Theme: Beyond Boundaries – Innovating for a Healthier Tomorrow

TEDxNYU Langone Health welcomes inspirational stories from its diverse community on how they have used innovation, collaboration, creativity, and resilience to improve the lives of others around them.

Murphy Auditorium
550 First Avenue
New York, New York, 10016
United States

Christopher Petrilli, MD

Associate Professor, Department of Medicine and Senior Director, Revenue Cycle Operations Management

Dr. Petrilli is dedicated to enhancing the quality of care and improving clinical revenue cycle operations. His role involves overseeing all clinical aspects of the revenue cycle, ensuring accuracy, compliance, and revenue optimization while aligning with clinical operations. He is passionate about patient-centered care and committed to ensuring the best outcomes for our patients and the health system. He has led transformative initiatives that foster collaboration between finance, clinical, and operations departments to ensure appropriate reimbursement for the care NYU Langone provides. He has lectured and collaborated with clinicians and researchers internationally, further enriching his research and clinical perspectives.

Debra Albert, DNP, MBA, RN, NEA-BC

Chief Nursing Officer and Senior Vice President for Patient Care Services, Lerner Director of Health Promotion

Dr. Albert is the Chief Nursing Officer and Senior Vice President for Patient Care Services, as well as the Lerner Director of Health Promotion at NYU Langone.

Eduardo Rodriguez, MD, DDS

Helen L. Kimmel Professor of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery and Chair, Hansjorg Wyss Department of Plastic Surgery

Dr. Rodriguez treats patients who’ve had traumatic injuries resulting from boating or motor vehicle accidents as well as those with disfigurement due to cancer treatment, congenital birth defects such as cleft lip, and skeletal, jaw, or skull abnormalities. He also specializes in microsurgery. Many of the most important advances in reconstructive and cosmetic surgery were developed at NYU Langone. He has been involved in a significant amount of research that has led to great improvements in facial transplantation, and he serves as director of our Face Transplant Program. His group's work has made this procedure safer and more feasible for wounded veterans, civilians, and first responders. He also leads NYU Langone’s Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cosmetic Plastic Surgery Center.

Fritz François, MD

Executive Vice President and Vice Dean, Chief of Hospital Operations

Fritz François, MD, executive vice president and vice dean, chief of hospital operations, oversees all patient care activity on the Manhattan campus, ensuring the highest levels of quality and safety. Dr. François previously served as chief medical officer and professor in the Division of Gastroenterology in the Department of Medicine at NYU Langone Health. In this role, he led transformative efforts around value-based management and guided the 2018 opening of Kimmel Pavilion and Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone. Dr. François also served as a frontline architect of key operational initiatives to standardize quality patient care, proactively develop patient safety risk reduction strategies, and improve patient satisfaction.

Jeffrey Held

Head Chef, Sustainability and Wellness

Jeffrey is the Head Chef of Sustainability and Wellness at NYU Langone Health.

Marie Bragg, PhD

Assistant Professor, Department of Population Health

Dr. Bragg's research interests focus on identifying and affecting environmental and social factors associated with obesity, food marketing, and health disparities. Her work is funded through the National Institutes of Health Director’s Early Independence Award, a High-Risk, High-Reward Research program grant. Her recent studies have examined the food and beverage industry’s use of professional-athlete and music-celebrity endorsements in promoting unhealthy products; evaluated various advertising techniques used on packaged foods in supermarkets; quantified the nutritional quality of sugary-beverage ads in Accra, Ghana, and the Lower East Side in Manhattan; and assessed intrapersonal and social factors that influence food and beverage preferences.

Megan Morris, PhD

Member of the Faculty, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine

Her research and advocacy are deeply informed by both her personal and professional experiences with ableism in the healthcare setting. To facilitate the translation of research to practice and policy, she founded and currently directs the Disability Equity Collaborative, a community dedicated to advancing equitable care for people with disabilities. A key component of this collaborative is its learning collaborative with membership of over 50 healthcare organizations that meet regularly and are committed to advancing disability equity within their institutions.

Melanie Jay, MD

Professor, Department of Medicine and Department of Population Health

As obesity rates soared, few structured weight management programs existed, especially in public hospitals. Seeing an urgent need, Dr. Jay co-founded the Bellevue Weight Management Program, one of the first of its kind in a safety-net hospital. That experience opened her eyes to how food insecurity, chronic stress, and systemic inequities create barriers to health—and how deeply obesity stigma is ingrained, even in medicine. Determined to make a difference, Dr. Jay shifted to research, developing innovative strategies to improve obesity care in primary care settings. Her studies have explored peer coaching, financial incentives, and behavioral interventions. She also recognized that while lifestyle changes are important, they often lead to only modest, short-term weight loss. We needed better treatments—ones that could truly change lives…