NC InCK is excited to welcome Dr. Rushina Cholera as the model’s new Executive Director effective July 15. Rushina succeeds NC InCK’s founding Executive Director Charlene Wong, who transitioned to her new role as Strategic Advisor with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this summer. This opportunity will allow Charlene to take lessons learned from NC InCK and apply them to families nationwide. Rushina was formally introduced to the NC InCK community and partners at our July 28 webinar, where she took the opportunity to share her hope that the model continues to build on its strong foundation of success. She named enhancing NC InCK’s focus on equity as one of her initial priorities for the model, saying:
"Our NC InCK team has so many strengths. I hope I can bring an additional focus to how we think about equity. All of us came to this work because of an interest in social justice, and we can do even more in centering equity at NC InCK."
For the last two years, Rushina served as a member of the NC InCK Executive Team as Research and Evaluation Director. In this previous role with NC InCK, Rushina supported the model's efforts to leverage data and perspectives learned from families and care managers in order to better design our approach to improving NC InCK services. Rushina has also supported NC InCK by mentoring students and summer interns focused on areas including nutrition and food insecurity, family engagement, and risk stratification.
Dr. Mike Steiner, NC InCK Health Director, said of Rushina, “I have known Dr. Cholera for almost ten years. She is incredibly thoughtful, insightful, caring, driven, and brilliant! She will be a great leader for this next phase of NC InCK.”
In addition to her role with NC InCK, Rushina is a practicing pediatrician in Durham County. She is also an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Population Health Sciences at the Duke School of Medicine, as well as a Faculty Fellow at the Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy.
Dr. Cholera completed both her MD and Ph.D. in Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.