Dr. Flores is Chair of Pediatrics, Senior Associate Dean of Child Health, the George E. Batchelor Endowed Chair in Child Health, Director of the Batchelor Children’s Research Institute, and Professor (with tenure) of Pediatrics, Psychiatry and Behavioral Health Sciences, and Public Health Sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, and attended medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine.
He is a member of the National Advisory Committee (NAC) of the Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Amos Medical Faculty Development Program, the NASEM Committee on Strategies to Enhance Pediatric Health Research Funded by NIH, the Research Committee and DEI Committee (as Co-Chair) of the Association of Medical School Pediatric Department Chairs, and the editorial board of Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. He is a former member of the US Preventive Services Task Force, the Council of the American Pediatric Society, and RWJ Aligning Forces for Quality Program NAC. He is Director of the NIDDK/APA/PIDS/APS/ABP/Mead Johnson Research in Academic Pediatrics Investigator Development (RAPID) Program, which is now in its 13th year of NIH funding, and whose goal is to provide career development and advancement for junior faculty and fellow clinician-investigators in academic pediatrics who have overcome adversity.
He has provided two Congressional Briefings, US Senate and Congressional testimony, and DHHS and ACF briefings. He has been a consultant/NAC member for the US Surgeon General, IOM/NAM, CDC, NICHD, AMA, NHMA, First Focus, the DHHS Office of Civil Rights, and Sesame Workshop. He received the 2006 AAP Outstanding Achievement Award in the Application of Epidemiologic Information to Child Health Advocacy, the 2006 NHMA Health Leadership Award, the 2008 Millie and Richard Brock Award for Distinguished Contributions to Pediatrics, the 2010 Helen Rodríguez-Trías Social Justice Award from the APHA, the 2012 Research Award from the Academic Pediatric Association (the first underrepresented minority recipient), the 2017 Public Policy and Advocacy Award from the Academic Pediatric Association (the first underrepresented minority recipient), the 2019 David P. Rall Award for Advocacy in Public Health from the American Public Health Association, the 2023 Miller-Sarkin Mentoring Holistic Award from the Academic Pediatric Association, the 2024 David G. Nichols Health Equity Award from the American Pediatric Society, the 2024 Reinhardt Distinguished Career Award from AcademyHealth (recognizing leaders who have made significant and lasting contributions to the field of health services research), and the 2026 Society for Pediatric Research Douglas K. Richardson Award for Perinatal and Pediatric Health Care Research.
He has been awarded major grant funding by NICHD, NIDDK, AHRQ, CMS, RWJ Foundation, and Commonwealth Fund. He was a member of the Cradle to K Cabinet of Mayor of Minneapolis Betsy Hodges, and the National Advisory Committee of the RWJ Health Opportunity and Equity (HOPE) Measures. He drafted 2018 legislation which was signed into law by Congress and the President as part of CHIP reauthorization which makes organizations that use parent mentors eligible to receive $120 million in CMS grants for Medicaid and CHIP outreach and enrollment. There are now CMS-funded parent-mentor programs in 11 states and the Cherokee Nation. His 262 publications address a wide variety of research and policy issues, including racial/ethnic disparities in children’s health and healthcare, health equity, health policy, insuring the uninsured, social drivers of health, health services research, public and population health, language barriers in healthcare, and childhood obesity.
