The Team

Judith (Judi) Brown Clarke, PhD, is a nationally recognized higher education and academic medicine executive, public policy leader, Olympic medalist, and advocate for the intersection of fitness, healthcare, health equity, and research. Her career spans leadership across universities, government, sport, and national nonprofit organizations, where she has consistently worked to build collaborative systems that improve health outcomes, expand opportunity, and strengthen institutions.

Dr. Brown Clarke currently serves as Vice President for Equity & Inclusion and Chief Health Equity Officer at Stony Brook University and Stony Brook Medicine, one of the nation’s leading academic medical centers and research universities. She provides leadership across the university and health system in areas that intersect health equity, public health, research development, organizational effectiveness, and community partnerships. Her work emphasizes integrating research, healthcare delivery, and community engagement to address disparities in health outcomes and improve the effectiveness of academic institutions. Her leadership focuses on evidence-based decision making, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and partnerships that translate research into measurable public benefit.

Through her work in higher education, national sports leadership, and public service, Dr. Brown Clarke remains committed to strengthening institutions and expanding opportunities that improve health, education, and well-being for communities across the nation.

Dr. Rodrigo Valles serves as the Director of the Office of Health Equity & Climate Medicine Research at Stony Brook Medicine, where he leads the institution’s strategy at the nexus of health equity, climate science, and translational innovation. His expertise in data-driven policy strategy, cross-sector systems leadership, and social and environmental determinants of health stems from his years of developing and overseeing large health and research centers.

He is responsible for building the institutional infrastructure required to advance climate-informed, equity-centered research—including faculty development programs, strategic funding initiatives, data and technological integration, and regional partnerships with health systems, municipalities, and public health agencies. His work aligns clinical operations, research strategy, and community priorities to ensure that emerging climate and health challenges are addressed through coordinated, measurable action.

Dr. Valles is positioning Stony Brook as a national leader in climate medicine and health equity by developing models that integrate health data, social determinants, environmental vectors, healthcare infrastructure and community-level indicators to inform research, policy, and care delivery. His leadership emphasizes institutional alignment, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and translating science into sustainable impact at both regional and national levels.

Aaron Zeiler is the Director of Strategic Communications for the Office of Health Equity & Climate Medicine Research. A dedicated research translator and storyteller, Aaron works to build connections between the community and the university. In this role, he focuses on making the office’s communication accessible, supports capacity building efforts, and monitors and evaluates the effectiveness of the office’s outreach efforts.

Aaron’s expertise centers on building the communication capacity of organization and foundations working on public interest technology, civil rights, and public health. He built social media and media relations strategies, facilitated trainings and coachings on storytelling and strategic communication, led the communication efforts of a national non-profit and researched the effectiveness of adopting a public interest-focused approach to communication. Aaron earned his Bachelor of Science in Public Relations and Master of Arts in Mass Communication from the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications.

Dr. Mustafa Abuelqumsan currently serves as a Senior Research Scientist in the Office of Health Equity & Climate Medicine Resilience (HECMR) at Stony Brook. In this role, he advances interdisciplinary research at the intersection of health equity, climate resilience, and data-driven biomedical science. His work focuses on integrating multi-omics, next-generation sequencing (NGS), and advanced machine learning methodologies to address complex health disparities and climate-related health challenges. Through the development of computational tools and reproducible analytical frameworks, he contributes to strengthening evidence-based strategies that enhance resilience in vulnerable populations and improve precision medicine approaches.

Dr. Abuelqumsan earned his Ph.D. in Bioinformatics and Machine Learning from Aix-Marseille University in France, where he developed RNAseqMVA, an R package for evaluating supervised classification methods in RNA-seq and single-cell RNA-seq data. He also holds a Master’s degree in Biostatistics and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer and Data Science from Al-Azhar University. Prior to his current position, he completed a Senior Postdoctoral Research appointment at the Pain and Analgesia Research Center (SPARC) at Stony Brook University Hospital. With extensive academic experience as an Assistant Professor and Lecturer at Al-Azhar University and teaching roles in France, his expertise spans bioinformatics, statistical modeling, artificial intelligence, and high-throughput genomic data analysis.

Noelle is the Coordinator for the Office of Health Equity and Climate Medicine Research. In this role, she collaborates with researchers to help fund their initiatives, focus on maintaining relationships with internal and external partners, identify conferences for networking, event planning, collaborating and tracking funding to monitor utilization of awards and troubleshooting, and provide administrative support for the office. Noelle has ten years of experience serving in administrative roles and has worked at Stony Brook Hospital for four years, first serving as the Coordinator in the Gastroenterology division, providing operational support to maintain accreditation, and ensuring the Fellows maintain their certifications, being integral to the development of the Fellows’ training and pursuit of academic achievement.

For the last 3 years, Noelle has provided support as the administrative coordinator in Graduate Medical Education for all the training programs at the institution. She has a passion for mental health and wellness with a recent certification in mental health first aid. She is currently enrolled in the Master of Health Administration program at Stony Brook where she will continue to pursue her passion for community health and advocacy. Noelle earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature with a Minor in Human Relations from St. Joseph’s University.