Dr. Ala Stanford, a pioneering pediatric surgeon and public health advocate, has dedicated her career to advancing equitable healthcare and addressing disparities in access and outcomes.

Dr. Ala Stanford is a nationally celebrated public health leader, surgeon, and founder of the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium. A practicing physician for more than 20 years, she became a national voice for health equity during the COVID-19 pandemic, founding the Consortium and directly serving more than 100,000 Philadelphians without access to testing and care.

She went on to establish and now leads the Dr. Ala Stanford Center for Health Equity to expand access to care in Philadelphia and has also served as regional director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for the mid-Atlantic region. Board-certified in both pediatric and adult general surgery, Dr. Stanford is the author of the best-selling book, “Take Care of Them Like My Own: Faith, Fortitude, and a Surgeon’s Fight for Health Justice.”