AAFP Announces New Board of Directors and Officers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct. 6, 2025

Media Contact: 
Emily Holwick
eholwick@aafp.org

ANAHEIM, Calif. — The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) elected its 2025-26 Board of Directors at the annual Congress of Delegates. Members of the board of directors are all family physicians or training to be family physicians. Representing 128,300 physicians, residents and medical students, the AAFP Board of Directors advocates for family medicine and patients to drive positive change in U.S. health care.

“As we welcome our new board members and leaders, we celebrate the future of family medicine—one shaped by bold leadership, advocacy and a commitment to ensuring everyone has access to high-quality health care,” said R. Shawn Martin, CEO and executive vice president of the AAFP. “These members represent the very best of our profession. Their voices will help guide us as we champion work to support family physicians in every step of their journey and ensure that every person, in every community, has access to high-quality, patient-centered care.”

New Board of Directors Officers

• Sarah C. Nosal, MD, FAAFP is president of the AAFP. She is vice president for innovation & optimization and chief medical information officer at The Institute for Family Health, a federally qualified health center network with 27-plus locations in New York City. Nosal's focus is on the care of marginalized communities with two decades of practice in the South Bronx. She has served as medical director for NYU and Einstein student-run free clinics. As CMIO, she helped her institution become a regional leader in data sharing and ensuring equitable information access.
  
  
• Kisha Davis, MD, MPH, FAAFP is president-elect of the AAFP. She is the chief health officer for Montgomery County, Maryland. She previously served as vice president of health equity at Aledade in Maryland. She was vice chair of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC), advising Congress, the secretary of Health and Human Services and states on Medicaid policy. Davis has served numerous roles within the AAFP, notably as new physician director and later convener of the National Conference of Constituency Leaders. She is a past president of the Maryland Academy of Family Physicians.
  
  
• Jen Brull, MD, FAAFP is a health systems leader in Fort Collins, Colorado, and board chair of the AAFP. After more than 20 years in rural Kansas practice, she now serves as senior advisor for clinical strategy and physician well-being at Aledade. She formerly served 12 years as health officer for the Rooks County Health Department and filled several roles as medical director and operations manager of urgent care and surgical clinics in the ​local ​community ​critical access ​hospital.
  
  
• Russell W. Kohl, MD, FAAFP was re-elected speaker of the AAFP Congress of Delegates. He is chief medical officer with TMF Health Quality Institute, a Medicare quality improvement organization serving several states and territories. He also cares for patients through the non-profit Care Beyond the Boulevard, providing direct medical care to unhoused patients throughout the Kansas City metro area. He serves as a colonel, chief flight surgeon and state air surgeon with the Missouri Air National Guard. 
  
  
• Daron W. Gersch, MD, FAAFP was re-elected vice-speaker of the AAFP Congress of Delegates. He works full-time as the ER medical and trauma director and provides ER care at several CentraCare hospitals. He also currently serves as the medical director at nursing homes in Albany and Long Prairie, Minnesota. He was recently on the PROTECT Initiative for the CDC to prevent unintentional medication overdoses in children and served on the medical review panel for familydoctor.org.  

New Board Members

The following family physicians were elected to three-year terms as members of the Board of Directors.

• Tracy Hendershot, DC, MD, FAAFP practices medicine in Parkersburg, West Virginia at West Virginia University Medicine. He has received numerous awards for his clinical excellence, teaching and leadership, including recognition for his work in opioid stewardship, workforce sustainability and long-term care innovation. He was previously president of the West Virginia Academy of Family Physicians.
  
  
• Robyn Liu, MD, MPH, FAAFP practices medicine with Northwest Permanente in Portland, Oregon, and is the physician-in-charge of East Interstate Primary Care, the second-largest primary care clinic in the region. Board-certified in both family medicine and public health and preventive medicine, she has worked in health policy, education and AAFP leadership at both the chapter and national levels.    
  
  
• Douglas Spotts, MD, FAAFP is a family physician in Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania and an associate professor of health policy and administration at Penn State University. He is the former vice president and chief health officer at Meritus Health in Hagerstown, Maryland. His career has spanned clinical practice, medical education and physician executive leadership. He is a past president of the Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians and the AAFP Foundation.
   

These individuals were elected to one-year terms:

• Jane Simpson, DO, FAAFP was elected to the Board of Directors as the new physician representative. She is a palliative care physician at Samaritan Medical Center in Watertown, New York. She earned her medical degree from Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine at Virginia Tech, completed her family medicine residency at United Health Services in Binghamton, New York, and completed a fellowship in hospice and palliative medicine at Brown University.
  
  
• Derek B. Southwick, MD was elected to the Board of Directors as the resident physician representative. He is a resident at the Indiana University Health Ball Memorial Family Medicine Residency Program and received his medical degree from the University of Washington School of Medicine.
  
  
• Payal Morari was elected to the Board of Directors as the student representative. She is a medical student at Kansas City University College of Osteopathic Medicine and is completing a fellowship in osteopathic manipulative medicine.
   

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