Jerome M. Adams

As an inner-city trauma physician, a state health commissioner, and the 20th US Surgeon General, Dr. Jerome Adams has been at the forefront of America’s most pressing health challenges.

Just the second black male Surgeon General, Adams led the 6,000-person US Public Health Service through responses to three category 5 hurricanes, a raging opioid epidemic, and a once-in-a-century pandemic. As health commissioner, Adams led Indiana through Ebola, Zika, and HIV crises and worked with governor Mike Pence and an ultra-conservative state legislature to legalize syringe service programs.

Dr. Adams is a Distinguished Professor and Director of Health Equity at Purdue University. He also teaches anesthesiology at Indiana University School of Medicine and is a medical correspondent for WISH-TV. He is married to Lacey, who has recently and publicly spoken of her battle with metastatic melanoma, and is the father of three school-age children, Caden, Eli, and Millie. Dr. Adams’ family also includes their two dogs, Bella and Ruby.