Georges Benjamin, Executive Director of American Public Health Association (APHA) since 2002, is leading the Association’s push to make America the healthiest nation in one generation.
He came to APHA from his position as Secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, following four years as its Deputy Secretary for Public Health Services. As Secretary, Benjamin oversaw the expansion and improvement of the state’s Medicaid program.
Dr. Benjamin is a graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University Of Illinois College of Medicine. He is board-certified in internal medicine and a Master of the American College of Physicians, a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, and a Fellow Emeritus of the American College of Emergency Physicians. He holds honorary fellowships in two British societies; the Royal Society of Public Health and the Faculty of Public Health, as well as an honorary doctorate of science from the Meharry Medical College.
He served as Chief of Emergency Medicine at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. After leaving the Army, he chaired the Department of Community Health and Ambulatory Care at the District of Columbia General Hospital. He was promoted to Acting Commissioner for Public Health for the District of Columbia and later directed one of the busiest ambulance services in the nation as Interim Director of the Emergency Ambulance Bureau of the District of Columbia Fire Department.
At APHA, Dr. Benjamin also serves as publisher of The Nation's Health, the association's official newspaper, and the American Journal of Public Health. He is the author of more than 100 scientific articles and book chapters.
Dr. Benjamin is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine and also serves on the boards for many organizations including Research!America, the Reagan-Udall Foundation, and the University of Maryland Medical System. In 2008, 2014, and 2016, he was named one of the top 25 minority executives in health care by Modern Healthcare Magazine, in addition to being voted among the 100 most influential people in health care from 2007-2018 and in 2021-2022. In 2023, Washingtonian Magazine voted Dr. Benjamin one of the 500 most influential people shaping health policy.
In April 2016, President Obama appointed Dr. Benjamin to the National Infrastructure Advisory Council.
Dr. Ashwin Vasan is the 44th Health Commissioner of New York City. He is a practicing primary care physician, epidemiologist and public health expert with nearly 20 years of experience working to improve physical and mental health, social welfare and public policy outcomes for marginalized populations in New York City, nationally and globally.
In his role as Commissioner since early 2022, Dr. Vasan has reshaped the city’s public health system to focus on addressing the main drivers of declining life expectancy in the post-COVID emergency era, including overdoses, chronic and diet-related diseases, birth inequities, climate change, and gun violence, while simultaneously strengthening the Health Department’s emergency response-readiness capacities. Throughout this work, he has brought in a unique, unparalleled focus to combating the mental health crisis, releasing a comprehensive citywide mental health plan addressing the second pandemic – a crisis of mental health plaguing youth, vulnerable New Yorkers with severe mental illness, and those impacted by the overdose epidemic. Dr. Vasan has concurrently led several other key health priorities, such as leading the ongoing response to COVID-19 as the first American jurisdiction to kickstart vaccination efforts, combatting the 2022 mpox outbreak and pioneering readiness and response to the first case of polio in the US in a decade. Under his leadership, the city also took charge on protecting reproductive rights by launching the NYC Abortion Access Hub, connecting people from New York and nationwide to providers and becoming the first jurisdiction in the US to offer free medication abortions in its clinics.
Having begun his career in global health working at Partners in Health and the HIV Department of the World Health Organization, he most recently served as the President and CEO of Fountain House, a US-based mental health nonprofit. He currently serves as faculty at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Dr. Vasan received his BA in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles; his ScM in Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health; his MD from the University of Michigan; and his PhD in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He completed his clinical training in internal medicine-primary care at New York Presbyterian Hospital. His work has been published extensively in academic literature in journals such as the Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Journal of General Internal Medicine, Health Policy and Planning, and AIDS, and has been featured in several mainstream media outlets, including the New York Times, BBC World News, NPR, Al Jazeera, the Guardian, and NBC News Think.
Ann Kurth, PhD, CNM, MPH
Dr. Kurth became President of The New York Academy of Medicine on January 1, 2023, joining NYAM from Yale University, where she was the Dean and Linda Koch Lorimer Professor at Yale School of Nursing and Professor, Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at Yale School of Public Health.
An epidemiologist (PhD UW, MPH Columbia) and certified nurse-midwife (MSN Yale), Dr. Kurth draws from the perspectives of her STEAM (STEM + arts/humanities) disciplinary training. Dr. Kurth’s research focuses on HIV/reproductive health, and global health system strengthening, in the context of pandemics, climate change and other stresses—all of which have a disproportionate effect on structurally marginalized populations. Her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIAID, NIMH, NICHD, NIDA), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNAIDS, CDC, HRSA, and others, for studies in the U.S. and internationally, with over $20 million as principal investigator. At Yale Dr. Kurth co-founded the Yale Institute for Global Health, a cross-university research effort. Dr. Kurth has published 237 peer-reviewed articles, chapters, and scholarly monographs and presented at hundreds of scientific conferences and invited talks.
Dr. Kurth is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, where she has been named an Emerging Leader, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN) and the American College of Nurse-Midwives (FACNM). She is past chair of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health, the member association of 175+ universities supporting “academic institutions to improve the wellbeing of people and the planet.” She served on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which sets prevention and screening guidelines for the United States. Dr. Kurth currently co-chairs the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Board on Global Health and serves on the board of Yale New Haven Hospital.
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