Wally Smith

Professor and Scientific Director, Virginia Commonwealth University Center on Health Disparities; Director, Adult Sickle Cell Program, Florence Neal Cooper Smith Professor of Sickle Cell Disease, Virginia Commonwealth University

Wally Smith, M.D., is a general internist, health services researcher, and a national authority on health disparities, quality improvement, and sickle cell disease. He cares for over 400 adult patients with sickle cell disease. He was the Principal Investigator (PI) of the Pain in Sickle Cell Epidemiology Study (PiSCES), the largest and most detailed adult cohort study of sickle cell pain. He was Virginia PI of the Sickle Cell Disease Clinical Research Network. He is now the PI of the Start Healing in Patients with Hydroxyurea (SHiP HU) Study.

He has served on the Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee, published over 100 manuscripts, obtained over 50 externally funded grants, been a division chief, directed a HRSA-funded general internal medicine fellowship, and mentored many minority researchers to independent funding. He has also served as Scientific Director of the VCU Center on Health Disparities, Secretary of the Society of General Internal Medicine, and was the first African-American Robert Wood Johnson Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar. He was a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Standards for Developing Trustworthy Clinical Practice Guidelines.