Michelle McMurry-Heath,
MD, PhD

Dr. McMurry-Heath is a physician and scientist with more than two decades of experience bridging the gap between science and policy and between medical solutions and patients. She has committed her life's work to providing patients with better health information and greater clinical options. Her bench training in molecular immunology only enhanced her resolve to facilitate the diffusion of innovative science into the practice of medicine.

Dr. McMurry-Heath oversaw health for Senator Joseph Lieberman and was the senior health policy advisor for the Lieberman for President Campaign. She was the founding director of the Aspen Institute's Health, Biomedical Science and Society Initiative, which brought pharmaceutical leaders together with leaders in patient advocacy and health care to focus on projects on issues ranging from regulation to tackling chronic diseases in the context of health insurance reform. Her health diplomacy work included projects in eleven countries, including Cambodia and Rwanda.

From 2010 – 2014, Dr. McMurry-Heath was the Associate Center Director for Science at the US Food and Drug Administration's Center for Devices and Radiological Health. She led the US Food and Drug Administration team tasked with defining a new role for patients in the regulation of medical devices and diagnostics. She drew on this experience as the primary architect of the Medical Device Innovation Consortium, a novel public-private partnership between the US Food and Drug Administration and almost 50 members of the medical technology industry and patient advocacy community. Medical Device Innovation Consortium members have pooled resources and talent to take on some of the most intractable topics in medical device innovation: optimizing clinical trials, applying computer modeling to device design and regulation, compliance science, pathways for insuring the clinical validity of new diagnostics, and the science behind measuring patient preferences. She joined Johnson & Johnson as Worldwide Vice President of Regulatory Affairs for medical devices. Dr. McMurry-Heath studied biochemistry at Harvard University, and went on to become the first African-American to receive both MD and PhD degrees from Duke University.