Tara McKay, PhD

Tara
McKay
Associate Professor; Medicine, Health & Society
tara.mckay@vanderbilt.edu

Dr. McKay (she/her) is Associate Professor of Medicine, Health, and Society and Health Policy (secondary), Director of the LGBTQ+ Policy Lab, and Associate Director of the Center for Research on Inequality and Health at Vanderbilt University. She is a sociologist and demographer who is nationally recognized for her expertise in the field of LGBTQ+ population health, policy, and aging. She is a co-founder of the Vanderbilt LGBTQ+ Policy Lab, which was recently recognized by the National Institutes of Health for for its advances in LGBTQ+ health research. She has expertise in LGBTQ+ health and aging, HIV policy, and firearm injury.

Josh F. Peterson, MD, MPH, FACMI, FAMIA

Josh
F.
Peterson
MD, MPH, FACMI, FAMIA
Interim Chair
Department of Biomedical Informatics
Professor
Department of Biomedical Informatics
Professor
Department of Medicine
Director
Center for Precision Medicine
Vice President for Personalized Medicine

Josh Peterson, MD, MPH serves as a Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Medicine in the School of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the Director of the Center for Precision Medicine, and the Vice-President for Personalized Medicine.

Dr. Peterson is an internationally recognized researcher and educator in Biomedical Informatics and maintains an Internal Medicine practice at VUMC.  He has authored more than 120 peer-reviewed publications, abstracts, reviews, and book chapters.  Dr. Peterson's research interests are in precision medicine with a focus on clinical decision support to improve drug safety and efficacy, and the translation of genomic technologies to routine clinical care. He has led the design and implementation of multiple clinical decision support systems oriented towards geriatric patients, the critically ill, patients with acute and chronic kidney disease, and most recently for patients tested within a large pharmacogenomics implementation - PREDICT.  He currently serves as a principal investigator for an NIH funded project to simulate the clinical impact and cost-effectiveness of performing sequencing across large populations over their lifetime. He is also active within a variety of NIH sponsored research consortia including, eMERGE where he leads the Coordinating Center, and IGNITE where he is principal investigator of the I3P clinical sites recruiting for Genomic Medicine randomized clinical trials. Dr. Peterson was the founding Program Director for the Masters of Applied Clinical Informatics (MSACI) program, which trains physicians and other health professionals in the field of Clinical Informatics. He currently directs the Vanderbilt Genomic Medicine training program.

Dr. Peterson received his medical degree through the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 1997 and completed an Internal Medicine residency at Duke University Medical Center, a fellowship in General Internal Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a Masters of Public Health degree at the Harvard School of Public Health.  

2525 West End Ave
Room / Suite
1522
Nashville
Tennessee
37203
josh.peterson@vumc.org

Stephanie Doupnik, MD, MSPH

Stephanie
Doupnik
MD, MSPH
Director, Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine
William R. Long Director in Health Policy
Assistant Professor, Pediatrics
Assistant Professor, Health Policy

Stephanie Doupnik, MD, MSHP, is Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Health Policy and Director of the Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. Dr. Doupnik’s research focuses on understanding systems-level implementation of novel policies and practices to improve clinical effectiveness and patient safety. Her NIH-funded work has focused on novel approaches to mental health service delivery. She has led implementation of integrated mental health services and suicide prevention care in children’s hospitals and evaluation of the effectiveness of various mental healthcare integration and delivery models nationally, including telehealth. Dr. Doupnik has also led research to understand patient and family healthcare experiences and to support clinical workforce development, including investigating questions relevant to safety, moral injury, and preventing burnout. She is an experienced health systems leader and research mentor to trainees at various career stages.

stephanie.doupnik@vumc.org

Envision Cayce: Redevelopment Impact on Community Health

Beginning in 2024, the faculty and staff in the Department of Health Policy at VUMC and Meharry Medical College began a community-based research project aiming to survey residents of the mixed-income Envision Cayce redevelopment project in East Nashville and the impact of the area's revitalization on well-being and social lives of families living in Cayce.

Ranga Ramanujam, PhD

Ranga
Ramanujam
Richard M. and Betty Ruth Miller Chair in Healthcare Management
Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University
Professor
Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University
Professor
Health Policy
Office Address
Owen Graduate School of Management
401 21st Avenue South
Suite 1275
Nashville
Tennessee
37203
rangaraj.ramanujam@vanderbilt.edu

Mentoring Faculty

The following members of the faculty are currently mentoring PhD students, or are open to serving as a mentor.