Our Department Honors Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, MBA, On Her Retirement

The Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy honors and congratulates Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, MBA, on her retirement on January 31, 2021. Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey has been a tremendous force for good—and a voice for people—in our department, the school, the University, and the world. The impact she has had over the course of her career through her scholarship, leadership, mentorship, and example has been unparalleled, and her retirement is a tremendous loss for us. At the same time, she is not finished her good work, and we look forward to seeing what she does next. We are delighted to announce that Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey will be moving to emeritus status and will have the title of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Population Health and Health Equity Professor Emerita.

Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey has served as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation PIK Professor of Health Policy and Health Equity at the University of Pennsylvania and has also had joint faculty appointments in the Department of Health Care Management in The Wharton School, and the Department of Family and Community Health in the School of Nursing.

A specialist in health policy and geriatrics, Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey came to Penn in 1986 and served as the Sylvan Eisman Professor of Medicine and Health Care Systems. She also directed Penn’s Institute on Aging and was chief of geriatric medicine at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine. Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey then became president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a position she held for nearly 15 years before returning to Penn in 2018.

Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey earned her medical degree from Harvard Medical School, and she also holds an MBA from the Wharton School.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey on her extraordinary service and wishing her well in her post-Penn endeavors.