Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, MBA, is the president emerita and former CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), a position she held for nearly 15 years. In January 2018, she was named the RWJF Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) Professor of Population Health and Health Equity at the University of Pennsylvania, with appointments in the Perelman School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, and the Wharton School.
A specialist in geriatrics, Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey came to the Foundation from the University of Pennsylvania, where she served as the Sylvan Eisman Professor of Medicine and Health Care Systems. She also directed the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute on Aging and was chief of geriatric medicine.
She worked as Deputy Administrator for the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research under President George H.W. Bush’s administration and continued to direct policy for the subsequent administration, serving as Quality of Care Chair for President Bill Clinton’s panels on health care. She has served on numerous federal advisory committees and she was appointed by President Barack Obama to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition.
She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and The American Philosophical Society. She currently serves on the Smithsonian Institution Board of Regents, as well as on several other boards of directors, including the Bipartisan Policy Center, Hess Corporation, General Electric Company, and Intel Corporation.
Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey is the recipient of numerous awards, including honorary doctorates from Colby College, Brown University, and Tufts University. Forbes included her on their most important women in the world list eight times and Modern Healthcare included her on their 100 most influential people in health care list eleven times. Most recently in 2018, she received the National Network of Public Health Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the American Public Health Association’s Sedgwick Memorial Medal for Distinguished Service in Public Health.
Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey earned her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and her MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.