Dr. Ala Stanford is founder of the Black Doctors Consortium, a national leader in health equity, a health care policy advisor, and former regional director of the US Department of Health and Human Services of the mid-Atlantic appointed by President Biden. In May 2024 she was appointed Professor of Practice in Biology at the University of Pennsylvania with two additional appointments in the Perelman School of Medicine and Annenberg School for Communication. A practicing physician for over twenty years and founder of R.E.A.L. Concierge Medicine, Dr. Stanford is board-certified by the American Board of Surgery in both pediatric and adult general surgery and serves as a medical and health correspondent for national media outlets. Dr. Stanford gained international recognition during the COVID-19 pandemic for using the infrastructure of her pediatric surgery practice to create a grassroots organization focused on education, testing, contact tracing, and vaccination in communities lacking access to care and resources. She and her team provided direct care for hundreds of thousands, and countless others nationwide through her organization’s messaging. She subsequently opened a multidisciplinary ambulatory care center bearing her name in a neighborhood in Philadelphia with one of the lowest life expectancies in the city.

Dr. Stanford has received many awards and honors, including recognition as a Top 10 CNN Hero, one of Fortune Magazine’s “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders,” and one of Forbes’s Most Influential Women. She has also received the American College of Surgeons 2023 Domestic Surgical Volunteerism Award and the George H.W. Bush Points of Light Award. She was selected as 2024 Distinguished Alumni from The Pennsylvania State University, and the City of Philadelphia commissioned a street in her name. She lives in the suburbs of Philadelphia with her husband and children.