Susmita Pati, MD, MPH

Susmita Pati MD MPH is a nationally recognized physician-scientist with expertise in advancing health outcomes and workforce development via population health analytics, innovation, and system transformation. Her leadership and management experience includes roles and responsibilities to develop and advance the clinical, educational, and research missions at the departmental, school, university, and health-system levels in large academic medical centers.

Dr. Pati is a tenured professor of pediatrics and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Florida’s College of Medicine – Jacksonville. Previously, she served as the division chief of Primary Care Pediatrics and the Chief Medical Program Advisor for the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science® at Stony Brook University. She joined the Alda Center in 2018 because her more than 20 years of experience strengthened her belief that communication is fundamental to success in building strong health care delivery teams that, in turn, lead to joy and fulfillment at work.

Dr. Pati earned an AB cum laude in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University, a MD from the University of Connecticut, and a MPH in Epidemiology from Columbia University. She completed her pediatric residency, chief residency, and post-doctoral fellowship in general academic medicine at Columbia University. She served on the Board of Directors of the Medical Center Nursery School in northern Manhattan for nearly 15 years. Her team’s work on health outcomes has been published in top-tier scientific journals and she was the principal architect of the national award-winning Keeping Families Healthy program, whereby community health workers function as a direct extension of the pediatrician’s office to help families follow clinical care recommendations. Her leadership of the Hospital-Medical Home Demonstration grant for Stony Brook Medicine leveraged standardization in the ambulatory setting for the Departments of Medicine, Family Medicine, and Pediatrics to achieve and sustain Patient-Centered Medical Home recognition from the National Committee for Quality Assurance with a focus on health outcomes and workforce development. Prior to joining Stony Brook University, she was faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for 8.5 years where she served on the Dean’s program to recruit and retain women faculty in the School of Medicine. In 2018, she was honored to receive the Stony Brook Medicine Dean’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Mentorship. Since 2021, she has also served as an External Advisor to McKinsey and Company, Inc. (a consultancy). In 2024, she was honored by the invitation to join the National Scientific Advisory Board of Children and Screens (a non-profit organization dedicated to enhance our understanding of the impact of digital media on children).