Will Ross, MD, MPH, FASN, FACP, FSACME
Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
Over the past nearly three decades, Will Ross, MD, MPH, associate dean for diversity, principal officer for community partnerships, and alumni endowed professor at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis (WUSTL School of Medicine), has focused his career on eliminating health care disparities and diversifying the health care workforce.
Dr. Ross was a member of the founding advisory panel that established the Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience in 2013, a rigorous, four-year, public magnet high school program, in St. Louis, Missouri. The program’s curriculum emphasizes science and math, while drawing students from backgrounds that have been historically underrepresented in medicine.
At WUSTL School of Medicine, Dr. Ross’ efforts have helped increase matriculation rates for students from underrepresented groups, from 5.7% in 1997 to 30% in 2023. Historically marginalized communities also benefitted from medical care delivered by WUSTL School of Medicine students at free, neighborhood health clinics, which have since transitioned to an interprofessional health clinic.
Dr. Ross was a charter member of the St. Louis Regional Health Commission, which has leveraged more than $500 million to maintain a network of primary care clinics and public health services in medically underserved communities.
Globally, he has collaborated with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and public health officials in Ethiopia and Haiti. He coauthored two books that investigate the intersection of gender, race, and poverty, and the health outcomes.
Dr. Ross’ dedication to increasing diversity and inclusion in the health care workforce, coupled with his strong skill set as a health policy leader, led his WUSTL School of Medicine peers to select him unanimously to be the institution’s nominee for the 2024 Louis W. Sullivan, MD, Award. He has received numerous other awards, including the 2005 State of Missouri Dr. Martin Luther King Distinguished Service in Medicine Award and the 2022 American College of Physicians’ Oscar E. Edwards Memorial Award for Volunteerism and Community Service.
Despite his many accolades, Dr. Ross continues to advance equity in health care, earning him recognition as the St. Louis American 2022 Person of the Year. In a profile story by the St. Louis American newspaper, Dr. Ross mentioned that he’s “not satisfied when tens of thousands or millions of people go to bed hungry. I cannot be satisfied when people are dying from preventable disease, when whole communities in Ethiopia or in Haiti are jeopardized, when we have epidemics of hunger and violence on a global level.” It’s that passion for healing all people worldwide that drives Dr. Ross.
Dr. Ross earned a BS from Yale University in 1980 and an MD from WUSTL School of Medicine in 1984. He completed an internal medicine internship and residency at Vanderbilt University and a fellowship training in nephrology at Washington University in 1990. In 2008, he received an MPH in epidemiology from the Saint Louis University School of Public Health.