Dr. Oyebimpe Adesina is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology and Oncology at The University of California, Davis. She specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of adults with non-malignant hematologic disorders. Dr. Adesina has clinical expertise in sickle cell disease (SCD) and her research broadly focuses on musculoskeletal complications of SCD across the lifespan. She primarily studies the pathobiology of sickle cell bone disease and how they contribute to the development of chronic pain in people with SCD. Dr. Adesina also studies growth and body composition in pediatric SCD, and the epidemiology of SCD health outcomes in California.

Dr. Banda  Khalifa is a Public Health Physician, an academic scholar, and a senior military officer.  He holds an MPH AND MBA with a certificate in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety from the Johns Hopkins University after enrolling as a Sommer Scholar and a Center Scholar. He graduated with honors as a member of Beta Gamma Sigma (International Business Honor Society) which is the highest recognition a business student anywhere in the world can receive. In 2014, he was awarded the Chief of the Defense Staff prize by the president of Ghana after graduating as the overall best commissioned military officer.

Dr. Banda Khalifa recently worked as the Manager for COVID-19 response at the Baltimore City Health Department. His primary interest focuses on epidemiological, health services, and patient-centered outcomes research. Dr. Banda is a member of the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology (ISPE), African Public Health Network (APHN) and the American Public Health Association (APHA).  He aspires to become a world-renowned epidemiologist.

Dr. Neha Bhasin is an Assistant Professor of Pediatric Hematology Oncology at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland. She completed her medical school in Ross University, Dominica, West Indies in 2017. She completed her pediatric residency at Stony Brook Medical Center in Long Island, New York. She then completed her Hematology/Oncology fellowship training at University of Iowa. She graduated in 2013. She moved to Tucson, Arizona after completing her fellowship training and lead the pediatric sickle cell, bleeding and clotting programs at University of Arizona for six years. She is very passionate about clinical care and clinical research related to sickle cell disease and followed her passion for taking care of these patients by recently joining the team at UCSF Oakland as the Medical Director of the Pediatric Sickle Cell Program. Dr. Bhasin loves taking care of patients, especially children, and loves to teach patients and families about this serious and chronic disease and how to best partner with their health teams for their optimal health. She is a strong proponent of individualized patient-centered care and helping patients empower themselves to seek optimal care for their chronic medical conditions. 

Dr. Yvonne Commodore-Mensah is a Ghanaian-born Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins Schools of Nursing and the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is also faculty at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity. She is a Fellow and Board Member of the Preventive Cardiovascular Nurses Association. 

As a nurse scientist and cardiovascular disease epidemiologist, her program of research seeks to reduce disparities in cardiovascular health among African-descent populations locally (United States) and globally (sub-Saharan Africa) through epidemiological and community-engaged methods. She is the Principal Investigator of the African Immigrant Health Study, which seeks to examine the health of African immigrants in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. area. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and American Heart Association. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the National Hypertension Control Roundtable and the US Blood Pressure Validated Device Listing Advisory Group.  

Dr. Hadiza Osuji is the Founder and Executive Director of African International Collaborative Center (AICC). A nonprofit organization focused on empowering immigrants of African descent and building stronger and healthier African immigrant families and communities. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the New York University Silver School of Social Work. Prior to this, she was the Chief Program Officer and subsequently a Research Assistant Professor at the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research, NYU. Concurrently, Dr. Osuji served as the Vice Chair of the McSilver Institute Community Collaborative Board (CCB), NYU. The CCB is a formalized partnership between key stakeholders within New York City urban communities and university-based researchers charged with overseeing a number of federally and locally funded research studies. Explicitly aligning interventions in cultural context.

Over the years, Dr. Osuji has been engaged in direct practice serving urban low-income children and families of color residing in poorly resourced settings. These experiences laid the foundation and honed her expertise in the areas of child and adolescent mental health, HIV prevention and care intervention, community-based participatory research, African immigrant health and mental health promotion, as well as community health education and promotion. Her research and programs of activities primarily focuses on promoting the health/mental health outcomes and family functioning of African immigrants using evidence-informed, community collaborative-strengthening approaches. Her strong research background is reflected in the peer-reviewed articles she has published through transdisciplinary collaborations and numerous presentations at conferences.