Susanne Nicholas, MD, MPH, PhD (Past-President)
Dr. Nicholas is a tenured Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Hypertension Specialist. She received her MD from the University of California, San Diego; her Master’s in Public Health from San Diego State University; and PhD in Physiology from UCLA; and is a graduate of the UCLA Scientific Training and Research (STAR) program and the Harold Amos Faculty Development Program. Dr. Nicholas is a member of the American Heart Association Kidney Cardiovascular Council; the American Medical Association-AHA Target: Blood Pressure Advisory Group; and the Board of Directors of the NKF California, Nevada & Pacific Northwest. She served as an Executive Councilor since 2018, was President Elect in 2022 and was the 2023-2024 President of Women In Nephrology, which celebrated 40 years in existence in 2024. She has received several awards including the National Kidney Foundation Medical Advisory Board Distinguished Service Award, the Minority Access, Inc. National Role Model Faculty Researcher Award. She was selected as a Los Angeles’ Top Doctor by the Los Angeles Business Journal and is recipient of the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Fellowship Award. She is NIH-funded and is involved in basic research on drug development of novel therapies for patients with diabetes and kidney disease, for which she received the Drug Development Consortium Innovation Award and translational research that uses machine learning to identify targetable risk factors for chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression, particularly in racial and ethnic minority individuals. She directs and co-directs several NIH-funded fellowship training programs, is Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology with >120 original publications, reviews and book chapters on diabetic kidney disease, hypertension and health disparities, and has presented >150 abstracts at scientific meetings.