Answers and Uncertainty: Exploring Vaccine Equity Speakers
DR. Sree Chaguturu, MD
Sree Chaguturu, MD is Chief Medical Officer, CVS Caremark, where he focuses on enhancing the quality of services provided to millions of its members and patients, while also contributing to the overall mission of CVS Health. Most recently, he was Chief Population Health Officer at Partners HealthCare. In this role, he led the system’s accountable care organization, one of the largest in the nation serving over 600,000 lives. Previously, he was a health care consultant at McKinsey and Company. Dr. Chaguturu is a practicing internal medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and a Lecturer at Harvard Medical School. His articles have appeared in publications such as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and Health Affairs. Dr. Chaguturu received his Bachelor’s degree in biology from Brown University and his doctorate of medicine degree from Brown University Medical School. He completed his internal medicine and primary care training at Massachusetts General Hospital.
DR. Thea L. James, MD
Dr. Thea L. James is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Boston Medical Center/Boston University School of Medicine. She also serves as the Associate Chief Medical Officer, Vice President of Mission, and Director of the Violence Intervention Advocacy Program (VIAP) at Boston Medical Center. Dr. James has chaired and served on national committees within the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM), served as a moderator, and has given public lectures and talks. She was appointed to the SAEM Women in Academic Emergency Medicine Task Force, is a member of the Boston University School of Medicine Admissions Committee, and in 2009, Dr. James was appointed to the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine, where she presently serves as Chair of the Licensing Committee. Dr. James is the 2008 awardee of the David H. Mulligan Award for public service. She is a Supervising Medical Officer on the Boston Disaster Medical Assistance Team, under the Department of Health and Human Services, which has responded to several disasters in the United States and across the globe. She has deployed to post 9/11 in NYC, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005, Bam, Iran after the earthquake in 2003, and Port-Au-Prince Haiti after the earthquake of 2010.
Rita Nieves, RN, MPH, LICSW
Rita Nieves, a nationally known public health leader with over 35 years of professional experience as a nurse, social work clinician, public health administrator, and community advocate was appointed the interim Executive Director of the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) in December 2019. As Executive Director of the BPHC, the city’s health department, Ms. Nieves manages a $162M budget and leads 1,100 employees. In this role, her portfolio includes Boston Emergency Medical Services, several substance use treatment facilities, and the largest homeless services program in New England. As Executive Director, Ms. Nieves serves as the key advisor to Boston’s Mayor on health issues and builds on innovative partnerships across city departments by leveraging strategic opportunities for housing, economic development, transportation, education and environmental policies to positively impact the health of all Boston residents. Among other public health priorities, she is committed to advancing health equity and racial justice for all Bostonians and strengthening strategic collaborations across diverse stakeholders. Ms. Nieves will work closely with BPHC’s Senior Leadership team to promote staff’s participation in professional development and support staff to thrive as public health professionals.
Moderated by:
Michael Curry, Esq
Michael Curry currently serves as the CEO of the Massachusetts Association of Community Health Centers. Roxbury native and notable community activist, he is a past president of the Boston NAACP. Today, his work spans the country as he lends his depth and breadth of community wisdom to questions surrounding public health policy, racial disparities and the support of under-resourced communities.