Graduated Harvard Medical School Class of 1979
Risa Lavizzo-Mourey was born in Seattle, Washington, and earned her undergraduate degree at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She earned her medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1979 and her master of business administration from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business in 1986.
Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey joined the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2001 and served as its first woman and first African-American President and CEO from 2003 - 2017. She is now the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation PIK Professor of Health Policy and Health Equity at the University of Pennsylvania.
“And I can still remember that to this day, that that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine that people like me would leave a swath of death in their path.” (11:48)
“So my family was part of the great migration, as it’s often referred to, of African Americans from the South to the West and the North.” (00:50)
”…we went to rent an apartment and as soon as the landlord saw me he said, “It’s rented,” so that’s the backdrop against which coming to the medical school as a person of color…what we found when we got there.” (09:02)
”When I was at Penn as a professor, my primary care practice was making house calls, so I saw firsthand how, where people lived affected their ability to regain health or maintain health…” (17:35)