Dr. Valencia Walker is an Associate Clinical Professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine UCLA.  She is a practicing neonatologist with research interests focused on addressing health disparities and optimizing maternal-child health for local and international communities.  As the Medical Director of the UCLA Santa Monica NICU and Medical Director for UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center Newborn Nursery, Dr. Walker works as the physician champion for several projects designed to improve outcomes for the mother-infant dyad.  She is co-chairperson of the Pediatric Faculty Committee on Diversity and has designed a nationally-recognized faculty diversity training program.  She is also the UCLA faculty representative to an Association of American Medical Colleges national committee charged with crafting the design and implementation of policy statements that shape the country’s narrative surrounding barriers to better health outcomes in the United States.  Currently, she is pursuing a MPH in Health Policy at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health with an additional concentration in Maternal Child Health.

Dr. Walker holds additional leadership positions at the California state level. She is Chairperson for the California Medical Association (CMA) Council on Legislation.  As Chair, she helps shape the legislative and policy agendas for the CMA which represents over 43,000 California physicians. She concurrently serves as the CMA Chairperson of the Ethnic Medical Organizations Section. In this role, she promotes improved access to quality health care for communities of color.  She was also selected as a California Champion Provider by the California Department of Public Health where she works to address the adverse effects of obesity in mothers and newborns of color.  Additionally, Dr. Walker is the immediate past president for the Association of Black Women Physicians (ABWP).  The mission of ABWP is to advocate for achieving health equity across traditionally underserved communities and eliminating the health disparities that currently exist in Southern California.  Dr. Walker also travels to countries such as India, Guatemala, Tanzania and Haiti for medical mission trips.  She has been dedicated to providing care for sick children and working in collaboration with local health officers to improve medical infrastructures as well as address the social, economic and health inequities within these countries.