Iheanacho Obinnaya Emeruwa

MD, PhD, MBA

Dr. Emeruwa is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. His research focuses on resource allocation in critical care and its impact on population outcomes and healthcare disparities. His clinical focus is the use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) for management of severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Obi is an inaugural alumnus of the UCLA Biodesign innovation fellowship program, through which he became a co-founder of CranioView, Inc., a company that has developed a novel device in the neurocritical care space focused on improving measurement of intracranial pressure. He completed his internal medicine residency and chief residency at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irving Medical Center (NYP/CUIMC) and his pulmonary disease and critical care medicine fellowship at UCLA.

At Columbia, Obi was heavily involved in quality improvement, serving as a vice chair of the hospital wide Housestaff Quality Forum and leading the Quality and Patient Safety Housestaff Forum during his chief residency. He also spent his time advocating for improving minority representation in academic medicine by leading the Lindenbaum-Thomson Society (LTS), a group of residents dedicated to promoting diversity in medicine. He was recognized for these efforts with the Kenneth A. Forde Diversity Alliance (KAFDA) Resident Diversity Award from CUIMC. As an MD/MBA candidate, he was recognized as a Forbes Future Healthcare Leader at the 2012 Forbes Healthcare Summit.

Dr. Emeruwa is board certified in pulmonary disease, critical care medicine, and internal medicine by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM). He earned his MD from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, his MBA from Columbia Business School, and his PhD in Health Policy and Management from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Prior to medicine, he received his undergraduate degree in biomedical sciences and engineering from Harvard University. He was born and raised in southern California and is an avid fan of Lakers basketball and Marvel/DC comics.