Champion biographies
In order of the Champion banner:
Dr. Alexander S. Enurah M.D. is a hospitalist with the Critical Care and Pulmonary Consultant group. He also serves as the CCPC Director of Community Outreach and Engagement. He completed his internal medicine training at the University of Colorado Internal Medicine residency program. Dr. Enurah received his M.D. from Virginia Commonwealth University. He earned a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of Maryland. Dr. Enurah is passionate about interprofessional education, infection prevention, the health and well-being of underserved communities, and community outreach. He enjoys spending time outside with his family in the garden and tending to his bees.
Dr. Hector Frisbie was born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1965. He graduated from medical school in 1989 and completed his residency in obstetrics and gynecology in 1996. He has been Fellow of the American Congress of Obstetricians & Gynecologists since 1996 and graduated from the Senior Management Program for Public Health institutions at IPADE in Mexico City. Dr. Frisbie served as head professor of OBGYN at Centro Medico Dalinde in Mexico City and as CEO of High Specialty Hospital for Women and Child in León, Guanajuato, Mexico. A public health Ph.D. candidate, Dr. Frisbie is an international member of the American College of Cardiology. He has been a speaker in informative health segments on Spanish TV networks UNIVISION and TELEMUNDO in Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and nationally.
Dr. Cynthia Hazel is a Doctor of Public Health and a Research Manager at OMNI Institute, where she leads and supports projects focused on community and behavioral health. Her research focus is in health equity, global health, maternal and child health, and digital health technology. Dr. Hazel received her Master’s in Public Health Policy from Durham University in the United Kingdom, and her Doctor of Public Health from the University of Colorado School of Public Health, where she specialized in Community and Behavioral Health. Originally from Ghana, Dr. Hazel has also been involved in health promotion efforts focused on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in Aurora, particularly the African immigrant community. She was nominated by the Colorado Public Health Association for the Excellence in the Promotion of Health Equity award in 2021. Her current work involves reducing inequities in vaccine distribution and COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy in Colorado’s BIPOC communities. Dr. Hazel is the co-founder of the Gyedi Project, and currently serves on the Colorado Vaccine Equity Taskforce.
Dr. Kweku Hazel is a general surgeon and faculty fellow in minimally invasive and bariatric surgery at the University of Colorado Hospital. He received his medical degree at Texas Tech School of Medicine in Lubbock, Texas, where he also started the Barbershop BP program which was aimed at educating communities of color about chronic health conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes. Dr. Hazel completed his general surgery residency at the University of Colorado and is involved with community health education in Aurora. His research focus is in advancing socially responsible surgical practices with the goal of improving surgical equity and patient outcomes. His recent efforts have been focused on promoting vaccination equity and vaccine acceptance, while reducing hesitancy in communities of color. Dr. Hazel is the co-founder of the Gyedi Project, and has organized more than seven vaccine pop-up clinics which administered close to 4,000 vaccines in 2021. He was nominated for the Colorado Public Health Association award for Excellence in the Promotion of Health Equity in Colorado in 2021, and currently serves on the community outreach and policy committees of the Colorado Vaccine Equity Taskforce.
Dr. Joshua T.B. Williams, M.D., is a General Academic Pediatrician at Denver Health Medical Center and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado. He attended the University of Chicago for medical school, graduating with honors, and moved to Colorado for pediatric training at Denver Health and Children’s Hospital Colorado. From 2016-17, he served as a Chief Resident in the Department of Pediatrics and then began outpatient and inpatient practice at Denver Health. From 2018-20, Dr. Williams completed a Primary Care Health Services Research Fellowship at the University of Colorado and also obtained my Certificate in Public Health from the Colorado School of Public Health. Today, he studies vaccine hesitancy and vaccination disparities in underserved and minority communities, and collaborates on work for the CDC-funded Vaccine Safety Datalink, including studies of COVID-19 vaccine safety. He also studies the intersection of religion and vaccination, and has spent many years building trust with diverse community partners to dispel myths about vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases.
Dr. Jeff Sippel serves as an associate professor and physician at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus with specialties in critical care medicine and pulmonary disease. He earned his M.D. from Vanderbilt University in 1989 and later went on to earn a master's degree in public health from Oregon Health and Science University in 1999. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona in 1985. Dr. Sippel completed fellowships in both pulmonary disease and critical care medicine at Oregon Health and Science University in 1998. He enjoys jazz and many other types of music, bicycling, telemark skiing, and reading books and magazines.
Dr. Gabriel Lockhart is a physician and assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine and Director of the Intensive Care Unit at Saint Joseph's Hospital/National Jewish Health. He also manages patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at NJH. Dr. Lockhart moved to Denver in 2019 after a three-year fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis, where he was the chief fellow. Originally from Chicago, he grew up in Cincinnati and spent 11 years in Columbus, Ohio, attending or working for Ohio State University. During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Lockhart volunteered to work the ICUs in the Mt. Sinai Health System in New York City and at USC in Los Angeles. He serves on the Governor's Expert Epidemic Emergency Response Committee (GEEERC) Medical Advisory Group for the state of Colorado in relation to the COVID-19 response, as well as the Immunize Colorado Vaccine Equity Task Force.