As Executive Director for the Sutter Health Institute for Advancing Health Equity, Dr. Kristen M.J. Azar, RN PhD, leads an experienced, multidisciplinary group of clinicians, researchers and administrators. The team is focused on using resources and data within Sutter’s integrated network to incubate innovative solutions to eliminate health disparities. Over the past several years, the IAHE team has generated data-driven insights, innovative methodologies and pragmatic solutions that can be directly applied into clinical settings to improve outcomes for Sutter’s patients and those across the country.

Dr. Azar joined Sutter Health’s research enterprise in 2009. Since then, she has led numerous published studies in the areas of health disparities, health equity, cardiometabolic disease and mental health. Her research is aimed at identifying and addressing health disparities and examining the impact of social determinants of health on chronic disease risk and management. She has diverse clinical experience as a public health and preventive cardiology nurse in and outside the U.S., and has worked with racially, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse populations. She has led IAHE since its official establishment, in December 2020, as its inaugural director.

Dr. Azar holds graduate degrees in nursing and public health from Johns Hopkins in nursing and public health. She completed undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley and obtained a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Johns Hopkins University. She is a member of the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, as well as the Delta Omega Honor Society for Public Health. Additionally, she was named a Fellow of the American Heart Association in 2018 and has served as a faculty member with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement since 2023. She completed her doctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco with a PhD in Epidemiology and Translational Science.