Leonard Egede, MD, MS
President
Dr. Leonard Egede is a general internist, Professor of Medicine, Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), and the Director of the MCW Center for Advancing Population Science. He completed his medical training at the University of Benin in Nigeria, his residency training at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center in Maryland, and a Master of Science degree at the Medial University of South Carolina.
Dr. Egede's research has focused on developing and testing innovative interventions to reduce and eliminate health disparities related to race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and geographic location for chronic medical and mental health conditions. He is currently the PI of three NIH R01s focused on interventions that address social determinants of health and improve health outcomes for adults with type 2 diabetes, and is the PI of a large project funded by Advancing Healthier Wisconsin aimed at addressing health disparities in the inner city, African American community of Milwaukee. Dr. Egede also has extensive experience using health systems research to initiate change and incorporating evidence-based care into clinical environments.
Dr. Egede has expanded the work he has done in the United States globally through efforts to provide care and empowerment of indigenous communities, promote collaborative research projects with investigators in other countries, and develop innovative strategies to improve outcomes for non-communicable diseases, specifically in sub-Saharan Africa and Central America. He founded IHI in 2013 and has served on the Board and travelled to indigenous communities throughout the world.
Patricia N. Nnadi, MD
Vice President
Dr. Patricia Nnadi is a board certified psychiatrist with a particular interest in severe and persistent mental illness in adults. Dr. Nnadi completed her residency training in psychiatry at the University of Maryland in 1999. Subsequently, she completed fellowship training in eating disorders at the same institution in 2000.
Upon moving to South Carolina that same year, Dr. Nnadi worked as a staff psychiatrist for the Charleston Dorchester Mental Health Center, becoming the Center's Medical Director in May 2003. In January 2009 she transitioned to the role of a Consulting Psychiatrist on a Duke Endowment grant secured by the SC Department of Mental Health. The grant was designed to provide emergency room consultations in geographic areas in the state lacking psychiatrists. This program has grown and evolved into the DMH Telepsychiatry Service, where Dr. Nnadi and other psychiatrists deliver emergency room consultation across the state of South Carolina. Dr. Nnadi has served on the IHI Board of Directors since its founding in 2013.
Board Members
Oluwatosin (Tosin) Goje, MD, MSCR, FACOG
Dr. Tosin Goje is an assistant professor of surgery at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University and staff physician in the Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health Institute at the Cleveland Clinic. She leads the Gynecologic Infectious Diseases and Vulvar and Vaginal Disorders Center in the Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health Institute.
She earned a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) at Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria. Completed an internship in Internal Medicine at New York Medical College- Metropolitan Hospital, New York. Completed her Obstetrics and Gynecology residency at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey –New Jersey Medical School in Newark, New Jersey. She completed a three year fellowship in Reproductive Infectious Diseases at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina, and holds a Master of Science in Clinical Research (MSCR) from the Medical University of South Carolina.
Dr. Goje is an obstetrician gynecologist, and a reproductive infectious diseases specialist. She has been invited as a content expert for infectious diseases topics by various academic organizations; and has published and presented locally and nationally on infectious diseases in women, and on vulvar and vaginal disorders. She is on the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) committee on gynecology practice bulletin. She has published journal articles, book chapters and internet based educational resources. Dr. Goje is actively involved in training and mentoring of medical students, residents, and fellows.
Clara E. (Libby) Dismuke-Greer, PhD
Dr. Libby Dismuke joined the Health Economics Resource Center (HERC), VA Palo Alto Health Care System Research, as a Health Science Specialist in March, 2019. She has a PhD in Economics, with a specialty in health economics.
She has provided expertise on designing cost and cost-effectiveness analyses for grant across multiple conditions at the Medical University of South Carolina, Veterans Affairs (VA), and Medical College of Wisconsin. Dr. Dismuke-Greer also worked for 6 months in the VA Office of Health Equity where she helped inform VA policy-making to reduce disparities and improve equity among Veterans served by VA. Prior to working in the United States, Dr. Dismuke-Greer worked in Portugal at a major University, where she also collaborated with the Portuguese Ministry of Health.
Dr. Dismuke-Greer has previously volunteered on a mission with IHI to the San Blas Kuna Islands. She also has several years of experience volunteering at least once a week with Without Walls, serving homeless veterans and individuals as well as inner-city families and children, and Annunciation House, providing translation, medicine, food, sanitation, clothing, and transportation assistance to mostly Central American and South American asylum-seekers who have been released by U.S. Immigration at the El Paso Border. She is fluent in Portuguese and has good understanding of spoken Spanish.
Leslie Thomas, MD
Dr. Leslie Thomas was born in Irmo, South Carolina and obtained her medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC. She completed her residency program at Saint Vincent Hospital in an unopposed family medicine program. Dr. Thomas is a board certified family practitioner and is a member of the AAFP and FMA. She has focused her practice in women’s health, preventative medicine and geriatrics, focusing on decreasing polypharmacy in the elderly.
Dr. Thomas has worked in her community doing health outreach through health fairs and abroad through medical missions. She has also worked with the University of South Alabama to provide preceptorship to students, educating them on evidence-based medicine and providing care in low income areas. Dr. Thomas also was a member of the informatics committee to help with work flow concerning the Ascension EMR. Dr. Thomas currently resides in Sasebo, Japan with her four children and her husband, who serves in the US Navy. She enjoys traveling, reading, cooking and spending time with her family.
Tatiana M. Davidson, PhD
Dr. Tatiana Davidson is Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Telehealth Resilience and Recovery Program (TRRP) at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). Dr. Davidson received her BS from the University of Washington and MA and PhD from Clark University, and completed her internship and NIMH postdoc at MUSC.
Dr. Davidson’s research has focused mainly on maximizing the reach and receipt of evidence-based mental health treatments among trauma-affected youth and their families through the development, evaluation, and dissemination of innovative, technology-based resources. Dr. Davidson is PI on an active Duke Endowment grant (through 2020) to implement TRRP in three partnering trauma centers across South Carolina. She serves as Co-Investigator on several federally-funded research grants focused on the development, evaluation and implementation of mHealth technologies (e.g., smartphone, tablet, computer) for providing best-practice mental health treatment to a wide range of traumatic stress populations, including disaster victims, child abuse victims, and first responders.
A second major research focus is on addressing mental health care disparities among racial/ethnic minority populations through the development and evaluation of culturally-modified, evidence-based interventions. She has been awarded both external and internal grants to examine how cultural variables can influence formal mental health treatment seeking, access and completion among Latinx populations, and to adapt evidence-based resources to mobile health delivery formats to reduce traditional barriers to mental health treatment among Latinx youth and families.
Aprill Z. Dawson, PhD, MPH
Dr. Aprill Dawson is an Assistant Professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin where she conducts independent research with vulnerable populations and supports faculty in the Department of Medicine through the provision of statistics consultation services. She completed her PhD in Health and Rehabilitation Science at the Medical University of South Carolina.
Dr. Dawson is developing her research in the field of understanding social determinants of health as a way to improve health outcomes in vulnerable populations including immigrants, minorities, and the elderly. Dr. Dawson’s dissertation focused on understanding immigrant-specific social determinants and the association with blood pressure control among US immigrants in the Midwestern United States. This work is an extension of her passion for global health and desire to serve highly marginalized groups.
Dr. Dawson’s experience with global health began more than 20 years ago. Since that time, she has completed several church-based mission trips to the Dominican Republic and more recently has actively participated in medical mission trips serving indigenous Peoples of Panama with Indigenous Health International. In addition to completing multiple mission trips she completed a 6-week internship in the Gambia, West Africa, while working on her Master of Public Health degree with a concentration in International Maternal and Child Health; and presented research at the International Diabetes Federation Congress in Abu Dhabi, UAE in 2017. While Dr. Dawson was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, she has lived in New Orleans, LA, Houston, TX, and most currently Milwaukee, WI, and has established lasting networks in each area along the way. Dr. Dawson is passionate about global health and strives to do her part to increase health equity domestically and internationally.