Underserved
A Life of Serving the
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Summer 2023
B Y S U S A N R E I C H
J. Usha Raj, MD, MHA, has spent a lifetime serving people
through medicine and philanthropy—a quest that has carried her from medical school
in India to the top research institutions in the U.S. to global health destinations ranging
from Cape Town, South Africa, and Havana, Cuba, to Ulaanbaatar, a windswept plateau
in Mongolia with the unenviable distinction of being the coldest capital city on earth.
We caught up with Dr. Raj in February—a few days before she traveled to New
Delhi to donate supplies to shelters serving street children—to learn more about her
commitment to addressing health inequities in Chicago and around the globe, her
contributions to academic medicine, and her recent gift to establish the J. Usha Raj
Endowed Professorship in Pediatrics and Psychiatry.
An advocate for child and adolescent mental health: In March, Anjuli S. Nayak Professor of Pediatrics J. Usha Raj, MD,
MHA, made a major gift to the College of Medicine to establish the J. Usha Raj Endowed Professorship in Pediatrics and
Psychiatry, which will support research leading to better diagnosis and treatment for the one in five children and adolescents
who experience a mental disorder each year.
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