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Directors

 

Clinton D. Brown, MD, FASN
Dr. Clinton D. Brown is Associate Professor of Medicine, Medical Director of Parkside (Ambulatory) Hemodialysis, Director of the Center for Health Disparities, and also Director of the Hyperlipidemia Clinic at SUNY Downstate Medical Center.  Dr. Brown’s clinical and research interests are in the areas of lipid disorders, arteriosclerosis, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, kidney disease, and hemorheology. He has served as the PI of many clinical trials that involve treatment of high blood cholesterol, hypertension and the anemia of kidney disease.  He has published several research manuscripts and abstracts in peer review-journals.  Over the past twenty years, Dr. Brown’s laboratory has been very active in providing research opportunities for high school and college students from the neighboring community, who plan to pursue a career in either medicine or science. 

Ruth C. Browne, ScD, MPH
Dr. Ruth Browne is Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine and Preventive Medicine and co-Director of the Center for Health Disparities Research at SUNY Downstate Medical Center.   Dr. Browne is also the Chief Executive Officer of the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health.  She is a nationally recognized visionary and innovator in the field of urban health and education.  Prior to her position at the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, she held diverse program, research and health policy positions.  Dr. Browne has served as staff for major policy commissions for the Office of New York City Mayor Ed Koch and New York State Governor Mario Cuomo, and the foundation affinity group Funders Concerned about AIDS.  She has extensive experience in the development and analysis of health policy, and the monitoring of health policy implementation through sponsored programs.
  Yvonne Graham, RN, MPH
   

Faculty and Collaborators
Girardin Jean-Louis, PhD
Dr. Girardin Jean-Louis is Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine and Director of the Research Core at the Center for Health Disparities Research, SUNY Downstate Disorders Center.  He is well known in the field of Sleep Medicine and has made a significant contribution in the literature on aging and sleep, circadian rhythm, and ethno-gerontology.   He has been involved in several important NIH-funded studies, which have led to 150 publications, 45 in peer-reviewed journals and 105 in scientific conference proceedings and book chapters.  Dr. Jean-Louis maintains an active research program at the center, working with several minority fellows, residents, medical students, and college students.  His research interests include: associations of metabolic syndrome with sleep apnea and cardiovascular disease, effects of sleep apnea on ocular blood flow, eye diseases and circadian-rhythm dysfunctions, and insomnia in medical and psychiatric disorders.
Humberto R. Brown
Mr. Humberto R. Brown is a health care professional at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. Prior to coming to Downstate, Mr. Brown held positions in the psychiatric division of Harlem Hospital, where he helped create a cultural orientation and education program for psychiatric residents and other mental health workers.  At the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, he consults on the training of high school students to understand the role of culture in healing, and to acquire the human relations tools necessary for delivering health care to a multicultural clientele.  He is integrally involved in the Institute's National Cancer Institute funded research study, Prostate Cancer Control with Community Barbers.  Mr. Brown serves as Chairman of the Committee on Underrepresented Minorities in Medicine of the newly formed Community Coalition to Increase Diversity in the Health Care Professions.
Marilyn Fraser White, MD
Dr. Marilyn Fraser White is Associate Director of Research & Training at the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health.  In June 2000, she joined the Institute as the Outreach Coordinator of the Community Health Empowerment programs.  During her tenure of employment she has been instrumental in coordinating the breast and prostate cancer programs, facilitating health education workshops on breast health, providing health screening and securing funds to further the Institute’s work in the community.  She is also a member of the faculty of the Institute’s Health Science Academy, serving as a mentor and instructor for talented minority students interested in the health professions.  Dr. White serves as the co-Director of the Community Outreach core of the Brooklyn Health Disparities Center.
Ferdinand Zizi, MBA
Mr. Ferdinand Zizi is the Program Director for the Brooklyn Health Disparities Center and Clinical Instructor for the Departments of Neurology, Ophthalmology and Medicine. He has participated in several population-based studies during the last ten years. He is well experienced in large-scale patient recruitment and data management. He has been involved in the area of sleep research for the last ten years. He currently has 30 publications in peer-reviewed journals and over 75 scientific abstracts. His current research interest is in the area of sleep apnea and its relation to cardiovascular diseases. Prior to joining the center, he functioned as the President of the Brooklyn Research Foundation on Minority Health and Director of Research for the Department of Ophthalmology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. He is currently completing his Ph.D. in Public Health, with a focus in Community Health Promotion and Education.
  Mohamed Boutjdir, Ph.D
Dr. Boutjdir is a Professor of Medicine, Anatomy and cell Biology Physiology and Pharmacology with extensive experience in mentoring students, both MD and PhD, in the conduct of cardiovascular research (See list of mentored trainees in Appendix 2). To date, more than 20 clinical and basic science fellows have trained with Dr. Boutjdir and all are currently working in prestigious academic departments across the nation. Dr. Boutjdir also has extensive teaching experience. He has been a regular contributor to the teaching programs of cardiovascular physiology and laboratory classes for cardiac electrocardiography at the Departments of Physiology and Pharmacology, Anatomy and Cell Biology and Medicine. He also teaches graduate students the molecular and cellular aspects of ion channels in normal and diseased settings. Dr. Boutjdir is the Director of the Training and Mentoring Core of the Brooklyn Health Disparities Research Center. The Core provides monthly cultural competency and health disparities seminars that are attended by faculty and students institution-wide. In addition, he directly supervises the placement of fellows under the Core with mentors who conduct health disparities research.
  Judith E. Mitchell, MD, FACC, FAHA
Dr. Mitchell is Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of the Heart Failure Center at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Brooklyn. Dr. Mitchell is a graduate of Wesleyan University and Tufts University School of Medicine. Her postgraduate training includes a medical internship and residency and a fellowship in cardiology at the Hospitals of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. She is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, and the American Heart Association, and she is board certified in cardiovascular diseases, nuclear cardiology and echocardiography. Her commitment to abolishing disparity in health care is unwavering. She serves as an active member of the local American Heart Association disparity group. She also serves as a member of the National American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology Heart Failure and Transplant Committee and as a member of the Education Committee of the Heart Failure Society of America. Dr. Mitchell is widely published including several book chapters. She is a frequent lecturer at Grand Rounds and for invited lectures at national and international cardiovascular meetings. She is a reviewer for several journals including Circulation, Journal of the National Medical Association, American Family Physician, Consultant-Consultations in Primary Care, and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
  Judith LaRosa, Ph.D., RN
Dr. Larosa is Professor and Deputy Director of the Master of Public Health Program of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. From 1991-1994 she was the first Deputy Director of the Office of Research on Women's Health, National Institutes of Health. She is co-author of the legislatively mandated 1994 NIH Guidelines on the Inclusion of Women and Minorities as Subjects in Clinical Research. Dr. LaRosa has published in the areas of heart disease, women's health, workplace health promotion and disease prevention. She is a fellow in the New York Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Nursing and the American Heart Association (AHA). Dr. LaRosa has received numerous awards for her work such as the 1994 NIH Director's Award and NIH Merit Award for her outstanding contribution to women's health and the 1993 American Heart Association for her outstanding contribution to the prevention and treatment of heart disease in women.
  M.A.Q. Siddiqui, Ph.D.
Dr. Siddiqui is Professor and Chairman of the Department of anatomy and Cell Biology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. Dr. Siddiqui heads a very active laboratory with a main interest in the investigation of the molecular mechanisms underlying heart development and disease. Siddiqui's laboratory has identified two novel transcription factors that appear to play a critical role in myogenic development. The laboratory also has active research in signal transduction mechanisms that are active in the pathological states of heart development such as hypertrophy and myocardial ischemia. Dr. Siddiqui has an outstanding record of training and mentoring students at different levels of education and in a number of different programs.
  Jason M. Lazar, MD:
Dr. Lazar received his medical degree from the State University of New York Health Science Center at Syracuse, New York and completed his postgraduate training at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pennsylvania. Dr. Lazar is currently Director of Non-Invasive Cardiology and Associate Director of the Cardiovascular Fellowship Training Program at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center. He is also Clinical Assistant Dean in the College of Medicine at SUNY Downstate. Dr. Lazar's research interests include the epidemiology of coronary heart disease in women, in high risk populations, and health disparities. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Invasive Cardiology, serves as a reviewer for several peer-reviewed journals, and is widely published. He is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the American College of Chest Physicians. He is also a member of the American Heart Association Long Island Chapter, and the American Society of Echocardiography.
  Susana Morales, MD:
Dr. Morales is the Director of the Center for Multicultural and Minority Health and Associate Chair of Educational Affairs and Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, Weill Medical College of Cornell University Associate. She is also an attending physician of the New York-Presbyterian Hospital (New York-Weill Cornell Campus). The mission of the Multicultural Center she directs is to promote cultural diversity among the faculty and house staff of the Department of Medicine; to foster research in minority health and health policy; to educate physicians on the sociocultural influences affecting patient's health, beliefs and behaviors; and to expand the relationship of the Department and the larger institution with the community. Dr. Morales serves as a faculty for the Institute, bringing expertise in cultural competency training, health disparities and teaching and mentoring tools for recruiting and retaining minorities in medicine.
  Carla Boutin-Foster, MD
Dr. Boutin-Foster is Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Weill Cornell University who graduated from Downstate Medical College. Dr. Boutin-Foster earned a Masters Degree in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Services research at. She is currently on the faculty in the Division of General Internal Medicine. Her research activities and scholarly publications focus on identifying the psychological and social determinants of health disparities in cardiovascular disease. Currently, she has a KO1 from the NHLBI to evaluate the impact of depressive symptoms, social support, and stress on health behavior modification in Latino patients with coronary artery disease. She is also co-investigator on an NHLBI program project to that test the impact of a culturally-tailored educational program on medication adherence in African-Americans with hypertension. Her teaching activities include teaching cultural competence to the first year medical students as part of Medicine, Patients and Society (MPS I) and teaching fellows in the Clinical Epidemiology Fellowship at the Graduate School. Dr. Boutin-Foster has also been involved in numerous community-based participatory research initiatives. Most recently, she worked with the Brooklyn Community Heart Health Council- a community academic partnership between Weill Cornell, the New York Methodist Hospital, and community organizations in Brooklyn. Dr. Boutin-Foster's long-term goal is to develop research that can broaden the current understanding of the root causes of health disparities in cardiovascular disease and to use her research to guide the development of effective community-based interventions.