Dr. Joshi is Dean and a Distinguished University Professor of the School of Public Health of the University of Memphis. Dr. Joshi is an innovator, entrepreneur, educator, researcher, administrator, and mentor. He is an established population health informatics researcher who combines his academic training in clinical medicine, public health, and informatics to design and develop human-centered, technology-enabled interventions to enhance population health outcomes across diverse community settings. He has extensive experience in utilizing community and hospital-based data to implement and evaluate informatics-enabled solutions to address social, economic, and health inequities of the 21st century. He combines data-driven innovative entrepreneurial creative approaches to advance excellence in public health education, and research, that can address public health challenges in the community by preparing the next generation of public health leaders. Despite his administrative role, continues scholarly and research contributions toward improving the good health and well-being of individuals, families, and the communities they live in. Dr. Joshi conceptualized the SMAART informatics model using combined principles of the human-centered approach, humanistic, behavioral, learning, and information processing theory to advance the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals. He has designed and developed, standalone and internet-enabled, multi-lingual, digital health interventions such as population health dashboards, consumer health informatics, m-health interventions, and population-based surveillance tools across multiple settings to improve population health outcomes.
Dr. Joshi successfully completed more than two dozen research projects in the areas of population health informatics across multiple countries including the US, India, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Haiti, Egypt, and Brazil. These projects were funded by several Federal, State, and international government agencies and other private foundations. Dr. Joshi also launched the first of its kind fully online Certificate and MS Population Health Informatics Programs. He was awarded by the Open Society Institute to establish the Regional Population Health Informatics Education Hub to prepare the public health workforce with skills in population health informatics and how community data can be utilized to design human-centered interventions for the improvement of population health outcomes. The hub is established at BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health with an aim to create a regional network of experts in the population health informatics field ready to respond as a team to the next public health challenge. Dr. Joshi has been leading CUNY SPH efforts to implement the NYC Resource Navigator Test and Trace Program in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and secured an award of a $10 million contract with the Housing Recovery Operations of the Mayor’s Office to implement the aftercare resource navigator program to address COVID-19 recovery efforts. Currently, he is the Chair of the Global Health Informatics Working Group of the American Medical Informatics Association. He is also an author of the first textbook published on Population Health Informatics: Driving Evidence-based solutions into practice published by Jones Bartlett. Dr. Joshi will help establish and co-lead the Center for PH-IDEAS, collaborating closely with Dr. Michelle Taylor, Director of the SCHD to oversee all components of this agreement.

Dr. Nichole Saulsberry-Scarboro is the PH-IDEAS Director of Workforce and Strategic Partnerships in the School of Public Health at the University of Memphis. She is also the Program Director for Innovative Non-Profit and Foundations Engaged Research (INFER) in the Department of Research Development at the University of Memphis. Dr. Saulsberry-Scarboro is a native of Memphis, Tennessee. She is passionate about moving her community forward and has worked for over 20 years as an administrator successfully developing, implementing and monitoring projects and initiatives that help people thrive. Specifically, she has successfully led efforts to assist families dealing with mental illness, increase university grantsmanship, improve college access and success, increase employment opportunities for entry-level workers, improve collaboration among human and social services agencies to more efficiently and effectively assist clients as they move themselves to economic self-sufficiency, promote education as a civil right and personal responsibility, create more financially savvy Tennesseans, improve healthy living habits, and increase exposure to STEM coursework and careers.
In addition to her extensive and varied work experiences, Dr. Saulsberry-Scarboro is a formally trained educator. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Education from Emory University, a Master of Science in Curriculum and Instructional Leadership from the University of Memphis, and a Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Saulsberry-Scarboro has been happily married to Dr. Douglas Scarboro for over 23 years and they have two sons, both of whom, like herself, are elementary school graduates of the University of Memphis Campus School.

Dr. Lori Ward earned a dual-title PhD in Pharmacy Administration (Health Outcomes Research) and Gerontology from Purdue University, a Master of Science in Pharmaceutical Sciences (Health Outcomes Research) from Florida A&M University, and a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Tennessee State University. Prior to serving as Associate Professor of Teaching and Undergraduate Program Coordinator at the University of Memphis School of Public Health, she held faculty appointments at the University of Mississippi Medical Center Department of Population Health Science, University of Mississippi Department of Pharmacy Administration, and Purdue University School of Pharmacy. Dr. Ward’s research has focused on health disparities and health outcomes with emphases on healthcare access, resource utilization, and medication adherence among vulnerable populations.

Ms. Ross is a native Memphian with experience in both chronic and infectious disease public health.  She has spent the last few years working in leadership in the prevention and treatment of HIV among adolescent youth, creating an opioid program to provide wrap-around services for tribal members. And most recently, She is working to strategically help implement a high school pathway program for students to obtain a certificate for disease intervention specialist to close DIS workforce gaps. Ms. Ross is always looking for exciting new ways to decrease disease burden and improve quality of life for the communities she serves. Ms. Ross believe by serving in a public health role that we can stop the spread of communicable diseases increasing longevity of life by reaching one person at a time.

Amareé Austin is a 2nd year graduate student pursing her Master of Public Health and Master of Applied Anthropology. An alum of Rhodes College, Amaree put her undergraduate Anthropological training to use through collaborative and engaged community work with local nonprofit organizations with a focus on economic justice and community participatory action research. For the past 4 years, Amaree has both supported and led qualitative research projects supporting both Black low-income youth workers in Memphis and Black mothers seeking health reproductive care. Committed to connecting engaged work with academic workforce development, she currently contributes to the DIS project as a Public Health Graduate Assistant.

Esthela is a 2nd year Master of Public Health student and also works at Latino Memphis where she serves as the Director of Tu Salud and the Assistant Director of Senderos- programs that work to improve health outcomes and economic mobility respectively. She is a first-generation Mexican-American and she completed her undergraduate career at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.  Esthela is eager to contribute her professional, academic, and lived-experiences to the DIS project as a Public Health Graduate Assistant.