KINGSTON, R.I. – February 24, 2016 – The director of the Rhode Island Department of Health will lecture at the University of Rhode Island March 1 on health disparities in the state.
Sponsored by the URI Multicultural Student Nurses Association, Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott’s talk will be held at 7 p.m. in the Center for Biotechnology and Life Sciences, Room 10, 120 Flagg Road, Kingston campus. The program is free and open to the public.
The state health director since May 2015, Alexander-Scott brings tremendous experience to the position from her work as a specialist in infectious diseases for children and adults at hospitals in Rhode Island affiliated with Brown University and at the Rhode Island Department of Health. In her time as director of health, Alexander-Scott has made the achievement of optimal health for every community throughout Rhode Island the principal focus of the department.
Under Alexander-Scott, the department’s three leading priorities are addressing the social and environmental determinants of health; eliminating health disparities and promoting health equity; and ensuring access to quality health services for all Rhode Islanders, including the state’s vulnerable populations.
Prior to her appointment as director, Alexander-Scott’s clinical and academic responsibilities were balanced by her work as a consultant medical director for the Office of HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STDs, and TB in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology at the health department. Alexander-Scott is board certified in pediatrics, internal medicine, pediatric infectious diseases, and adult infectious diseases. She obtained a master’s degree in public health from Brown University in 2011. She is an assistant professor of pediatrics and medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and is an assistant professor of health services, policy, and practice at the Brown University School of Public Health.
Originally from Brooklyn, N.Y., Alexander-Scott attended Cornell University, majoring in Human Development and Family Studies, and subsequently graduated from medical school in 2001 from the State University of New York Upstate Medical University at Syracuse. After completing a combined internal medicine-pediatrics residency at SUNY Stony Brook University Hospital in 2005, Alexander-Scott finished a four-year combined fellowship in adult and pediatric infectious diseases at Brown University in 2009.