The Lisa Cooper Lab is dedicated to researching patient-centered interventions for improving health outcomes and overcoming racial and ethnic disparities in health care. Our primary focus is on the factors of physician communication skills and cultural competence training, patient shared decision-making and self-management skills training. Recently, we have explored patient-centered depression care for African Americans, tactics for improving patient-physician communication about management of hypertension, and reducing ethnic and social disparities in health. In addition, we are currently researching racial disparities in cardiovascular health outcomes for patients living in Baltimore.

Research in the Nicola Heller Lab focuses on the immunobiology of macrophages. Our team explores how these cells impact diseases with an inflammatory element, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and obesity. Using a variety of techniques, including molecular and cellular biology, biochemistry, mouse models and more, we study the role of IL-4/IL-13 signaling in asthma and allergic disease, as well as the role of alternatively activated macrophages (AAM) in the pathogenesis of allergic inflammation. Currently, we are researching the links between asthma and obesity, with a focus on the roles of gender and race.

The Nicholas Flavahan Lab primarily researches the cellular interactions and subcellular signaling pathways that control normal vascular function and regulate the initiation of vascular disease. We use biochemical and molecular analyses of cellular mediators and cell signaling mechanisms in cultured vascular cells, while also conducting physiological assessments and fluorescent microscopic imaging of signaling systems in isolated blood vessels. A major component of our research involves aterioles, tiny blood vessles that are responsible for controlling the peripheral resistance of the cardiovascular system, which help determine organ blood flow.

I am a primary care doctor and public health researcher committed to improving women’s health and health care across their lives and improving gender and racial equity.

I am an Associate Professor of Medicine in The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine. My research focuses on identifying strategies to prevent and manage obesity and type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, particularly among women at highest risk due to pregnancy complications. I conduct pragmatic and community-based randomized controlled trials to test high impact and scalable strategies to reduce excessive weight gain in pregnancy, reduce postpartum weight retention and cardiometabolic risk.

I hold several leadership positions, and I am the Director of Research at Johns Hopkins Community Physicians, the Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Women’s Health, Sex and Gender Research and a Core Faculty Member of the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research.