Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, a world-renowned expert in health policy and geriatric medicine, is president emerita and former chief executive officer of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and is the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation PIK Professor Emerita of Health Policy and Health Equity at the University of Pennsylvania. Known for her transformative leadership, she has dedicated her career to improving health equity and outcomes by enhancing workforce diversity and recalibrating the health care system to focus on health, wellness, and equity rather than simply caring for those who are sick.

Growing up in Seattle, Lavizzo-Mourey was in middle school when she first began to understand the links between the economy and health. Boeing, one of the city’s major employers, was in financial decline at the time, and Lavizzo-Mourey witnessed the effects of joblessness and the concomitant loss of access to health care in her community. These early lessons stayed with her and would ultimately inspire in her a passion for fostering a culture of health, one that enables people to live longer, healthier lives. Although admitted to Yale’s Class of 1976, Lavizzo-Mourey was unable to attend for family reasons; she began college at the University of Washington and later transferred to the State University of New York at Stony Brook and completed three years of undergraduate studies before matriculating at Harvard Medical School and earning her M.D. She went on to earn an M.B.A. in health care administration from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

“Prioritize the people in your personal and professional life, for they will give rise to your greatest fulfillment and most enduring success.”

Following postgraduate appointments at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Temple University, Lavizzo-Mourey spent fifteen years on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where she served as the Sylvan Eisman Professor of Medicine and Health Care Systems, director of the university’s Institute on Aging, and chief of geriatric medicine at its School of Medicine. Her appointment as president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation—the country’s largest nonprofit to focus exclusively on health—ushered in an era of progress for the organization. She is credited with steering the foundation through strategic realignment and expanding its emphasis on communities and the social determinants of health.

As a scholar, Lavizzo-Mourey has conducted important research in geriatric medicine, health policy, and race and racism in medicine, and has mentored scores of next-generation leaders. Her expertise has led to federal advisory appointments on the Task Force on Aging Research, the Office of Technology Assessment Panel on Preventive Services for Medicare Beneficiaries, the Institute of Medicine Panel on Disease and Disability Prevention Among Older Adults, the National Committee for Vital and Health Statistics, the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition, and the President’s Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry. A recipient of the American Public Health Association’s Sedgwick Memorial Medal (2019), the American College of Physicians’ Steven Weinberger Award (2020), and the National Academy of Medicine’s Gustav O. Lienhard Award (2021), she is a master of the American College of Medicine and a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. She chairs the Smithsonian Institution Board of Regents and sits on the TIAA Board of Governors, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Board of Trustees, and several corporate boards.

Lavizzo-Mourey and her husband, Robert Lavizzo-Mourey, have two adult children and two grandchildren.