding Through the Hood, teaching children about healthy eating through a colorful story with relatable characters.
With a PhD and an MS in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Georgia and a BS in Biology from Howard University, Dr. Cotwright exemplifies the spirit of excellence. Residing in Atlanta, Georgia, she embraces her fulfilling family life with her husband and three daughters. Dr. Cotwright’s ongoing commitment to nutrition security and health for all is a profound source of inspiration, driving positive change within the nutritional sciences field.
