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Dr. Ala Stanford, founder of the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium, has joined Penn’s biology department. (Photo by Jared Piper | CC BY 2.0)
Ala Stanford, a pediatric surgeon and founder of the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium, has joined Penn’s faculty.
Stanford has joined the University of Pennsylvania as a professor of practice in the Department of Biology within the School of Arts and Sciences. In addition to this role, she holds two other positions: research associate at the Annenberg School for Communication and director of community outreach for research activities at the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation. Her work will focus on researching barriers to vaccine uptake and teaching undergraduates about the intersection between science and equity.
“I am excited to teach the next generation of healthcare leaders,” Stanford said in a press release. “I am looking forward to bringing innovation and collaborating with world experts to solve problems for which there has been no sustained solution.”
Stanford founded the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium during the COVID-19 pandemic to increase access to information, vaccines, and education resources for underserved communities, particularly in the Philadelphia area. Subsequently, she founded the Dr. Ala Stanford Center for Health Equity, a multidisciplinary ambulatory care center, to improve outcomes and healthcare access in areas of low life expectancy in Philadelphia.
The Penn Institute for RNA Innovation is led by Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research Drew Weissman. Weissman was named a 2023 Nobel laureate alongside Katalin Karikó, a professor of neurosurgery at the Perelman School of Medicine, for mRNA research that led to the development of COVID-19 vaccines.
“I have worked with Ala for quite a while and having her as part of the Penn community will greatly enhance the effectiveness of the various projects we work on,” Weissman told the SAS. “She will also be an incredible resource for teaching our future leaders.”
Stanford was appointed as regional director of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, a position she held until 2023, and also served as director of the Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University.
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