2026 Program on Hypertension: Current State of the Science & Translational Insights

John Wong, MD

Dr. Wong is a professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine, chief of the Division of Clinical Decision Making, vice chair for Academic Affairs, and primary care internist at Tufts Medical Center, Dr Wong is the chair for the US Preventive Services Task Force. His research focuses on the application of decision analysis to help patients, health professionals, and policymakers make informed decisions when choosing among alternative tests, treatments, or health policies, thereby promoting rational evidence-based efficient and effective patient-centered care. His research includes decision analysis, technology assessment, guideline development, appropriate use criteria, evidence synthesis, and shared decision making. After receiving his B.S. in biology with honors from Haverford College and his M.D. from University of Chicago, he completed an internal medicine residency, medical informatics fellowship, and medical chief residency at Tufts Medical Center.

Gbenga Ogedegbe, MD, MPH

Gbenga Ogedegbe, MD, MPH is the inaugural and founding director of the Institute for Excellence in Health Equity (IEHE) at NYU Langone Health. He is the Dr. Adolph & Margaret Berger Professor of Medicine and Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He is a leading NIH-funded scientist in health equity research. He has led numerous NIH-funded studies for cardiovascular disease risk reduction with a focus on developing and evaluating clinic-community linkage models of care to address inequities in health outcomes.

Dr. Ogedegbe is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the United States Prevention Services Task Force (USPSTF). He is a Fellow of many scientific organizations including the American Heart Association, American College of Physicians and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine.

Brent M. Egan, MD

Brent M. Egan, MD is Vice-President, Cardiovascular Health in the Improving Health Outcomes group of the American Medical Association.  He also serves as Professor of Medicine at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Greenville, Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, Adjunct Professor of Public Health Sciences at Clemson University, and previously on the Board of Directors and President of the International Society of Hypertension in Blacks.   He received his medical degree and training in medicine and hypertension at the University of Michigan. His professional interests center on hypertension, metabolic syndrome and vascular disease, which has led to more than 400 original papers and reviews.  For the past 30 years, Dr. Egan has worked and continues to work with colleagues across the healthcare spectrum on translating the evidence-base into better cardiovascular health promotion and disease prevention, especially for medically underserved populations. In 2004, he received an award for Reducing Health Disparities from the U.S. D.H.H.S. at the 50^th anniversary of the Civil Rights Amendment. Dr. Egan received the Louis B. Russell, Jr., Memorial Award from the AHA in 2019 for improving health equity as well as the Marvin B. Moser Award in 2018 from the AHA Hypertension Council for excellence in patient care, research, and training in hypertension.

Stephen Juraschek, MD, PhD

Dr. Juraschek is a physician investigator at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and the Research Director of the AHA-certified Hypertension Center of Excellence at Healthcare Associates. His research includes clinical trials and epidemiologic studies focused on hypertension, nutrition, and cardiovascular disease prevention. He is an internationally recognized expert in orthostatic hypotension and was co-chair of the NHLBI’s 2024 Working Group on blood pressure assessment. He also currently serves on the American Medical Associations’ Validate Blood Pressure committee, AAMI’s Sphygmomanometer Committee, the American Heart Association’s Hypertension Scientific Council, and an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Hypertension. His current work focuses on translational interventions to improve access to healthy foods as well as blood pressure measurement in aging cohorts.

Dayna Johnson, PhD, MPH, MSW, MS

Dr. Dayna A. Johnson is the Rollins Distinguished Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and jointly appointed in the Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health. She is the director of the Sleep Epidemiology Research Group (SERG). Dr. Johnson is a sleep epidemiologist whose research focuses on the social and environmental determinants of sleep health and sleep disorders, and their implications for adverse health outcomes including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and cognitive decline. Dr. Johnson’s research is particularly noted for addressing the underlying social and environmental factors contributing to sleep disorders and insufficient sleep among different populations, with a significant emphasis on African American communities.

Dr. Johnson received her PhD in Epidemiologic Science from the University of Michigan, where she laid the groundwork for her extensive research into sleep health. Following her doctoral studies, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Sleep and Circadian Disorders at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which further solidified her expertise in the field.

Dr. Johnson's research aims to identify and mitigate the factors that contribute to disparities in sleep health. She is actively involved in studies that explore how household and neighborhood-level factors influence sleep patterns and how these patterns affect health outcomes like hypertension. One of her key research projects, the ARISE Study (Assessment of Rhythms in Sleep and the Environment study, a NHLBI R01 grant), focuses on measuring environmental factors in real-time and their impact on sleep and circadian disruption and cardiovascular health (ambulatory blood pressure monitoring and arterial stiffness) among African Americans adults. She is also funded by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine to study the influence of a culturally tailored digital sleep health campaign on promoting better sleep and screening of sleep disorders. In addition to our primary research, she conducts secondary analyses of large epidemiologic cohort studies including Jackson Heart Study, REGARDS, and MESA. As part of SERG, Dr. Johnson leads the sleep reading center at Emory, with expertise in sleep data collection over time and analysis. Dr. Johnson has over 140 publications and numerous appearances in the media as a sleep expert. Her work has been featured on CBS and other prominent platforms, where she discusses strategies to improve sleep health and reduce related health disparities.

Bethany Baron Gibbs, PhD

Bethany Barone Gibbs, PhD, is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at West Virginia University School of Public Health. Her research focuses on physical activity, sedentary behavior, and cardiovascular health, with a particular emphasis on women’s health during and after pregnancy. She leads clinical trials and observational research using device-based measures to understand how movement patterns influence cardiometabolic risk across the life course. Dr. Barone Gibbs is a committed educator and scientific leader, serving on national committees for the America Heart Association and contributing to evidence that informs public health guidelines.

Peter Gianaros, PhD

Peter J. Gianaros, PhD, is faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, with expertise in health neuroscience, psychophysiology, and social health inequalities. His research focuses on the neurobiology of psychological stress and emotion and their relationships to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. He is a former President of the Society for Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine.

Adam Bress, PharmD, MS

Adam Bress, PharmD, MS, is a tenured Professor of Population Health Sciences at the University of Utah and a cardiovascular clinical pharmacist and population health scientist. His research focuses on improving the safe and effective use of medications to prevent cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, supported by more than a decade of continuous NIH funding including multiple R01s, a K24, and a T32. He has published extensively in high-impact journals, led influential analyses from the SPRINT trial, and currently co-leads a major NIH program investigating how intensive blood pressure treatment affects cognitive decline.

Ian Kronish, MD, MPH

Ian Kronish, MD, MPH is Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Associate Director of the Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health. He co-founded the Columbia Hypertension Center and directs Columbia’s Remote Hypertension Monitoring Program. He co-leads the NIH-funded Columbia Roybal Center for Fearless Behavior Change. His research seeks to advance interventions that improve adherence to cardiovascular medications. His research also seeks to develop implementation strategies that increase the uptake of hypertension guidelines into primary care. He contributed to the development of the DOSE-Nonadherence self-report questionnaire for measuring medication nonadherence. He also has expertise in the measurement of medication adherence using electronic monitoring and pharmacy fill data.

Norrina Bai Allen, PhD

Dr. Allen specializes in cardiovascular epidemiology with a focus on health services research. Her research interests include the effect of neighborhood and environment on cardiovascular disease, disparities in quality of care and outcomes as well as the use of large databases to examine these questions.