Consuelo H. Wilkins, MD, MSCI, Senior Associate Dean, Health Equity and Inclusive Excellence (School of Medicine), and Professor of Medicine, is an internationally recognized physician-scientist leader in health equity research whose research focuses on integrating social, cultural, and environmental factors into clinical and translational research. Dr. Wilkins, an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Society of Clinical Investigation, has substantial executive and administrative experience and has held institutional leadership roles at Vanderbilt for a decade. She was PI of four NIH-funded multi-institutional center grants, including two centers focused on research in Black and Latinx populations. In addition to her research, Dr. Wilkins is an institutional leader in health equity and inclusive excellence and has led the development and expansion of numerous programs in the medical school as the Founding Director of the Office of Health Equity, executive leader of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and previously as Executive Director of the Meharry-Vanderbilt Alliance. In 2020, Dr. Wilkins led the Racial Equity Task Force, which delivered more than 150 recommendations on combatting systemic and institutional racism. These recommendations served as the foundation for creating a comprehensive racial equity plan that serves as the roadmap for Vanderbilt University Medical Center to become an antiracist institution. The Racial Equity Plan has ~200 specific actions and includes steps for inclusive faculty hiring and transforming institutional culture. Dr. Wilkins will leverage her experience serving on 14 faculty search committees (including three as chair) at Vanderbilt, Meharry Medical College and Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Wilkins was actively involved in the recruitment, negotiations, and hiring of more than two dozen faculty from minoritized racial and ethnic groups. Dr. Wilkins will serve as V-FIRST Administrative Core Director.

Vivian Gama, PhD, Associate Dean for Equity and Inclusive Mentoring, is a tenured Associate Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology in Basic Sciences at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Dr. Gama’s research focuses on the molecular principles governing organelle remodeling as a driver of cellular transitions during neurogenesis. She has pioneered the use of pluripotent stem cell systems to understand the pathophysiology of rare, incurable mitochondrial and peroxisomal diseases with the goal of uncovering new therapeutic targets. In her role as Associate Dean for Equity and Inclusive Mentoring, Dr. Gama has brought her experience as an award-winning mentor and international scholar to expand and accelerate efforts to build equity and inclusion at Vanderbilt. Dr. Gama’s long-standing commitment to and experience with inclusive mentoring is an asset to V-FIRST. As the Faculty Development Core Director, Dr. Gama will oversee mentoring, sponsorship, and support to guide V-FIRST faculty through promotion with tenure. To ensure alignment across cores, Dr. Gama will work closely with Drs. Raver and Wilkins, in the Administrative Core, in recruiting and retaining V-FIRST faculty.

C. Cybele Raver, PhD, Vanderbilt University Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, is an esteemed developmental psychologist whose leadership spans research, clinical, academic and administrative settings. Dr. Raver is responsible for institutional leadership, oversight, and key decision-making for all academic, faculty and research affairs across 10 Schools serving over 15,000 undergraduate and graduate students. She oversees fiscal and academic planning, strategy, oversight of all School-level faculty hiring, tenure, and promotion processes, as well as key university-wide initiatives aiming to strengthen the development, training, and placement of emerging leaders. In her roles as Vanderbilt Provost and multiple senior leadership roles at NYU, Dr. Raver has led university-wide initiatives to drive the highest caliber of academic quality for all units by planning for and quantitatively benchmarking success in meeting strategic goals over time. While Deputy Provost at NYU, she co-launched and co-led a university-wide research initiative on reducing economic and racial inequality, and partnered with deans targeting cross-disciplinary improvement in the teaching of “gateway” STEM lab courses with the aim of increasing persistence in STEM majors, particularly among students from minoritized groups. Dr. Raver’s commitment to and interest in equity and inclusion are not new or driven by her leadership roles. Prior to transitioning to senior leadership roles, her research focused on supporting children’s early educational success in the contexts of poverty, educational intervention, and policy. Continuously federally funded since 1994, she conducted a series of cluster-randomized trials implemented in collaboration with school districts to estimate the impacts of preschool intervention for low-income children’s academic and self-regulation outcomes in major metropolitan areas including New York City and Chicago. Dr. Raver will co-lead the Administrative Core and will serve a critical role in implementing policies and practices to achieve V-FIRST’s overarching goals.