Meet New AAP President Dr. Lee Savio Beers, Rise in Non-fatal Drug Overdoses – Episode 40

Lee Ann Savio Beers, MD, FAAP, is the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, a Professor of Pediatrics and the Medical Director for Community Health and Advocacy at Children’s National Hospital.  She is the Founding Director of the DC Mental Health Access in Pediatrics program and Co-Director of the Early Childhood Innovation Network.  She also oversees the Child Health Advocacy Institute’s Community Mental Health CORE, a public-private coalition that serves as a catalyst to elevate the standard of mental health care for every young person in Washington, DC. She received the Academic Pediatric Association 2019 Public Policy and Advocacy Award.   

Douglas Roehler, PhD, MPH, serves as an epidemiologist for the Cannabis Strategy Unit in the Division of Overdose Prevention at CDC. His work at CDC has focused on coordinating and implementing CDC’s cannabis strategic plan, expanding cannabis surveillance and research, and building surveillance and prevention capacity for drug-related overdoses. He earned his doctorate from the University of Michigan School of Public Health and completed his postdoctoral training at Rush University Medical Center in the Department of Pediatrics.

Mekala Neelakantan is a fourth-year medical student at the Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine. She is passionate about pediatrics, mentorship, and medical education and hopes to become a neonatologist one day.  Mekala has always been a fan of the arts (that’s what her name means!); music and writing have played a significant role in her life, and she strives to incorporate these interests into medicine whenever she can.