Health Equity Advisory Committee

Beatrice P. Concepcion, MD is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee. She is a member of the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, the Vanderbilt Center for Kidney Disease, and the Vanderbilt Transplant Center. She is the Associate Medical Director of the Vanderbilt Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Program.

Dr. Concepcion received her medical school degree in 2004 from the University of the Philippines in Manila, graduating cum laude. She pursued further training in Internal Medicine and Nephrology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, IL, from 2005-2010 where she was Chief Fellow. She completed a fellowship in Transplant Nephrology at Vanderbilt in 2011. After her training, she returned to the Philippines where in addition to pursuing private practice, she joined the Nephrology faculty at her medical school. In 2013, she joined the faculty at Vanderbilt as a transplant nephrologist on the clinician-educator track. Dr. Concepcion is a busy clinician caring for kidney transplant recipients and evaluating recipient and living donor candidates. Since 2015, she has led the Vanderbilt Transplant Center’s outreach efforts to increase access to transplantation for patients living in rural areas. In addition to her numerous clinical and administrative responsibilities, she is actively involved in the education of nephrology fellows, medical residents and medical students, with a focus on kidney transplantation, immunosuppression, and transplant immunology.

Her research interests include increasing access to kidney and pancreas transplantation and improving clinical and patient-centered outcomes of kidney transplant recipients. Dr. Concepcion serves on the United Network for Organ Sharing/Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Kidney Committee as the Region 11 representative. She is an editorial board member of the American Journal of Kidney Diseases and a visual abstract editor for the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

Dr. Vanessa Grubbs is a nephrologist and a writer. She completed undergraduate and medical degrees at Duke University and internal medicine, primary care residency at Highland General Hospital in Oakland, California. She went on to complete a masters in public health from University of California, Berkeley and general medicine clinical research and nephrology fellowships at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). After completing the UCSF nephrology fellowship in 2009, she maintained a clinical practice and research program at San Francisco General Hospital until 2019 at which point she chose to leave academia to focus on writing. She is an alumna of the California Health Care Foundation and Cambia Foundation Sojourns Scholar Leadership Programs for her work in renal palliative care. Her book, HUNDREDS OF INTERLACED FINGERS: A Kidney Doctor’s Search for the Perfect Match (Amistad, 2017), tells her story of becoming a kidney donor, then nephrologist, and her experiences with ethical and controversial topics in nephrology.

Dr. Mohottige is a Nephrologist and Medical Instructor in the Division of Nephrology at Duke University Hospitals. She received a B.A. in Public Policy and a Health Policy Certificate from Duke University in 2006, where she was a Robertson Scholar. She then earned an MPH in Health Behavior/Health Education from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and a medical degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, followed by Internal Medicine and Nephrology training at Duke University. She now works under the mentorship of Dr. Ebony Boulware and Dr. Clarissa Diamantidis to engage in patient and community-centered, inequity-focused research around the impact of socio-structural factors on kidney health and kidney transplantation.

Dr. Seliby Perkins is a graduate of the University of California, Davis; and the University of Alabama, Birmingham School of Medicine. She received her residency training from the Spartanburg Regional Family Medicine Program in South Carolina, and the former Health and Media fellow of Georgetown SOM’s Department of Family Medicine. Dr. Seliby is currently a College Health physician here at Georgetown’s Student Health Center, an Assistant Professor in the School of Medicine, and Medical Editor of Heart & Soul magazine.

Her accomplishments include: Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) 2016 & 2017 Annual Legislative Conference panelist, Congressional Tri-Caucus Minority Health Disparities Summit speaker, 2015 Society of Teachers of Family Medicine New Faculty Scholar and CBC/NMQF 2016 40 Under 40 Leaders in Minority Health Honoree. She recently became a young professional member of the National Minority Quality Forum Advisory Board; and was featured on Upworthy.com for her advocacy and work in Preventive Medicine. Dr. Seliby’s hope is to aggressively influence positive change in health care disparities, health education of underserved populations, and mentorship to impact success rates of diverse students in medicine.

Dr. Velma Scantlebury-White is a Barbadian-born American transplant surgeon. She was the first African American woman transplant surgeon of the United States. She has received many honors in her career, having been named to both the "Best Doctors in America" and "Top Doctors in America" lists multiple times, most recently in 2018 and 2019.

Dr. Scantlebury has been awarded the Woman of Spirit Award for inspiring others and the "Gift of Life Award" from the National Kidney Foundation. In addition to recognition by the Caribbean American Medical and Scientific Association, she received the Order of Barbados Gold Crown of Merit, for her efforts to educate minorities about organ transplant. She has performed over 2,000 transplants and published many peer-reviewed papers.

She received her training with the renowned pioneer, Dr. Thomas Starzl, MD, PhD at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where she worked her way up to associate professor of Surgery by 2002 and was recruited by the University of South Alabama (USA) as a surgical professor and as director of the USA's Gulf Coast Regional Transplant Centre . In 2008 she moved to Delaware to join the Christiana Care Health System, as Associate Director of the Kidney Transplant Program and Director of Outpatient Services, serving until 2020.

Dr. Scantlebury has been involved with the need to educated minority communities regarding the need for more organ donors and the rising number of patients in need of transplantation. She has worked with National MOTTEP (Minority Organ and Tissue Transplant Educational Program), promoting education regarding the higher incidence of renal failure and the need for dialysis within the African American community.

She has also served on the Board of Donate Life America, and currently is a member of the Medical Advisory Board of the Gift of Life, here in Philadelphia PA.

Dr. Scantlebury continues to mentor young students, both high school, college and medical school and is actively involved in her community through her volunteer work with the Wilmington Chapter of the Links, Inc, as well as an Honorary Member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Wilmington DE chapter.

Dr. Scantlebury is married to Dr. Harvey White, a Professor at University of Delaware, and is the mother of 2 young ladies, Akela and Aisha White.

Dr. Vargas is the Assistant Dean for Health Policy and Inter-Professional Education at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, and the Direct of Health Services Research and Policy Core at the Urban Health Institute. His professional interests combine health services research, clinical care, and community collaborative partnerships towards the design, implementation, and testing of interventions to promote equal access to quality health care and to reduce health disparities. This currently includes serving as Principal Investigator on a National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) R24 funded partnership with community-based organizations and safety-net health care providers to reduce disparities in cardiovascular disease detection, treatment, and poor health outcomes in South Los Angeles. He also serves as the academic chair for the Community Academic Council of the NIH National Cancer Institute funded U54 CDU/UCLA Cancer Center Partnership to Eliminate Cancer Health Disparities. Aside from research activities he serves on the Medical Executive Advisory Board of the National Kidney Foundation of Southern California. Dr. Vargas is board certified in Internal Medicine. He completed a fellowship in General Internal Medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard University School of Medicine and a master’s degree in Public Health at the Harvard School Public Health. He did his residency and chief residency in the Yale Primary Care Internal Medicine Residency Program, received his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College, and his undergraduate degree in the History and Sociology of Science from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Washington is an Associate Professor at the University of Georgia’s School of Social Work. She received her MSW at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University/University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and her PhD in Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests include caregiving and chronic kidney disease self-management. She is the recipient of several research and training grants, including the John A. Hartford Doctoral Fellowship, and has authored or co-authored peer-reviewed articles in The Gerontologists, Social Work in Public Health, and Social Work Research. She currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Nephrology Social Work and BMC Nephrology. Dr. Washington’s teaching interests encompass aging and health, social work practice in health care settings, generalists social work practice, and service-learning.