Marina Del Rios, MD, MS

2025 Senior Faculty Scholars

Dr. Marina Del Ríos is an emergency physician, researcher, and advocate dedicated to advancing health equity and improving outcomes for underserved communities. She serves as a Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago, where her work bridges clinical care, community engagement, and public health advocacy.

Growing up in a low-income family, Dr. Del Ríos witnessed firsthand the effects of poverty and inequitable access to care—experiences that shaped her lifelong commitment to addressing the social determinants of health. Her research and advocacy focus on understanding how structural factors such as racism, poverty, and education influence health outcomes and access to care.

As the Community Sphere Physician Leader of the Illinois Heart Rescue Project, Dr. Del Ríos has led efforts to reduce disparities in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival by partnering with communities across Chicago to increase rates of bystander CPR. Under her leadership, bystander CPR rates in the city have tripled since the project’s inception in 2013, with significant improvements in historically underserved neighborhoods.

Dr. Del Ríos continues to champion community-centered approaches to emergency medicine, emphasizing that improving health outcomes requires more than access to care—it requires addressing the conditions that shape people’s lives.