Three New Fellows Join Pozen-Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Health Equity Leadership

Earlier this month, Yale SOM welcomed the three newest recipients of the Pozen-Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Health Equity Leadership for a two-day immersion at Evans Hall launching their Yale education.

The fellowship, designed to give mid-career healthcare professionals the leadership skills and the deep understanding of teams, markets, and organizations necessary to tackle major inequities in the U.S. healthcare system, includes 22 months of study in Yale SOM’s MBA for Executives program, as well as specialized training and mentorship from national experts on healthcare disparities. During the immersion, fellows learned about each other’s backgrounds, connected with SOM faculty, and discussed their goals for the program.

The new fellows, who are members of the EMBA Class of 2027, are Denise Anderson; Joanne Fernandez-Booker; and Tina Loarte-Rodriguez.

Anderson is the executive director of the Center for Health Equity and Wellbeing, a public health advocacy group in New Jersey. She applied to the fellowship to learn business skills she can apply to pressing public health challenges.

“The SOM curriculum resonated with me like no other management program has,” she says. “Teaching through the lenses of the competitor, customer, executive, innovator, investor, and other stakeholders offers a practical framework for strengthening my business acumen.”

Anderson added that the immersion set the tone for a productive and enriching period of study. “Being in community with values-aligned changemakers reminded me that I’m not alone in this work, and it was both grounding and energizing to share space with those equally committed to advancing equity in public health and human services,” she said.

Fernandez-Booker is a pediatrician and clinical professor at the CUNY School of Medicine, where she also advises medical students. She was previously a field physician with New York City’s Vulnerable Populations Program, delivering care and leading local COVID vaccination efforts in the Bronx.

“One of the central issues I care deeply about is the medicalization of poverty—treating poverty-related health conditions through medical interventions instead of addressing underlying economic and social determinants,” she said. “Our current system fails to invest in preventing the conditions that give rise to these illnesses. I am committed to shifting this paradigm by focusing on systemic change that addresses root causes.”

With the tools offered by an MBA, Fernandez-Booker hopes to promote investment in preventative public health solutions, which often rely on unstable grant funding. “I want to explore how we can develop sustainable funding models that ensure these efforts are not only impactful but also enduring,” she says.

Loarte-Rodriguez is the executive director of the Connecticut Center for Nursing Workforce, where she collaborates with state leaders and institutions to recruit and cultivate skilled, educated nurses to serve residents’ needs. She said she came to the fellowship to learn how to scale her work in health equity.

“I applied to the fellowship because I’m done watching systems fail communities they were never built to serve,” Loarte-Rodriguez says. “I’m here to dismantle inequity in nursing, healthcare, and education—especially for those who’ve been historically excluded and chronically underestimated.”

Loarte-Rodriguez hopes that an MBA from SOM will help her implement long-term solutions in her field. “I’m not just leading change; I’m building infrastructure that will outlast me,” she says.

After just a few days on campus, fellows said, they were able to form lasting connections with each other and across Yale.

“On June 10, we began the evening as strangers,” Fernandez-Booker said. “By June 12, I had come to understand each of our passions and how deeply interconnected our journeys are.”

Prospective students can learn more about the Pozen-Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Health Equity Leadership and register for a pre-assessment to get personalized feedback from a member of the admissions team.