The Department of Pediatrics is pleased to announce the appointment of Marietta Vázquez, MD, associate professor of pediatrics, as vice chair for diversity, equity and inclusion. Vazquez is a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Yale School of Medicine. She graduated cum laude from Yale University in 1990. She then attended the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine and returned to Yale to complete her pediatric residency and fellowship in pediatric Infectious Diseases. Vázquez obtained a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Minority Medical Faculty Development Award. She has been serving as associate residency program director in pediatrics, director of the Yale Pediatrics Global Health Track and director of the Yale Children’s Hospital Hispanic Clinic. An accomplished researcher in the clinical epidemiology of infectious diseases in children, she was the first Latina to be appointed by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) as a voting member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
In September 2017, Vazquez played an integral part in starting and organizing a grass roots movement for post-disaster humanitarian medical relief for Puerto Rico. Uniting a small group of medical Puerto Rican diaspora at Yale one week after hurricane Maria, YNHH became the first U.S medical center to send a large medical relief directly to the doorstep of a hospital in Puerto Rico. She has participated in diversity and inclusion speaking events at YNHH and at Yale School of Medicine and is an active mentor in minority organizations at both Yale College and Yale School of Medicine.
In her new role, Vazquez will be responsible for developing and implementing a strategy for the department’s efforts in supporting and expanding diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Department of Pediatrics.