Dr. Ayman El-Mohandes, Dean of the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH), is a pediatrician and public health academic with a deep commitment to public service and community engagement. He is an established researcher in the field of infant mortality reduction in minority populations. Dr. El-Mohandes’ funded research focuses on population-based interventions in underserved communities both locally and globally. His publication record includes innovative approaches towards improving perinatal and neonatal outcomes in high-risk populations.Dr. El-Mohandes has been actively engaged in the response to COVID-19 here in New York City and around the world. Since the pandemic first struck in March 2020, his CUNY SPH team has been monitoring the experiences and perspectives of NYC residents through an ongoing tracking survey. He is also collaborating with an international consortium to assess and respond to Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy worldwide. His work in this domain has appeared in Nature Medicine, The Lancet, and the American Journal of Public Health. Dr. El-Mohandes has served as a senior consultant on multiple global health services and public health interventions funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Asia Development Bank, and the Government of South Africa. These projects included the “Healthy Mother Healthy Child” program in Egypt to upgrade obstetric and neonatal services in the districts with the highest infant mortality, a “Health Services Program” in Indonesia, and establishing the first school of public health for black students in South Africa. Dr. El-Mohandes stepped down as the Chair of the Association of Schools and Programs in Public Health Board of Directors (ASPPH) in March 2023, and continues as a board member of the ASPPH. He serves on the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Advisory Council and is an elected member of the American Pediatric Society and a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. CUNY SPH has undergone dramatic transformation since Dr. El-Mohandes became Dean in 2013. Under his leadership it became an independent school within the CUNY system and received full re-accreditation in 2016. Six new institutes and centers have been launched—with an accompanying surge in research activity and funding—and an active working partnership with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has been formed. The CUNY SPH instructional portfolio has expanded similarly, with a range of new certificate programs and master’s and doctoral degrees, many of which are available fully online. CUNY SPH rose to number 15 out of 202 schools and programs of public health nationwide and number 17 in health policy on the 2023 U.S. News and World Report rankings, marking the school’s rise to the top 10% of all public health schools in less than 10 years.

Terry M. McGovern, JD is an expert human rights lawyer, advocate, and academic who is internationally recognized for her work in health and human rights, sexual and reproductive rights and health, gender justice, and environmental justice. McGovern previously served as the Harriet and Robert H. Heilbrunn Professor and Chair of the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health and the Director of the Program on Global Health Justice and Governance at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. McGovern founded the HIV Law Project in 1989 and served as its executive director for a decade. She successfully litigated numerous cases against the federal, state and local governments including S.P. v. Sullivan, which forced the Social Security Administration to expand HIV-related disability criteria for women and other excluded individuals. As a member of the National Task Force on the Development of HIV/AIDS Drugs, she authored the 2001 federal regulation authorizing the FDA to halt any clinical trial for a life-threatening disease that excludes women. McGovern’s research focuses on health and human rights, sexual and reproductive rights and health, gender justice and environmental justice, with publications appearing in journals including Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, Health and Human Rights, and the Journal of Adolescent Health. She has served on the Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing, the UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health, and the UNAIDS Human Rights Reference Group. She currently serves on the UNFPA Global Advisory Council, the Council of Foreign Relations and the Board of the NYCLU. 

Dr. Ghada Soliman is a tenured Professor of Nutrition and Director of the Doctoral Programs in the Department of Environmental and Geospatial Health Sciences at CUNY-SPH. Dr. Soliman received her medical degree from Cairo University and her PhD degree in Nutritional Sciences with a concentration in Nutritional Biochemistry from the University of Arizona in Tucson. She completed her postdoctoral fellowships at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and her Clinical Nutrition Dietetic Internship at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She served on the faculty at Baylor College of Medicine, the University of Michigan Medical School, Western Michigan University, and the University of Nebraska Medical Center before joining CUNY-SPH in 2017. Dr. Ghada Soliman’s research focuses on precision nutrition and the nutritionall exposome to reduce health disparities and the disease burden. Her translational research encompasses public health nutrition and biochemical and genomic nutrition. Her research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, where she was awarded an NIH-K01 grant and by American Heart Association grants to study the molecular regulation of the mTOR nutrient-signaling pathway on nutrition and metabolism as well as institutional grants. She published her research findings in peer-reviewed journals such as the American Journal of Nutrition, Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Scientific Reports, among others. Dr. Soliman received the Dean’s Teaching Excellence Award from CUNY-SPH, where she teaches graduate and doctoral classes in Nutrient Metabolism, Nutrition across the Lifecycle, Biology and Pathophysiological Applications in Public Health, and Community Nutrition Education. 

Dr. Karmen Williams is an Assistant Professor in the Population Health Informatics program and Health Policy and Management department at the City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy. Dr. Williams serves as the director of the American Medical Informatics Association’s For Your Informatics Podcast, focused on increasing women and underrepresented people in informatics. She also serves on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, Women in AMIA Pathways Subcommittee, Dental Informatics Working Group, Health Equity team for the CUNY-Columbia University Pandemic Response Team, and advisor of the Population Health Informatics Innovation, Research and Education (PHIIRE) Club at CUNY SPH.