John Lumpkin, M.D., M.P.H

John Lumpkin, M.D., M.P.H., is the senior vice president and the director of the Health Care Group. He is responsible for the overall planning, budgeting, staffing, management and evaluation of all program and administrative activities for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Health Care Group. Before joining the Foundation in April 2003, Lumpkin served as director of the Illinois Department of Public Health for 12 years. During his more than 17 years with the department, he served as acting director and prior to that as associate director.

Lumpkin has participated directly in the health and health care system, first practicing emergency medicine and teaching medical students and residents at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. After earning his M.P.H. in 1985, he began caring for the more than 12 million people of Illinois as the first African- American director of the state public health agency with more than 1,300 employees in seven regional offices, three laboratories and locations in Springfield and Chicago. He led improvements to programs dealing with women's and men's health, information and technology, emergency and bioterrorism preparedness, infectious disease prevention and control, immunization, local health department coverage and the state's laboratory services.

Lumpkin is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and a fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians and the American College of Medical Informatics. He has been chairman of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, and served on the US Department of Agriculture’s Council on Maternal, Infant and Fetal Nutrition, the Advisory Committee to the Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institute of Medicine's Committee on Assuring the Health of the Public in the 21st Century. He has served on the boards of directors for the Public Health Foundation and National Quality Forum, as president of the Illinois College of Emergency Physicians and the Society of Teachers of Emergency Medicine, and as speaker and board of director’s member of the American College of Emergency Physicians. He has received the Arthur McCormack Excellence and Dedication in Public Health Award from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), the Jonas Salk Health Leadership Award and the Leadership in Public Health Award from the Illinois Public Health Association. Lumpkin also has been the recipient of the Bill B. Smiley Award, Alan Donaldson Award, African American History Maker, and Public Health Worker of the Year of the Illinois Public Health Association. He is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters.

Lumpkin earned his M.D. and B.M.S. degrees from Northwestern University Medical School and his M.P.H. from the University of Illinois School of Public Health. He was the first African American trained in emergency medicine in the country after completing his residency at the University of Chicago. He has served on the faculty of the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and University of Illinois at Chicago and has taught at Princeton University.