Advisory Board

Ann Hazzard, PhD, ABPP is a clinical psychologist who was a Pediatrics faculty member at Emory University School of Medicine from 1981 to 2015.  She provided child assessment and therapy services and was the director of the Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics rotation.  Dr. Hazzard published 30 articles in peer-reviewed journals on diverse topics including parenting, child abuse prevention and treatment, bereavement, children’s adaptation to disabilities and pediatric illness, and early identification of autism.  Dr. Hazzard was on the staff of PARTNERS for several years.  She co-founded the Reach Out and Read family literacy program at Children’s Healthcare at Hughes Spalding, a key component of PARTNER’s comprehensive approach to child and family care.  She was also a key contributor to PARTNER’s behavioral health initiatives.

Along with three colleagues, Dr. Hazzard has co-authored four picture books that feature diverse children and families meeting contemporary challenges with compassion and resilience.  These books are part of the “Something Happened” series (Magination Press) and have won parenting, educator, and literary awards.  The first book in the series, Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story about Racial Injustice, was a New York Times bestseller.

Dr. Hazzard has been a board member of several community nonprofits focused on child abuse prevention, bereavement support for children, and promotion of children's literacy.  Since retiring, she has been proud to serve on the PARTNERS Advisory Board.  Dr. Hazzard is currently the 2^nd Vice President of the Atlanta Women’s Club, a community service organization.

Atiba has served in leadership roles at the Zeist Foundation for 17 years, beginning as the Associate Director and then as the Executive Director since 2020. He also served as a Program Officer responsible for the Education and Fostering Understanding portfolios at the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation for five years.

In his civic life, Atiba serves as a board member for Community Farmers Markets, Park Pride, and the East Coast Greenway Alliance. He also devotes volunteer time to the BRAG Dream Team, a statewide youth cycling organization in Georgia.

He is married to Tiffany Friesen and they have a blended family with three adult children (plus spouses) and 11 grandchildren.

In 1982, Atiba graduated from Brown University with a B.A. degree in Economics and Urban Studies, including a semester at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. He was a National Endowment of the Humanities Fellow and he completed the Education Policy Fellowship Program managed by the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education.

Dr. Barbara Stoll has had a distinguished career in academic medicine—as a clinician, educator, research scientist, and administrator. Most recently, she served as the President of the China Medical Board (2021-2023) where she is currently serving as Executive Vice President. Prior to joining CMB, she was the H. Wayne Hightower Distinguished Professor in the Medical Sciences, Professor of Pediatrics, and the first woman Dean of McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center (UTHealth, 2015-2020). Earlier, Dr. Stoll was the George W. Brumley, Jr. Professor and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine (2003-2015).

Dr. Stoll received her undergraduate degree from Barnard College and her medical degree from Yale Medical School. She trained in Pediatrics at Babies Hospital (now Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital) of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and completed fellowship training in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at Emory.

Dr. Stoll’s research has focused on perinatal epidemiology, neonatal infections, randomized clinical trials in neonatal-perinatal medicine, and international child health. Her research was continuously funded by the US National Institutes of Health for over 25 years, and she has authored over 400 peer-reviewed journal articles, chapters, and editorials and has co-edited several major reports. Dr. Stoll is a member of the US National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and served as President of the American Pediatric Society, the oldest and most prestigious pediatric academic society in the US. She has been recognized with several distinguished awards. Dr. Stoll has worked as a visiting scientist at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh; the University of Goteborg, Sweden, and the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva.

Dr. Stoll is married to Roger I. Glass, MD PhD, former director of the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and associate director for Global Health at the NIH, and is the mother of three adult children, Nina, Michael, and Andy Glass.

Grayson Norquist, MD, MSPH, is Professor and Vice-Chair, Emory University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Chief of the Behavioral Health Service at Grady Health System.  He served in several leadership positions before moving to Atlanta, including Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and Director of the Division of Services and Intervention Research at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a division responsible for clinical, prevention and services research. He was a member and Chair of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Board of Governors. He has been a member of several journal editorial boards including Psychiatric Services, the Archives of General Psychiatry and the Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics and has received various national government and public awards, including the NIH Director’s Award, the NIH Special Service Award, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill Exemplary Psychiatrist Award, and the American Psychiatric Association Distinguished Service Award. While at NIMH he was involved in formulating national policy for improving mental health services across the United States.  In addition, he has worked with international organizations, including the World Health Organization, to improve the delivery of mental health services in underserved areas around the world.  As Chair of the Council on Quality Care at the American Psychiatric Association he led the formulation of new quality and performance measures for mental health care. He completed his training in psychiatry at UCLA and was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar there following his training.

Yuri Okuizumi-Wu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the Emory University School of Medicine. She received her medical degree at The University of Illinois School of Medicine (Chicago) and completed her residency at Bellevue Hospital/NYU Medical Center in New York City.  After residency, she worked at North Central and Jacobi Hospitals in the Bronx, and then joined a private practice in inner-city Chicago. In 2002, she relocated to Atlanta and joined the faculty at Emory, practicing at the first comprehensive school-based health clinics in Georgia, the Whitefoord and Coan School Based-Health Clinics for 8 years.  She served as the interim Medical Director for both school clinics from 2009-2010 before moving to the Primary Care Clinic of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta’s Hughes Spalding campus.  Her experiences at Whitefoord and Coan have shaped her belief that school-based clinics are the ideal models for providing quality care for the underserved children of Georgia.  She remains active in School Health, serving on the Executive Committee of the AAP’s Council on School Health, Vice chair of the School Health Committee of the AAP, Georgia Chapter; and the Board of the Georgia School-based Health Alliance.  She also recently joined the team at Emory Pediatrics’ PARTNERS for Equity in Child and Adolescent Health to further  develop School-based Health Centers in Georgia. 

Marc Welsh, MPH is the Chief Diversity Officer and Vice President of Child Advocacy at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

In his role as Vice President of Child Advocacy, Marc leads Children’s state-wide community efforts focused on obesity prevention, behavioral and mental health, injury and illness prevention, and child protection. Marc’s multi-disciplinary team implements evidence-based programs focused on helping families raise healthy, safe, resilient kids. Marc is also responsible for Children’s employee and physician wellness programs, which promote health and wellness initiatives to the organization’s 13,000+ employees.

In 2021, in addition to his role as Vice President of Child Advocacy, Marc was named Children’s first-ever Chief Diversity Officer. In this role, his team is responsible for leading the System Diversity & Inclusion strategy with a focus on initiatives related to the health system’s employees, patients and community.

Marc also serves on the Boards of Voices for Georgia’s Children and Soccer in the Streets, furthering work focused on impacting the lives of children in the community.

Previously, Marc held leadership roles at Jackson Health System and Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami, Florida. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Miami in Biology and Religious Study and his Masters in Public Health from Florida International University.

Randee J. Waldman serves as the Director of the Barton Juvenile Defender Clinic at Emory University School of Law.  In this role, she supervises law students in holistic representation of young people charged with delinquent offenses.  In addition to representing these clients in their juvenile court cases, she and her students also represent them in special education proceedings, school suspension proceedings, and other forums according to the clients’ needs.  Professor Waldman also engages in policy work related to juvenile justice and education issues and teaches courses in juvenile justice, criminal procedure and education law. 

Professor Waldman is a widely respected trainer, speaker and writer.  She is a NITA certified trial skills trainer, and is a certified trainer for the Gault Center’s Youth Development Advocacy Program (formerly National Juvenile Defender Center’s Juvenile Training Immersion Program).  She has presented on trial skills, delinquency representation and education advocacy at numerous local, regional and national conferences. Professor Waldman sits on the Advisory Committee for the Gault Center South and the Juvenile Justice Committees of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. She also serves as Treasurer for the Executive Committee of the Child Protection and Advocacy Section of the State Bar of Georgia and on the Advisory Board for PARTNERS for Equity in Child and Adolescent Health.  

Ruth Ellis is a native of Atlanta, receiving her undergraduate degree in Psychology from Spelman College in 1976. Shortly after graduation she began her career with Emory University: first in the Human Resources Department as a Recruiter, then as a Research Assistant with the Department of Psychiatry, and finally with the Department of Pediatrics. During her career with Emory, she received a Master’s Degree from the University’s School of Public Health. Ruth has been with Pediatrics since 1989, first working with the Division of Neonatology as Administrator, and then serving as the Administrator for the Department’s Grady Operations. She retired in 2009 and returned in 2010 to serve as the Business Administrator, and was promoted to Program Director for the Department of Pediatrics’ PARTNERS for Equity in Child & Adolescent Health.  Ruth received a Juris Master degree from the Emory University School of Law in 2015.  She retired from the University in 2019 and is currently serving as the Program Specialist - School Based Health Centers for the Georgia Department of Education Office of Whole Child Supports.

Chu Chu Onwuachi-Saunders, MD, MPH, is a pediatrician, public health expert, and medical epidemiologist. Dr Saunders received her Medical degree from the College of Medicine at the University of Lagos in Nigeria, her Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, her residency in pediatrics was at Emory University and she was an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer (EIS) and a Preventive Medicine Resident at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. For over 10 years she worked for the CDC involved with issues related to children's health and youth violence prevention.

Dr Saunders has also held positions as a program officer at the Ford Foundation, funding women's reproductive health and rights programs in the US and internationally, as Senior Deputy Director of Public Health in Washington DC, and Deputy Health Commissioner in Philadelphia.

Dr. Saunders led the federal response that offered mental health services to both first-line responders and the many communities hit by Hurricane Katrina. She has also published articles in various scientific peer-reviewed journals.

Dr. Saunders is an author, sought-after speaker, and public health consultant. Her passion is children's health, particularly girls, and her book OOOPS! "The book every girl must have..." supports them through puberty.

During her free time, you can find Dr. Saunders in a yoga or pilates class or wandering through a local farmer's market. Out of all her accomplishments, she is most proud of her two children and five grandchildren.

Dr. Cheryl Watson-Harris stands as an exemplar of educational leadership and a tireless advocate for equity, with nearly three decades of transformative experience within and beyond the classroom. Recognized  as a "champion for children," she is celebrated for her pioneering leadership approach, which fosters enhanced employee engagement and organizational capacity, culminating in advancements in student achievement. Over her illustrious 32-year career spanning education, administration, and community service, she has exhibited unparalleled expertise in dismantling barriers to success and crafting empowering opportunities for young learners and their families. Renowned as a strategic collaborator, she forges impactful community connections that drive collective progress.

A native of New York City, Watson-Harris embarked on her teaching journey in 1993 in Brooklyn, swiftly earning acclaim as her district's nominee for the prestigious Mayoral "most excellent new teacher" award. Following the completion of her master's degree at Harvard University, she made a notable  impact as the youngest principal in the history of the Boston Public Schools, serving as a turnaround principal for 15 years before assuming the role of Network Superintendent. Her indelible mark on education continued upon her return to the New York City Department of Education, where she ascended to the position of First Deputy Chancellor, spearheading initiatives to support 1.1 million students and 1600 schools amidst the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In her tenure as Superintendent of DeKalb County Schools, Georgia's third-largest district, Watson-Harris orchestrated the district's successful reaccreditation and led a comprehensive ten-year planning endeavor for its facilities. An esteemed educator beyond the confines of her district, she has lent her expertise as a mentor for the Harvard University Graduate School of Education Ed.L.D. program, and as a member of the Harvard University Principal Center Advisory Board and the Leading Now Advisory Board, where she is the current Chair.

Presently, Dr. Watson-Harris serves as the President and Executive Director of Achieve Atlanta, the foremost needs-based scholarship program in Georgia, championing the aspirations of first-generation college students as they pursue their post-secondary credentials and chart their course to upward mobility.

With academic credentials including a B.S.Ed. from Marymount College, an M.Ed. from Harvard University, and an Ed.D. from New York University, Watson-Harris embodies a fervent belief in every child's entitlement to a stellar education. She remains steadfast in her commitment to guiding all students towards success, steadfastly advocating for districts and communities to journey "Onward and Upwards!"

Linda Goler Blount, MPH, is an epidemiologist and President of the Black Women’s Health Imperative, the first national non-profit organization focused on Black women’s health and wellness. Ms. Blount has overseen more than $30 million invested in research to prevent chronic disease and HIV, ensure reproductive justice and healthy maternal outcomes, and advocate for health-promoting policies. Ms. Blount is also the Executive Chair of the Rare Disease Diversity Coalition, a $20M collaborative of over 80 organizations formed to ensure patients of color, low-income, and rural patients are centered in research, advocacy, and policy.  Her career includes leadership tenures at the CDC, the Coca-Cola Company, and the American Cancer Society.  She also has extensive international health expertise and has served as a consultant to government ministries in Germany, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, where she lived for four years. A Michigan native, Linda holds a Master of Public Health degree in Epidemiology from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering/Operations Research from Eastern Michigan University.

Dr. Hogue was appointed Professor of Epidemiology and Jules & Uldeen Terry Professor of Maternal and Child Health (MCH) at the Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University in 1992. She was also the Director of the Women's and Children's Center and the HRSA-sponsored Center of Excellence in MCH Education, Science, and Practice. She retired in 2019.

A former Director of the federal Centers for Disease Control, Division of Reproductive Health (1988-92) and on faculties in Biometry at the University of Arkansas for Medical Science (1977-82) and the UNC School of Public Health Department of Biostatistics (1974-77), Dr. Hogue initiated many of the current CDC reproductive health programs, including the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), the National Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System, and the National Infant Mortality Surveillance (NIMS) project that launched the national and state-level development and use of linked birth and death records. In addition, Dr. Hogue led the first research on maternal morbidities that was the precursor to the safe motherhood initiative, and the initial innovative research on racial disparities in preterm delivery that found that college-educated African American women have a three-fold risk of very preterm delivery, when compared to college-educated White women. This discovery has triggered further research into biological, biosocial, and environmental causes of this as-yet unexplained excess risk.

Dr. Hogue has published broadly in maternal and child health, including studies of ectopic pregnancy, stillbirth, unintended pregnancy, contraceptive failure, reproductive cancers, and evaluation of school-based health centers. She has a long-standing interest in environmental impacts on reproductive health. With Carole Kimmel and others, she published a study in 1984 on the reliability of experimental studies for predicting hazards to human development. Her subsequent research has focused on the effects of risk factors such as smoking, obesity, access to health care, and environmental stress on reproductive health.

She was lead editor of the book, Minority Health in America (co-editor, Dr. Martha Hargraves; Johns Hopkins U. Press, 2000) and of a 2001 supplement to the journal Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology, entitled "New Perspectives on the Stubborn Challenge of Preterm Birth.” Her ongoing research interests include stillbirth, implementation and effectiveness of school-based health centers, and mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy for reducing pregnancy complications and improving perinatal health.

Dr. Hogue served as President of the Society for Epidemiologic Research (1988-89), served on the Institute of Medicine Committee on Unintended Pregnancy (1993-1995), was Chair of the Regional Advisory Panel for the Americas of the World Health Organization Human Reproduction Programme (1997-99), and President of the American College of Epidemiology (2002-4).

Among her many honors, Dr. Hogue was the recipient of Emory University’s Thomas Jefferson Award in 2017. In 2019 the Society for Epidemiology Research established the Carol J. Rowland Hogue Award for Outstanding Mid-Career Achievement, which is awarded annually to recognize a mid-career scientist who has made an exceptional contribution to the practice of epidemiology (https://epiresearch.org/annual-meeting/awards/carol-j-rowland-hogue-award/).

A life-long Christian, Dr. Hogue is a member of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Sylva, North Carolina, choir member, and community volunteer. She married her high school sweetheart, Professor Emeritus L. Lynn Hogue (GSU College of Law), in 1966. They are proud parents of Marianna Outerbridge and of granddaughter Shelly Outerbridge (b. 8/6/2024).