Dr. Lisa Cooper is the James F. Fries Professor of Medicine, and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in Health Equity at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, School of Nursing, and Bloomberg School of Public Health, founder and director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, and director of the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute. She is a board-certified general internist, 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. 

The author of the forthcoming 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. 

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.