Leonard Egede

Dr. Leonard E. Egede, MD, MS, FACP, is a general internist and health services researcher, Professor of Medicine, Charles and Mary Bauer Endowed Chair, Chair of the Department of Medicine, and President & CEO for UBMD Internal Medicine at te Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo. As a nationally recognized health disparities researcher, Dr. Egede has over 25 years of experience in health disparities research focused on developing and testing innovative interventions to reduce and/or eliminate health disparities related to race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and geographic location for chronic medical and mental health conditions. He has expertise in a range of research methodologies including qualitative research methods, community based participatory research (CBPR), clinical trials methodology, behavioral intervention techniques, and implementation science. In addition, Dr. Egede has extensive experience incorporating technology and social determinant of health factors into behavioral interventions, particularly focused on improving self-management in individuals with diabetes. He has published over 475 peer-reviewed manuscripts related to health disparities and chronic disease management. He has served on multiple NIH, CDC, and VA study sections focused on psychosocial risk, health services, behavioral research, and implementation science. He leads a multidisciplinary team that has worked together on more than nine federally funded grants related to improving diabetes outcomes and eliminating health disparities since 2008.

Additionally, he is passionate about mentoring the next generation of investigators, especially women and ethnic minorities who are traditionally under-represented in research and medicine. His commitment to mentoring is evident in the number of mentees he oversees, the quality of his interactions with faculty, trainees, and students, as well as strong trajectories of mentees moving from trainees to faculty, and promotion through faculty ranks. Over the past 15 years, he has provided extensive mentorship opportunities to students, fellows, interns, post-doctoral fellows, and junior faculty members. In 2011, he was awarded an NIH NIDDK K24 grant that provided protected time for mentoring and funds that he used to support his mentees in conducting pilot studies to position them for federal funding opportunities. During the 11 years of his K24, he mentored 42 junior (Assistant Professors) and mid-level (Associate Professors) faculty, 20 fellows, 12 postdoctoral scholars, 13 doctoral students, 45 medical students, 11 undergraduate students, and 24 high school students. In addition, he served on 12 PhD committees and 4 Master's Thesis committees. He currently serves as the primary mentor on 3 NIH funded K-grants, and an American Diabetes Association Junior Faculty Award focused on addressing health disparities through development and testing of innovative interventions incorporating social determinants of health.