Risa Lavizzo-Mourey

Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey (born 1954) is the President and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, America's largest philanthropy devoted to health and health care. She is the first woman and the first African-American to head the Foundation, which has an endowment of about $10 billion [http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/search?ck=nck&andorexactfulltext=and&resourcetype=1&disp_type=&author1=dentzer&fulltext=&pubdate_year=&volume=&firstpage=] and distributes more than $400 million a year [http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-ctitian0607-26.html] .

Born in Seattle, Washington, in 1954, Risa Lavizzo-Mourey earned her M.D. at Harvard Medical School and completed her internship and residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. In 1984 she was named a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, and received her master of business administration degree in health care administration from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business in 1986. She is master and former regent of the American College of Physicians, where she chaired its committees on ethics and human rights. [http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians/biography_194.html] .

Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey joined the Foundation in April 2001 as a senior vice president and director of its Health Care Group, overseeing all grantmaking and programs related to the Foundation's efforts in the areas of access and chronic illness care. Prior to joining the Foundation, she served in a variety of roles at the University of Pennsylvania. She was director of the Institute on Aging, University of Pennsylvania; chief of the division of geriatric medicine; Sylvan Eisman Professor of Medicine and Health Care Systems; and associate chief of staff for geriatrics and extended care for the Philadelphia Veterans Administration Medical Center. She also served in the United States Department of Health and Human Services as deputy administrator of the Agency for Healthcare Policy and Research (now known as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality). Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey was a member of the White House Task Force on Health Care Reform and served as a consultant to the White House on issues of health policy.

Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey has served on several federal advisory committees, including the Task Force on Aging Research, the Office of Technology Assessment Panel on Preventive Services for Medicare Beneficiaries, the Institute of Medicine's Panel on Disease and Disability Prevention Among Older Adults, and the National Committee for Vital and Health Statistics (where she chaired the Subcommittee on Minority Populations).

She also served on the President's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry. She recently completed service as co-vice chair of a congressionally requested Institute of Medicine study on racial disparities in health care [http://www.time.com/time/2004/obesity/speakers/mourey.html] .

She is married to Dr. Robert Lavizzo-Mourey and has two adult kids. She currently resides in Princeton, New Jersey.

External links

* [http://blackgivesback.blogspot.com/2008/07/philanthropy-profile-dr-risa-lavizzo.html Philanthropy Profile]
*http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/search?ck=nck&andorexactfulltext=and&resourcetype=1&disp_type=&author1=dentzer&fulltext=&pubdate_year=&volume=&firstpage=
* http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-ctitian0607-26.html
* http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians/biography_194.html
* http://www.time.com/time/2004/obesity/speakers/mourey.html
* http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A00EED71E38F935A35753C1A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
* http://www.rwjf.org/about/staffbio.jsp?id=6612&departmentId=24