B. Lee Green, Ph.D.
Dr. B. Lee Green is currently a Senior Member in the Department of Health Outcomes and Behavior and formerly the vice president of Diversity, Public Relations and Strategic Communications for Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida.
Dr. Green has worked in the field of diversity and health disparities for over 20 years. As VP for Diversity, Dr. Green was responsible for ensuring that Moffitt is responsive and actively creating a culture of diversity and inclusion as it strives to contribute to the prevention and cure of cancer. Under Dr. Green’s leadership, in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, Moffitt was ranked (#6, #4, #4, #3, #5, and #3 respectively) among DiversityInc’s Top 10 Hospitals and Healthcare
Organizations for fostering diversity and inclusion, based upon a rigorous, data-driven survey gauging detailed demographics based on race/ethnicity and gender at some of the largest U.S. employers. In addition, Dr. Green was named in 2021 as a Top Chief Diversity Officer for the US by the National Diversity Council.
Dr. Green’s research interests focus on cancer health disparities, particularly minority participation in research studies. As a key member of various research teams throughout his career, Dr. Green has secured over $30 million in grants as a principal investigator, co-principal investigator or investigator to support these research endeavors. His work related to minority participation in research studies led to Dr. Green’s membership on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Legacy Committee and an invitation to the White House for the formal governmental apology. Dr. Green has over 100 peer reviewed publications as lead author, co-author and senior author.
Prior to joining Moffitt in 2006, he was an associate professor in the College of Education and Human Development at Texas A&M University. He was also the founding director of the Texas A&M University Center for the Study of Health Disparities. He serves on various national and regional advisory boards. Dr. Green received a joint Ph.D. from the University of Alabama and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Mokenge P. Malafa, MD
Dr. Mokenge P. Malafa is Professor and Senior Member in the Gastrointestinal Oncology Department at the Moffitt Cancer Center. He has served as the Vice-Chair of the NCCN Guidelines Panel for the Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma since 2003 and has been an active member of the NCCN Guidelines Panel for Hepatobiliary Cancers since 2004.
He obtained his BS from the University of Wisconsin Green Bay and his MD from the University of Wisconsin Medical School. He completed his general surgery residency at the Medical College of Ohio and surgical oncology fellowship at the City of Hope National Medical Center in California. He is board certified with the American Board of Surgery.
Dr. Malafa is a physician-scientist with a clinical focus on the management of patients with pancreatic cancer and hepatobiliary malignancies. His primary research interest is the prevention of pancreatic cancer development and relapse with novel compounds including micronutrients, such as Vitamin E Tocotrienol. He also studies noninvasive detection of high-risk neoplasms of the pancreas and predictive biomarkers of resected pancreatic cancer.
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Reesa Motley Reynolds, Board Chair
Reesa Motley Reynolds began her political career in 1977 as a Legislative Aide for the Committee on Constitutional and Administrative Law of the Maryland General Assembly. She moved on to become a Legislative Analyst for the late Senator Clarence M. Mitchell, III and subsequently became a schedular and advance person for the gubernatorial campaign of the late Maryland Governor Blair Lee, III.
Mrs. Reynolds became the Executive Director for the National Black Caucus of State Legislators (NBCSL) during Senator Mitchell’s term as its President from 1982 to 1986, before serving a short time as a Vice President for The Keefe Company, a Washington based government relations firm. After leaving The Keefe Company, she formed her own government relations firm, The McKinley Associates, and represented various clients, lobbying in the United States and the Virgin Islands.
Mrs. Reynolds changed her career focus in 1988 when she became the Executive Assistant and Chief of Staff to the Deputy Director and later the Chief of Female Offender Programs of the DC Department of Corrections. She left this position when appointed by the late Pennsylvania Governor Rebert P. Casey to become the Director of State and Federal Relations for the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare.
In 2000, Mrs. Reynolds moved back to the Washington area to become a lobbyist for the National Association of Active and Retired Federal Employees (NARFE) until the death of her only son. Five years later, she changed her career focus again. She is currently President of Reynolds & Associates, Inc., a company that owns and manages a Residential Reentry Center in Washington, DC; Managing Director of the Foundation for Residential and Rehabilitative Services, Inc. (FFRRS, Inc.), President of Rehabilitative Services, Inc. (RSI), and Board Chairperson of Reynolds Motley Community Development Corporation.
In January 2022, Mrs. Reynolds was named President and CEO of the Charles McKinley Reynolds, Jr. Pancreatic Cancer Initiative.
Mrs. Reynolds is a graduate of Morgan State University and resides in Naples, Florida and Newport News, Virginia.
Orriel L. Richardson, Esq., MPH
Ms. Oriel L. Richardson is a health care policy expert and attorney licensed to practice in Maryland and Washington, DC.
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Previously, she served as professional staff and health counsel for the Committee on Ways and Means Majority, U.S. House of Representatives where she was the architect of the Committee's racial and health equity initiatives and lead staffer for Medicare Advantage, end-stage renal disease, Medicare program integrity, and health technology policy.
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During her career, she has gained health care expertise across academia and local, state, and federal levels of government, formerly working at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; the Office of the General Counsel for the District of Columbia’s Department of Health Care Finance; the George Washington (GW) University School of Public Health; The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; the State of Louisiana Office of Public Health; and Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center. Since 2018 she has been a Professorial Lecturer of Health Policy and Management in the Milken School of Public Health at GW University. She previously was a fellow with Columbia World Projects, Columbia University.
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She was named a 2022 Trailblazer by TLAB (Technology Laboratory and Professional Development), an education not-for-profit organization based in Garden City, Michigan in suburban Detroit. In 2021, the National Minority Quality Forum awarded her with the Congressional Staff Leadership Award after recognizing her in 2020 as a “40 Under 40” Minority Leader in Health.
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Ms. Richardson holds a Bachelor of Science (BS) in biology/pre-medicine from Howard University, a Master of Public Health (MPH) in health systems management from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and law degree from the GW Law School where she also earned a graduate certificate in International Human Rights Law from New College, University of Oxford.
![Gerald_Bruce 7449[32668] (1).jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/828f9e_a7c92b88f37d42608bfa52de614f02d4~mv2.jpg/v1/crop/x_0,y_112,w_1001,h_925/fill/w_343,h_317,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/Gerald_Bruce%207449%5B32668%5D%20(1).jpg)
Gerald W. Bruce is a retired pharmaceutical CEO and board director with more than 30 years of leadership experience across Fortune 500 companies, biotechnology startups, and medical nutrition organizations.
As CEO of Virpax Pharmaceuticals, he led the company’s IPO and raised over $60 million to advance innovative pain and neurology therapies.
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His career includes senior leadership roles at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Danone Medical Nutrition, NitroMed, and Johnson & Johnson. Gerald has also served on corporate and nonprofit boards, including as Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Lincoln University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Charles Simmons is Board Certified in physical medicine & rehabilitation and fellowship trained in interventional pain management. He received his medical degree from Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, DC. Dr. Simmons then received training in general surgery as a resident at The Washington Hospital Center.
Dr. Simmons completed his Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation residency at the State University of New York-Downstate in Brooklyn, NY. During his residency, he was chosen to serve as Chief Resident. Dr. Simmons completed a fellowship in Interventional Pain Management with Performance Spine and Sports Physicians in Pottstown, PA.
Victoria L. Thornton, MD
Dr. Victoria Thornton is retired from clinical practice after over 30 years of emergency medicine experience in a variety of practice settings. Victoria Thornton initially started her career as an interpreter/translator in Italy and France after studying there throughout high school and her initial undergraduate years. She returned to the United States and pursued her lifelong dream of becoming a physician, graduating from the Georgetown University School of Medicine where she was awarded a US Public Health Service (PHS) Scholarship. Dr. Thornton then entered one of the very first residency training programs in emergency medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center.
Her first position after her trainee years was as the Medical Director of the D.C. Ambulance Service, where she had the opportunity to interact with all of the hospitals providing emergency care in Washington, DC. Dr. Thornton then entered a private practice of emergency medicine with a group providing physician staffing to emergency departments throughout Florida and the Northeast. During her tenure with EMSA, she implemented voice-activated documentation and billing systems within the contracted emergency departments throughout the region. She also obtained a Master’s in Business Administration from the Johns Hopkins University to supplement her management expertise.
The Duke University Medical Center’s Division of Emergency Medicine was only recently created when she was invited as the Emergency Department’s Medical Director. In this role, she was integral to the creation and implementation of the Emergency Medicine Residency training program, the renovation of emergency department operations, and transitioning patient tracking, documentation, and discharge instructions from paper to an electronic format. She also participated in the design and construction of a new Emergency Department physical plant. Dr. Thornton was also the founder of the Department’s acute pain management program in Emergency Medicine, bringing a focus on patients with both acute pain and chronic pain syndromes, such as sickle cell crises, migraines, and back pain. She promoted education regarding the appropriate triage of these patients and an educated approach to pain management blended with compassion.
She has been a member of the American Medical Association, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, and the National Medical Association. ACEP recognized her as a “Hero of Emergency Medicine” during its 40th Anniversary Celebration. In retirement from clinical patient care, she continues as a patient and healthcare advocate, helping to provide access to quality medical care and education. Her work in retirement also continues to focus on issues around pain and addiction treatment. From 2018-2020, she served on the Durham County Task Force on opioid medication use and misuse, “Durham Joins Together Saving Lives”. More recently, she was welcomed as an Advisory Board Member of the Charles McKinley Reynolds Pancreatic Cancer Pain Management Initiative. She is grateful for the many opportunities her career in Emergency Medicine provided and remains in close contact with several Duke Medicine graduates, Emergency Medicine residency graduates, and a host of dedicated healthcare providers.
Elizabeth Valencia, MD, JD, FCLM
M. Diane Fields
Dr. Elizabeth Valencia serves as Enterprise Associate Dean of Diversity Equity and Inclusion for Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine for Arizona, Florida, Minnesota campuses, and she is a medical expert in Breast Cancer Imaging & Intervention at Mayo Clinic Rochester, MN. She obtained medical and law degrees from SIU School of Medicine & School of Law. Serves on Board of Governors American College of Legal Medicine, American Medical Association’s Minority Affairs Section-Chair of Engagement, and Wellness Equity Leadership Scholar and National Hispanic Medical Association Leadership Scholar.
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Dr. Valencia served as a Health Policy Dunn Fellow for Governor of Illinois to the Departments of Health & Human Services, Public Health, Public Aid, and Child & Family Services. She was a recipient of the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award, Illinois Women’s Bar Foundation Service Award, City of San Diego Delegate for U.S. Presidents’ Summit for America’s Future, and City of San Diego Volunteer of the Year Award.
She authored 2004 edition of American Medical Association’s Code of Medical Ethics, published in peer-reviewed journals and a national speaker on health equity, breast cancer, bioethics, law and medicine, education, mentorship, and anti-racism and diversity, equity, and inclusion. She is the daughter of migrant farmworkers and advocate for social justice and underrepresented students, faculty, staff, patients, and communities.
M. Diane Fields is a senior public affairs and policy professional with more than thirty-five years of experience in corporate, nonprofit, academic and government relations. A health care law and policy professional, her experience includes health care reform; federal public health insurance; finance and reimbursement; and health care delivery systems.
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Ms. Fields is known as a critical and solutions-oriented thinker with public affairs experience in organization management, prospect cultivation; campaign management and execution; volunteer leadership building; campaign structure and alignment.
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Her education included a BA from Fisk University and JD from the University of South Carolina School of Law.