Tanjala Purnell PhD, MPH

Dr. Tanjala Purnell is an assistant professor of transplant surgery, epidemiology, and health behavior and society at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Her AHRQ- and NIH-funded research focuses on addressing factors that contribute to health disparities for adults with chronic kidney disease and related risk factors, including diabetes and hypertension. Her research findings have been published in leading journals, including JAMA, Health Affairs, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, and American Journal of Transplantation. Dr. Purnell is the director of education at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, where she leads the center's award-winning educational and training initiatives for clinical and public health scholars working to address health disparities. Her research aims to increase public awareness of the serious nature of kidney disease. She also has a national appointment as the Region 2 Representative to the OPTN/UNOS Minority Affairs Committee. In this role she provides insights from her research to help inform national transplant policy development and new research projects to promote equity in access to transplantation in the United States.