Walid F. Gellad, MD, MPH

Dr. Gellad's research focuses on physician prescribing practices and on policy issues affecting access and adherence to medications. He was the recipient of a career development award from the Department of Veterans Affairs and is now the principal investigator on grants from the VA, NIH, State of Pennsylvania, and private foundations for multiple studies of pharmaceutical policy and prescription use. With an R01 from NIDA, he currently leads a research team developing machine learning models predicting opioid related adverse events using healthcare and social services data. He has authored more than 180 research articles, editorials, and commentaries in leading medical and policy journals, and he is a regular commentator on pharmaceutical policy issues in major news outlets. He is a former member of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee on nonprescription drugs and FDA Drug Safety Oversight Board. In 2019, he received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the government’s highest honor for scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers.

Dr. Gellad is board certified in internal medicine. He received a degree in Music from Swarthmore College and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He completed a residency and chief residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, along with a MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. He sees primary care patients in the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System and attends on the inpatient general medical service.