Health Equity Champion

Roland J. Thorpe, Jr., PhD, MS, is a Professor in the Department of Health, Behavior, and Society, Founding Director of the Program of Men’s Health Research in the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions (HCHDS), Deputy Director of HCHDS, and Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Alzheimer’s Disease Resource Center for Minority Aging Research at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He holds joint appointments in the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology in the Department of Medicine, the Department of Neurology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and the Department of Sociology at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Thorpe is a social epidemiologist whose research focuses on the association of how social determinants of health impact health and functional outcomes among men across the life course. Dr. Thorpe serves as principal investigator on several NIA-funded grants: Stress and Mortality among Black Men Study, Stress and Longevity among African American Families Study, and the Johns Hopkins Alzheimer’s Disease Resource Center for Minority Aging Research. He is an MPI of the Artificial Intelligence/ Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity (AIM-AHEAD) with a focus on increasing the participation and engagement of the researchers and communities that are currently underrepresented in AI/ML modeling and applications through mutually beneficial partnerships. Dr. Thorpe is the inaugural Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Diversity where he focuses on addressing concerns and challenges associated with the diversification of the academic workforce. He participates in several training programs designed to develop under-represented minorities at many career stages. He is a past recipient of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Advising, Mentoring, and Teaching Recognition Award, the inaugural annual 2018 NHLBI OHD PRIDE Roland J. Thorpe, Jr. mentoring award, recipient of the 2020 Minority Issues in Gerontology Outstanding Mentorship Award and the 2020 JHBSPH Dean’s Award of Distinction in Faculty Mentoring. Dr. Thorpe is also the Editor in Chief of Ethnicity & Disease, Associate Editor for Innovation in Aging, Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, and American Journal of Men’s Health.

Dr. Thorpe earned a bachelor’s in theoretical mathematics from Florida A&M University, a master’s in statistics, a Ph.D. in clinical epidemiology with a graduate minor in gerontology from Purdue University, and received postdoctoral training in health disparities and gerontology from the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.