Lisa Cooper

Lisa A. Cooper, MD, MPH is the James F. Fries Professor of Medicine and the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Equity in Health and Health Care at Johns Hopkins University Schools of Medicine, Nursing, and Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is also the Founder and Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity and Director of the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute.

Dr. Cooper studies how race and socioeconomic factors shape patient care, and how health systems, with communities, can improve the health of populations with complex social needs. A general internist and social epidemiologist, Dr. Cooper and her team work, in partnership with health systems and community-based organizations, to identify interventions that alleviate racial and income health disparities and translate them into practice and policy changes that mean better health for communities.

The author of the book, “Why Are Health Disparities Everyone’s Problem?” (Johns Hopkins University Press, June 2021), Dr. Cooper is a 2007 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellow, an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, and a frequent contributor to media outlets such as CNN, MSNBC, NPR, PBS NewsHour, Essence, The New York Times, The Guardian, and the Economist. She provides expert advice to local leaders from diverse social sectors and to national and international policymakers about how to address health disparities. In September 2021, Dr. Cooper was appointed by President Joseph Biden to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Dr. Cooper received the Herbert W. Nickens Award for outstanding contributions to promoting social justice in medical education and health care equity from the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Helen Rodriguez-Trias Social Justice Award from the American Public Health Association. She received her doctor of medicine degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, her Master of Public Health degree from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, and her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Emory University.