Tina L. Cheng, MD, MPH

Tina Cheng, MD, MPH, is the B.K. Rachford Professor and Chair of Pediatrics for the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, director of the Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation, and chief medical officer at Cincinnati Children’s, a nonprofit, comprehensive pediatric health system. As the leader in improving child health, Cincinnati Children's pushes the boundaries of what's possible in research, clinical care, education and innovation, so that every child can live their best possible life. The organization is consistently named one of the top 3 pediatric hospitals in the nation in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Children’s Hospitals Honor Roll, and is the #3 recipient of pediatric research grants from the National Institutes of Health. Cheng’s clinical work, teaching, research and advocacy focus on child, adolescent and family perspectives on improving health, as well as community-integrated models to interrupt the intergenerational cycle of disadvantage, and innovation for excellent and equitable health outcomes.

Cheng was previously chair of pediatrics and pediatrician-in-chief at Johns Hopkins University. For 15 years, she co-led the National Institutes of Health-funded DC-Baltimore Research Center on Child Health Disparities. Cheng also co-led the establishment of two clinical and research innovation centers at Johns Hopkins—the Rales Center on the Integration of Health and Education and Johns Hopkins Center for Salud/(Health) and Opportunity for Latinos (Centro SOL). At Cincinnati Children’s, she helped to establish the Michael Fisher Child Health Equity Center and the Mental and Behavioral Health Institute.

An author of over 200 publications, Cheng has been the principal investigator on numerous federal and foundation grants, including grants from the National Institute of Child Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Maternal and Child Health Bureau, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. A leader in policy and education, she has led initiatives to strengthen investments in all children, adolescents and families and develop the next generation of diverse child health researchers. She led the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) “Seven Great Achievements in Pediatric Research” campaign.

An elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, Cheng co-led the National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) study on “Improving the Health and Wellbeing of Children and Youth through Health Care System Transformation” in 2024 and was a member of the NASEM committee on “Addressing the Long-Term Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children and Families.”

She is President-Elect of the Association of Medical School Pediatric Department Chairs (AMSPDC), past president of the Academic Pediatric Association (APA) and past chair of the AAP Committee on Pediatric Research. She has been recognized with the AAP Education Award, Job Lewis Smith Award for Community Pediatrics, and the APA Public Policy and Advocacy Award. In 2024, she was named one of America’s 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives by the trade publication Modern Healthcare.

Cheng graduated from Brown University’s seven-year program in medicine, and completed her pediatrics residency and chief residency at the University of California, San Francisco and San Francisco General Hospital. Cheng received her master’s degree in public health in epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley. She completed her preventive medicine residency at UC Berkeley and her fellowship in academic general pediatrics at the University of Massachusetts.