Monica Vela, MD

Dr. Monica Vela joined the University of Illinois College of Medicine as Professor of Medicine and Director of the Hispanic Center of Excellence in 2021. She serves as an Associate Editor for JAMA Network Open. She is member of the AAMC Committee for Holistic Review and serves the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education as an Equity Matters Program facilitator.  She served as the Associate Vice Chair for Diversity and Associate Dean at University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine where she directed a required first year medical student course providing a structural competency foundation in health equity and advocacy.   

She became a HRSA funded investigator in 2023. She has published over 50 peer reviewed articles and a chapters related to physician workforce diversity, health disparities, and medical education in such journals as JAMA, Lancet, New England Journal and Academic Medicine. Her work has been cited in the Supreme Court writ Fisher vs University of Texas at Austin (the most important writ to date on the use of race in admissions processes in higher education).   Major awards include the 2012 National Award for Diversity and Access to Care, American College of Physicians, 2014 National Nickens Award for Diversity and Minority Health, SGIM, 2014 AOA National Fellow in Leadership Award (Inaugural), 2014 Distinguished Faculty Award for Community Service and Advocacy, University of Chicago, 2017 University of Chicago’s Biological Science Division Distinguished Senior Faculty Award: Diversity and Inclusion, 2019 UChicago Campus Wide Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Diversity Leadership Award, 2019 Phil De Chavez LMSA National Mentor of the Year Award, and the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine Favorite Faculty Teaching Award selected by 12 distinct graduating classes at the University of Chicago in 13 years.