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 MedicalSciences,ProfessorofPediatrics,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.