Dr. Lisa Cooper is the James F. Fries Professor of Medicine and a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in Health Equity at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, School of Nursing, and Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a Liberian-born internal medicine physician, social epidemiologist, and international thought leader on health disparities. Dr. Cooper studies how race and socioeconomic factors shape patient care and how patients and health systems, with communities, can help at-risk populations. She is the author of over 200 publications and has been the principal investigator of more than 15 federal and private foundation grants. Dr. Cooper founded and directs the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, where she and her team work to identify interventions that alleviate racial and income disparities and translate them into policy changes that advance health equity locally and globally. She also leads the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute in achieving its mission to advance health and health equity in Baltimore.

Dr. Cooper has received several honors for her pioneering work, including a 2007 MacArthur Fellowship and membership in the National Academy of Medicine, American Society for Clinical Investigation, and Association of American Physicians. She received the Herbert W. Nickens Award for outstanding contributions to promoting social justice in medical education and health care equity from the Society of General Internal Medicine and the Association of American Medical Colleges. Dr. Cooper is also a recipient of the Helen Rodriguez-Trias Social Justice Award from the American Public Health Association.