Our steering committee

Dr. Irene Dankwa-Mullan is a nationally recognized industry physician, scientist, health equity thought leader, with over 20 years of diverse regional and national leadership experience in primary care, healthcare systems, businesses, and the community. She is currently an affiliate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, Milken Institute School of Public Health at The George Washington University, and also serves in a strategic advisor role and Chief Health Officer for a start-up health technology company, Marti Health.

She was formerly Chief Health Equity Officer and Deputy Chief Health Officer at IBM Watson Health and currently Merative. She was a member of the IBM Industry Academy, a selected community of pre-eminent leaders to drive innovation and engage in cutting-edge work for the industry. Dr. Dankwa-Mullan was formerly Director, Office of Research Innovation and Program Coordination, and Deputy Director for extramural scientific programs at NIMHD, NIH. While at the NIH, she was active on several key strategic boards and committees, including many that were cross-sectoral and transdisciplinary promoting health equity and health in all policies.

She is the lead editor and co-author of the scientific textbook ‘The Science of Health Disparities Research’ published by Wiley, designed to help researchers and the community identify relevant questions, design approaches, and conduct studies to advance the discipline. This was a collaborative effort with NIH scientists and thought leaders including community advocates. She serves on various advisory committees to promote public health, health equity, as well as measures impacting health disparities. Dankwa-Mullan has published widely on health disparities, including on the integration of health equity, artificial intelligence and machine-learning, ethical AI and social justice principles into data science methods and technology development lifecycle.