Primary Job Title Founder, CEO Primary Organization AbsoluteJOI
Gender Female
LinkedIn View on LinkedIn
A pediatrician and public health specialist, Dr. Beal has devoted her career to providing access to high-quality health care. As PCORI’s first Chief Officer for Engagement, Dr. Beal is charged with ensuring that the voices of patients and other stakeholders are reflected in our growing research portfolio. In her role as Deputy Executive Director,
she helps to see that PCORI works efficiently and effectively to carry out its mission as the nation’s largest research institute focused on patient-centered outcomes research.
Dr. Beal joined PCORI from the Aetna Foundation, the independent charitable and philanthropic arm of Aetna Inc. As President, she led the Foundation’s work on improving health care in the United States, particularly for vulnerable patient groups.
Prior to her work at the Aetna Foundation, Dr. Beal was Assistant Vice President for the Program on Health Care Disparities at the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that aims to promote a high-performing healthcare system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society’s most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults.
Early in her career, Dr. Beal worked with a mobile medical unit project delivering healthcare services to children living in homeless shelters throughout New York City. She was also a health services researcher at the Center for Child and Adolescent Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital. In addition, she was Associate Director of the Multicultural Affairs Office of Massachusetts General Hospital and attending pediatrician within the division of general pediatrics.
In addition to publishing in the peer-reviewed medical literature, Dr. Beal is also the author of The Black Parenting Book: Caring for Our Children in the First Five Years and has been a pediatric commentator and medical correspondent for popular magazines and television shows. Dr. Beal holds a B.A. from Brown University, an M.D. from Cornell University Medical College, and an M.P.H. from Columbia University.
