By: Courtney Paul, Health in Her Hue Contributor

On his first Monday as President-elect, Joe Biden announced that he had assembled a coronavirus task force called the COVID-19 Transition Advisory Board. With this move, he signaled that effective management of the pandemic will be a priority for his administration. Among the three co-chairs selected to lead the task force is Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, associate professor of internal medicine, public health and management and founding director of the Equity Research and Innovation Center (ERIC) at the Yale School of Medicine. An award winning doctor, Dr. Nunez-Smith is Black excellence personified. She champions diversity through her demonstrated commitment to promoting healthcare equity for marginalized groups and advancing diversity within the healthcare workforce. Read on to learn more about Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, co-chair of the President-elect’s COVID-19 Transition Advisory Board. 

• She earned a BA in Biological Anthropology and Psychology at Swarthmore College and went on to attend Jefferson Medical College, where she joined the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. She completed her residency at Harvard University’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and fellowship at the Yale Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program.

• Originally from St. Thomas, Dr. Nunez-Smith has led one of a kind efforts to study chronic diseases in the Caribbean through the Eastern Caribbean Health Outcomes Research Network (ECHORN). 

• She is leading the development of the Patient-Reported Experiences of Discrimination in Care Tool (PreDict), an assessment that will ultimately measure discrimination in healthcare and “improve the quality and equity of the care experience within healthcare organizations.”

• She has been the lead author on several papers related to diversity and equity in the healthcare space, including Impact of race on the professional lives of physicians of African descent published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. This paper explored how race and race-related incidents have impacted the overall work experience of physicians of African descent and concluded that diversifying the physician workforce will require focus on the development of more inclusive work environments.

• She has experience advising on COVID-19 related issues, having served on the Community Committee of Governor Ned Lamont’s Reopen Connecticut Advisory Group. Josh Geballe, the state’s chief operating officer, lauded the contributions Dr. Nunez-Smith made as a member of the advisory group, stating, “Marcella was one of the key leaders on the Reopen Connecticut Advisory Group. She was very influential in actions we took ... [such as] focused testing in our cities, additional supports for people who need to quarantine and isolate who may not have room in their homes.”

When previously asked about her decision to focus on healthcare equity, Dr. Nunez-Smith responded, “The role and influence of race within the healthcare system was, to me, through my lived experience, dominant and overwhelming, and was a lens through which to understand clinical medicine. As I learned clinical practice, I also had to grapple with these social realities that manifest themselves within the healthcare system.” Given the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color, Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith’s honed perspective on racial disparities in healthcare makes her particularly qualified to lead the President-elect’s advisory board. Her appointment inspires hope for better management of the pandemic across communities that have suffered the most; and those of us who share her passion for promoting equity in the healthcare space are excited to see what comes next.