New physician leaders elected at 2026 Congress of Delegates

The 2026 Congress of Delegates elected a new group of physician leaders to serve over the coming years at FMX in Nashville, Tennessee.

Russell W. Kohl, MD, FAAFP, was elected as president-elect. Kisha Davis, MD, MPH, FAAFP, was installed as Academy president. Sarah Nosal, MD, FAAFP, moved into her new role as board chair.

The physicians chosen to guide the Academy over the coming year represent the extent of family medicine’s reach, bringing experience in public health policy, community-based care and service to vulnerable populations.

Dr. Davis has served on the Commission on Governmental Advocacy, as a member of the Membership Task Force, as the new physician member of the AAFP Board of Directors, and as convener of the 2019 National Conference of Constituency Leaders (NCCL). She also has served the Maryland Academy of Family Physicians in a variety of leadership roles, including foundation treasurer, member of the board of directors and a past president and chair of the board of directors.

New president

Dr. Davis, of Montgomery County, Maryland, was installed as Academy president. She was voted president-elect last year during COD in Anaheim, California.

Dr. Davis is the chief health officer for Montgomery County and previously served as vice president of health equity at Aledade. She was vice chair of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, advising Congress, the secretary of Health and Human Services and states on Medicaid policy.

She served as a White House Fellow at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and has earned the AAFP Degree of Fellow, awarded to family physicians for distinguished service and continuing medical education. Additionally, Dr. Davis serves as a preceptor for the Uniformed Services Preventive Medicine Residency and is a clinical instructor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

New president-elect

Dr. Kohl, of Stilwell, Kansas, was elected president-elect for the AAFP. He is medical director with TMF Health Quality Institute, a Medicare quality improvement organization serving Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Arkansas. He previously served as chief medical officer of TransforMED, ran a full-scope solo practice in rural Oklahoma and served as faculty at the University of Oklahoma School of Community Medicine.

Dr. Kohl also supports patients through the non-profit Care Beyond the Boulevard, providing direct medical care to people living in homeless encampments throughout the Kansas City metro area. Additionally, he’s a colonel and chief flight surgeon in the Air National Guard, where he serves as the Air National Guard Assistant to the National Guard Bureau Joint Surgeon General.

Dr. Kohl will be installed as president next fall during the 2027 Congress of Delegates in San Diego, California.

As president-elect, Dr. Kohl will serve on the Board’s executive committee, chair the Board’s Subcommittee on Strategic Planning and Development and work as a member of the Board’s Screening Subcommittee. He will regularly participate in the “cluster meeting” of AAFP commissions and may chair one of the Academy’s task forces or other Board-appointed work groups. Dr. Kohl also may be called on to represent the Academy in outreach with individual members and external groups, including lawmakers.

Speaker, vice speaker elected

Daron Gersch, MD, FAAFP, of Avon, Minnesota, and Beverly Jordan, MD, FAAFP, of Enterprise, Alabama, were elected to one-year terms as speaker and vice speaker, respectively. Dr. Gersch had previously served as vice speaker since 2021.

Dr. Gersch provides ER care and is the ER medical and trauma director at CentraCare—Long Prairie, Melrose, Sauk Centre and Paynesville hospitals. He was recently appointed to the Central Minnesota Trauma Committee. He also serves as the medical director at nursing homes in Albany and Long Prairie. He was most recently on the PROTECT Initiative for the Centers for Disease Control and served on the medical review panel for FamilyDoctor.org​.

Dr. Jordan is a board-certified family physician and primary care sports medicine specialist dedicated to advancing rural health care in Alabama. She serves as regional medical director for Aledade ACO, chair of the Alabama State Committee of Public Health and chairman of the board of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama. She also served 13 years in senior leadership with the Medical Association of the State of Alabama as vice speaker and speaker of the House of Delegates, and later as board chair.

New directors

The Board includes nine directors that each serve three-year terms. They are elected in groups, or as otherwise needed, on a rotating basis. Directors sit as members of Board subcommittees, and one director is elected every year to serve as the at-large member of the Board’s executive committee. Between meetings of the COD, the Board oversees and administers the work of the Academy and development of its policies, appointing commissions, committees and other work groups necessary to support it in fulfilling these responsibilities.

The 2026 Congress of Delegates elected three new board members:

• Jason E. Marker, MD, MPA, FAAFP: Dr. Marker is associate director and clinic medical director at the Memorial Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program in South Bend, Indiana. A past president of the AAFP Foundation​ and the Indiana Academy of Family Physicians, he has expanded leadership pathways in the specialty. Dr. Marker also helped create the CME on the Go podcast series, which he co-hosted from its first episode until 2026.
• Domenic W. Casablanca, MD, FAAFP, DABFM: Dr. Casablanca is a clinical director at the Middlesex Health Family Medicine Residency Program and secretary of the Department of Family Medicine at Middlesex Hospital in Middletown, Connecticut. He is deeply devoted to his patients, many of whom he has served for over 25 years. His successful community outreach includes an expansion of the residency’s home-based primary care program and the establishment of home-based practice sites for patients with serious psychiatric illnesses.
• Renee Crichlow, MD, FAAFP: Dr. Crichlow is a recognized national expert on health equity and artificial intelligence in health care. She is chief medical officer at Codman Square Health Center in Boston, vice chair for health equity at Boston University’s Department of Family Medicine and a lecturer at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She also serves as medical editor for diversity, equity and inclusion at the American Family Physician journal and is a past president of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine.

New physician, resident and student board members

The new physician, resident and student members are all voting members of the Board who serve single-year terms. Each serve as a liaison to one of the Academy’s standing commissions. This year, those selected for these roles are:

• Robert Assibey, MD, FAAFP, new physician board member: Dr. Assibey is the CEO and founder of Wounds R Us, a mobile advanced wound care company out of Livermore, California, that provides in-home advanced wound care to elderly patients.
• Alexandra Greenberg, MD, MSPH, MS, resident board member: Dr. Greenberg is a fellow in LGBTQ+ medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and completed her residency at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, where she was chief resident.
• Lauren Hutchinson, student board member: Hutchinson has served in leadership roles at the AAFP, including as student delegate to the Congress of Delegates and the student member of the AAFP Commission on Education.

Dr. Assibey was elected by his peers at NCCL. Dr. Greenberg and Hutchinson were elected by their peers at FUTURE by the National Congress of Family Medicine Residents and the National Congress of Student Members. All were confirmed by acclamation during the COD.