Dr. Lauren Smith

Lauren Smith, M.D., MPH, is the vice president of Strategic Portfolios at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).

In this role, Smith serves as a member of the Foundation’s senior leadership team and will oversee strategy development, implementation, and management of RWJF’s key focus areas, or strategic portfolios, which include Healthy Children and Families, Healthy Communities, Leadership for Better Health, and Transforming Health and Healthcare Systems programs.

In her prior role with the CDC Foundation, Smith was pivotal in developing and driving strategic efforts to embed health equity across the organization’s activities. She focused on addressing structural inequities affecting marginalized populations’ health, wellbeing, and resiliency.

Smith’s career includes leadership positions at FSG, a leading social impact consulting firm, where she served as co-CEO and led the U.S. health practice. Her visionary leadership contributed to the firm’s growth and mission of achieving lasting and equitable social impact. Before FSG, Smith was senior strategic advisor for the National Institute for Children’s Health Quality. She has also served as medical director and interim commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, as the national medical director of the Medical Legal Partnership for Children, and as the medical director of the pediatric inpatient service at Boston Medical Center.

Smith’s experience in federal and state government includes roles as a policy analyst in the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and as a W.T. Grant Health Policy Fellow in the office of the Massachusetts Speaker of the House.

Smith currently serves on the board of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Health Law Advocates, and Zero to Three. She has published extensively in the peer-reviewed literature on health equity and the implication of social policies on child and family wellbeing. She has also served on numerous national and state advisory committees focused on public health and health care.

Smith holds a B.A .with honors in biology from Harvard College, an M.D. from University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, and an MPH from University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health. She completed her pediatrics residency and chief residency at Children’s Hospital Boston and her general pediatrics fellowship at Boston Medical Center, Department of Pediatrics.