Valerie Montgomery Rice

Valerie Montgomery Rice, MD, FACOG, is President and CEO of Morehouse School of Medicine, and the first woman to lead a freestanding medical school. A reproductive endocrinologist, she is the founder of Meharry Medical College’s Center for Women’s Health Research, one of the nation’s first research centers devoted to studying health issues that disproportionately affect women of color. At Meharry, she also served as Dean and Senior Vice President of Health Affairs and Professor and Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. Montgomery Rice joined the Macy Foundation Board of Directors in 2018 and has served on several boards, including the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine, UnitedHealth Group, Nemours, CARE USA, Georgia Power, and the Horatio Alger Association.  Dr. Montgomery Rice holds a BS in Chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology and an MD from Harvard Medical School. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and has received numerous honors, including the Association of American Medical Colleges’ 2025 Herbert W. Nickens Award and the National Medical Association’s 2023 Scroll of Merit, along with a long list of awards recognizing her distinguished career.