Dr. McCrea works with Admissions, Educational Affairs, Student Affairs and Alumni Engagement on best practices for diversity, equity and inclusion in medicine and biomedical sciences, and serves as a resource for affiliate sites for education and training in bias and anti-racism. Dr. McCrea is also an associate professor in the Department of Family, Community & Preventive Medicine, and former program director of the Drexel/Tower Health Family Medicine Residency. He is the program director for the Drexel Pathway to Medical School, a post-baccalaureate pipeline program focused on students historically underrepresented and financially disenfranchised.

After earning his human biology degree at Brown University, Dr. McCrea earned his MD and Master of Public Health from the University of Pittsburgh. He then trained in family medicine at Crozer-Keystone Health System. Upon completion of his residency, he was recruited to join the faculty of Crozer-Keystone’s Family Medicine Residency Program, where he subsequently became the associate program director. Dr. McCrea’s academic interests include curriculum development, mentorship and competency-based evaluation. His clinical interests include women’s health, adolescent medicine, contraception, men’s health and office-based procedures. He was asked to serve on the membership committee of the Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors and subsequently served on the Diversity and Health Equity Task Force. He has served on the board of directors of the Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors. Dr. McCrea currently serves on the board of directors for the Family Medicine Educational Consortium and was recently elected to the position of president-elect. He is a national speaker and educator in leadership and currently serves as distinguished faculty in the American Academy of Family Physicians Chief Resident Leadership Development Program.

Maranda C. Ward, Ed.D, MPH

Maranda C. Ward, Ed.D, MPH, is an assistant professor and director of equity in the Department of Clinical Research and Leadership in the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dr. Ward is an expert in advancing anti-racism efforts within health professions education and in designing curricula to enable students and faculty to competently promote health and racial equity in practice. Her research focuses on diversity, equity, inclusion, justice and antiracism educational interventions as well as stakeholder-engaged community-focused studies on HIV, Black women's health, and youth identity. As a member of the DC Center for AIDS Research (DC CFAR), she is the principal investigator on Two in One: HIV and COVID Screening & Testing Model that allows her to lead a national research-based educational intervention for primary care practitioners to routinize screenings for HIV, PrEP/PEP, and the COVID vaccine. This research will lead to a set of policy recommendations for overall practice-based changes for all patients and culturally responsive messaging for racial, ethnic, sexual and gender minoritized patients. She is also skilled in the application of participatory action research methods.

We would like to acknowledge the significant contributions of Nikhil Kalita, BS and Sadhana Matheswaran for their roles in researching, compiling, and editing content for this 9-part course series.