Team

Vice Chair

Valerie Stone, MD, MPH
Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Dr. Stone is Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion of the Department of Medicine. In addition, she is the Director of Health Equity Initiatives for the Department of Medicine. She is a general internist and HIV focused infectious disease specialist and she sees patients in the Phyllis Jen Center for Primary Care where she also precepts residents. On the inpatient side, she teaches on the ITU. Her research and scholarly writing focuses on health equity, primarily in HIV care, as well as diversity and inclusion in health care, and healthcare leadership. With Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, she is the co-editor of the textbook HIV in U.S. Communities of Color, published in its second edition in 2021. She was for many years a residency program director, so innovations in residency training remains one of her passions and one of her additional areas of scholarship. Dr. Stone is the recipient of numerous awards, including most recently the 2020 W. Lester Henry Award for Advancing Diversity from the American College of Physicians (ACP) and the 2021 Harold Amos Award for Advancing Diversity from Harvard Medical School.

Faculty Directors

Christopher Estiverne, MD
Director of URiM Fellowship Initiatives

Dr. Estiverne is an Instructor in the Renal Division at BWH. His current interests are in community health care and health equity with regards to renal transplant patients. In addition to his clinics at the Brigham, he also sees patients at Brookside and Southern Jamaica Plain. He has an interest in uric acid transportation, with his current project on the role of AMP-sensitive kinase (AMPK) in GLUT9 mediated urate transport. Additionally, he is passionate about creating a community here at Brigham for URiM DOM fellows.

Zainab Jaji, MD
Director of URiM Residency Mentoring

Dr. Jaji is an academic hospitalist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Faulkner Hospital, where she supervises/teaches residents and students in their clinical work. She is passionate about medical education and development of programs to promote diversity and inclusion among residents. Dr. Jaji is the Director for URiM Mentorship within the BWH Internal Medicine Residency. She is one of the Physical Diagnosis and Reasoning (PDR) preceptors for Harvard medical students. Dr. Jaji is from Nigeria and received her undergraduate degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from Gustavus Adolphus College. Thereafter, she earned her medical degree from Yale School of Medicine and completed her internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is also interested in global health.

Margee Louisias, MD, MPH
Assistant Program Director for Racial Justice and Equity, Internal Medicine Residency

Dr. Louisias is an allergist-immunologist (children & adults) and a health-services researcher in community-based interventions to reduce racial disparities in pediatric asthma at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Louisias received her undergraduate degree in chemistry from New York University and Doctor of Medicine degree from Stony Brook University School of Medicine. She completed her MPH at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She is a board-certified Internist, pediatrician, and allergist-immunologist. Her other interests include community engagement, translation of research into policy, and the role of racism in health outcomes.

Nicolette Juliana Rodriguez, MD, MPH
Co-Director of URiM Fellowship Initiatives

Dr. Rodriguez is a general gastroenterologist and clinical-investigator focused on access to cancer genetics and prevention among historically marginalized populations within the Division of Gastroenterology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Division of Cancer Genetics and Prevention at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Rodriguez received her undergraduate degree in Community Health and Hispanic Language, Literature, and Culture from Brown University. She also received a Master of Public Health and Doctor of Medicine from Brown University. She went on to complete her internal medicine residency at Yale New Haven Hospital and Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Endoscopy fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is passionate about advancing healthcare equity in cancer genetics and prevention as well as diversity and inclusion efforts, and thus this has been a focus of her clinical work, clinical research, and education efforts.

Administrative Leadership

John Spiers, PhD, SPHR
Director of Faculty Affairs

John is the senior administrative leader for all faculty affairs items in the DOM working with the Vice Chairs for Faculty Development and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, as well as the faculty directors of promotions, programs, and wellbeing, DEI, and health equity. He works with faculty and administrative leaders on strategy, operations, proposal and program development, data analytics, and thought partnership in these areas.

Nicole Casey
Senior Administrative Director, Academic Affairs

DOM Diversity Council

The DOM Diversity Council features senior leadership representation from each of the DOM’s 22 divisions, providing a two-way communication structure through which division leaders can strategize, provide input, work as partners with shared goals, and learn about DOM diversity and inclusion initiatives. This group has spun off several committees, including one focused on research divisions and another comprised of all divisional DEI committee leaders.

Divisional DEI Committees

The DOM has a number of division-based DEI committees that advance work locally and share best practices with the department. A list of these committees and their leadership is below.

DivisionLeaders
Allergy and Clinical ImmunologyMargee Louisias, MD, MPH
Cardiovascular MedicineFidencio Saldana, MD, MPH
Channing Division of Network MedicineSu Chu, PhD and Matthew Mahoney
Endocrinology, Diabetes, and HypertensionCarolyn Becker, MD and Enrique Caballero, MD
Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and EndoscopyMolly Perencevich, MD
Hospital Medicine UnitCristina Toledo-Cornell, MD, MPH
Infectious DiseasesSigal Yawetz, MD, Shahin Lockman, MD, LaKeisha Gandy, MBA
Palliative MedicineIrene Yeh, MD
Pharmacoepidemiology and PharmacoeconomicsTheresa Oduol and Rishi Desai, PhD
Primary Care UnitColleen Monaghan, MD
Pulmonary and Critical Care MedicineDaniela Lamas, MD and Alejandro Diaz, MD
Rheumatology, Inflammation, and ImmunityCandace Feldman, MD, ScD