Joyce A. Sackey D’85
Associate Dean and Chief Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Officer, Stanford Medicine
Dr. Joyce Sackey has been instrumental in the realm of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the United States as well as internationally. Her current positions—as associate dean and chief equity, diversity, and inclusion officer for Stanford Medicine—show her passion for equity and creating inclusive environments, particularly in medical professions. Prior to Stanford, she served as associate provost and chief diversity officer for Tufts University Health Sciences Schools, as the dean for Multicultural Affairs and Global Health in the Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM), and as the Jane Murphy Gaughan Endowed Professor at TUSM. As dean, she oversaw the medical school’s programs that aim to increase the number of underrepresented-in-medicine (URM) students pursuing careers in the biomedical sciences and health professions.
Her international commitments to equity include establishing the Foundation for African Relief (FAR), which provides resources, training, faculty exchanges, and other medical connections between Africa and the U.S., particularly from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), where Dr. Sackey serves as an attending physician in medicine. FAR began as an organization dedicated to improving medical care, especially related to HIV and AIDS, in Dr. Sackey’s native country of Ghana, and it has now expanded to other African countries. This work led to Dartmouth College giving her the Martin Luther King Award for Emerging Leadership in Social Justice in 2003.
Joyce has been dedicated to service in other ways as well, including her current role on the board of directors for the Shapiro Institute for Education and Research at BIDMC and Harvard Medical School (HMS), and as a member of the board of advisors at Geisel School of Medicine. Among her many former professional responsibilities, she was an assistant professor of medicine and associate master for Oliver Wendell Holmes Society at HMS.
The list of Dr. Sackey’s honors spans four decades, dating back to her years as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College when she earned the Charles Tirrell Prize. Since that time, she has earned numerous other awards from Dartmouth College and Dartmouth Medical School, including as part of the Casque and Gauntlet Senior Honor Society, as a Syvertsen Scholar, and as the recipient of the Good Physician Award, selected by her peers. She also earned the Liberating Vision Award from the National Council of Negro Women of Greater Boston. She was chosen as the 2005 alumna of the Dartmouth Medical School chapter of Alpha Omega Alpha.
She earned her MD from Dartmouth Medical School in 1989, and she completed her internship and residency at Beth Israel Hospital, serving as chief medical resident in the primary care program in 1992-93. She completed a Rabkin Senior Fellowship in Medical Education at the Shapiro Institute for Education and Research, BIDMC, and HMC in 2003.
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