Dr. Carrasquillo is a Professor of Medicine and Public Health Sciences and Associate Dean for Clinical and Translational Research at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine. He is a Puerto Rican born physician who was raised in the Bronx. He graduated summa cum laude from the Sophie Davis School of Bio-Medical Education at City College, and obtained his MD degree from the New York University School of Medicine. He completed a three-year internal medicine residency at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, Harvard’s two-year General Medicine Fellowship and an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. For eight years, he was Director of the Center of Excellence in Health Disparities Research at Columbia University. For thirteen years he served as Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of Miami where he led a clinical, teaching and research enterprise of 51 full time faculty. Dr. Carrasquillo now serves as co-Director of the University’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute whose mission is to drive research translation into evidence-based clinical and community practices to improve the health of South Florida’s diverse population.
He is a national expert in minority health, health disparities, community based participatory research, access to care and community health worker interventions. He has over twenty years of experience leading large NIH Center grants and randomized trials, totaling over $60 million in funding. His work includes research in diabetes, cardio-vascular disease, HIV, cancer and most recently in precision medicine. His research has been published in many of the nation’s top medical journals and he servers on numerous NIH grant review committees. He is also active in various national organizations, including numerous current and past leadership roles in the Society of General Internal Medicine, Physicians for a National Health Program, National Hispanic Medical Association and Latinos for Health Equity. In Miami, he is a Board Member of the Miami-Dade Area Health Education Center and the South Florida Health Council. He is often called upon by the media to discuss his research as well as health care topics of particular relevance to the Hispanic community including being a frequent guest on most of the major Latino television networks. Since the COVID pandemic began, his work has shifted to focus mostly on COVID. He helped lead the health systems institutional response to COVID team and took a lead role in community education around COVID including numerous media appearances and presentations to community groups. He also leading the NIH sponsored Florida Community-Engaged Research Alliance Against COVID-19 in Disproportionately Affected Communities (FL-CEAL). Other COVID research he has led/lead includes the Healthcare Worker Exposure Response and Outcomes study (HERO), a phase 3 clinical trial to determine the safety and efficacy COVID vaccine (J&J ENSEMBLE trial), and a PCORI funded initiative to train Community Health Workers in COVID research.