Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey is president and CEO of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the first woman and African-American to head the prestigious health care philanthropy.

Lavizzo-Mourey, who received the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa, at the College of Science and Mathematics Convocation on May 16, was cited by the University's Board of Trustees for her commitment to improving health care in this country.

Prior to her current position, which she assumed in 2003, Lavizzo-Mourey was senior vice president and director of the Foundation's Health Care Group, overseeing all grant making and programs related to the Foundation's goals of assuring that all Americans have access to basic health care at reasonable cost and improved care for people with chronic illness.

Before joining the Foundation in April 2003, Lavizzo-Mourey served in a variety of roles at the University of Pennsylvania. She was director of the University's Institute on Aging; chief of the division of geriatric medicine; Sylvan Eisman Professor of Medicine and Health Care Systems, and associate chief of staff for geriatrics and extended care for the Philadelphia Veterans Administration Medical Center.

She also served the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as deputy administrator of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (now known as the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality). Lavizzo-Mourey also was a member of the White House Task Force on Health Care Reform and served as a consultant to the White House on issues of health policy.

In addition, Lavizzo-Mourey has served on several federal advisory committees, including the Task Force on Aging Research, the Office of Technology Assessment Panel on Preventive Services for Medicare Beneficiaries, the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) Panel on Disease and Disability Prevention Among Older Adults, and the National Committee for Vital and Health Statistics, where she chaired the Subcommittee on Minority Populations. She also served on the President's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry and as co-vice chair of a congressionally requested IOM study on racial disparities in health care.

Lavizzo-Mourey is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a master of the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine. She earned an M.D. degree at Harvard Medical School, followed by an M.B.A. at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. After completing a residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, where she received geriatrics training.

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