Fellows Bios

Lou Hart, MD is a practicing Pediatric Hospitalist, an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine, and the Medical Director of Health Equity for Yale New Haven Health System. His mission is to identify and eliminate unwanted variation in care process and outcome that exist within our structured systems.

Dr. Hart started his clinical leadership career as Director of Equity, Quality & Safety at NYC Health + Hospitals, our nation's largest comprehensive safety-net healthcare system. Clinically he loves seeing patients and working with empowered teams to improve the equity, quality & safety of patient care. By leveraging quality improvement and patient safety frameworks and methodologies, his team confronts systems-based drivers of inequity using a just culture approach. Academically, he spends time researching and publicly engaging colleagues in dialogue over the innate flaws of racial essentialism in medicine and its contribution to a lower standard of care for all patients.

Sherise Chantell Rogers, M.D., M.P.H., is a medical oncologist, scientist, and Assistant Professor at the University of Florida. She is an expert in gastrointestinal malignancies, particularly pancreatic cancer, of which significant inequities exist amongst marginalized communities. At the core of her research is health equity and the elimination of cancer disparities. Her scientific portfolio includes various therapeutic clinical trials, microbiome analysis and health outcomes. Dr. Rogers is an inaugural Robert A. Winn Diversity in Clinical Trials Scholar and Principal Investigator for the Florida- California CaRE2 Health Equity Center. Her academic accomplishments include many research grants, publications, and awards. Additionally, Dr. Rogers’ is the appointed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer for Graduate Medical Education at the University of Florida, supporting nearly 100 residency and fellowship programs. She previously served as Co-Course Director for the Cancer Biology and Clinical Oncology curriculum and mentors many trainees and students underrepresented in medicine. She is an active member of several national committees and professional organizations.

Dr. Rogers received her Bachelor of Science in Human Development from Cornell University and obtained her Medical Doctorate and Master in Public Health from New York Medical College. She completed Internal Medicine Residency at Stony Brook University Medical Center and Hematology & Oncology Fellowship at The Ohio State University Medical Center where she also served as Wellness Chief Fellow.

Nazleen H. Bharmal, MD, PhD, MPP is the Associate Chief of Community Health & Partnerships for Cleveland Clinic Community Care and Population Health. In this role, she works with an interdisciplinary team to implement a community health strategy for Cleveland Clinic focused on health equity, social determinants of health, and partnerships with community stakeholders. Dr. Bharmal practices primary care internal medicine focused on disease prevention and health promotion. She previously was the Director of Science and Policy at the Office of the Surgeon General in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to her time at OSG, she was a clinician-investigator at the RAND Corporation and UCLA Department of Medicine, Division of Health Services and General Internal Medicine with a research focus on health disparities, chronic disease prevention, and social determinants of health using quantitative, qualitative, and community-based participatory research methods.  

Nazleen has published in several scientific journals and received awards for her public health research and leadership activities. She received her MD from Harvard Medical School, PhD in health policy and management from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, and MPP from the John F. Kennedy School of Government. 

Karen Orjuela is a fellowship-trained vascular neurologist, neurohospitalist, assistant professor and clinical researcher studying acute neurological care and associated outcomes at the University of Colorado. She completed her medical school training at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, in her hometown Bogota (Colombia) then, she moved to the United States where she graduated as a neurologist and vascular neurologist from Loyola University of Chicago. She earned a master’s degree in clinical research from the University of South Carolina and began participating in industry-sponsored and investigator-initiated research studies. Noting the lack of representation of minorities in cardiovascular disease research coupled with their overrepresentation in her clinical practice, Dr. Orjuela is actively seeking to address this disparity.  

Karen is also the Co-Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Department of Neurology at her institution. She is member of international neurological societies and scientific journal's editorial boards. She is an emerging leader in neurohospitalist education and community-based participatory neurology research.