Toluwalasé A. Ajayi, MD

Toluwalasé “Lasé” Ajayi, MD, is a practicing pediatrician, adult and pediatric palliative medicine physician, fellowship program director and clinical translational researcher. In June 2022 she was elected to the American Medical Association Board of Trustees (BOT). She served as the AMA-BOT’s secretary in 2024 and became the board’s chair-elect in 2025. Dr. Ajayi assumed the role of board chair for the 2026–2027 term in June 2026. Her extensive service includes roles as past chair of the California Medical Association (CMA) Council on Medical Service and past president of the San Diego County Medical Society.

Dr. Ajayi emigrated from Nigeria to the U.S. at the age of seven as a political refugee, growing up in Lawrence, Kan. She earned her medical degree from the University of Kansas, completed her pediatric residency at the University of Kansas Medical Center, and further specialized in adult and pediatric palliative medicine at the Institute for Palliative Medicine at San Diego Hospice.

Currently, Dr. Ajayi holds a joint faculty position as a clinical professor at UC San Diego in the departments of medicine, pediatrics and family medicine. She is also the program director for the UC San Diego and Scripps Health Palliative Medicine Fellowship program.

Clinically, Dr. Ajayi practices at Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego as a newborn hospitalist and home-based physician for medically fragile children and serves as the chief of the Division of Pediatric Palliative Care. Additionally, she is an adult palliative medicine consultant at UC San Diego Health.

Previously, Dr. Ajayi chaired both the AMA Young Physician Section and the CMA Young Physician Section. Her leadership has extended to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), where she served on the Council on Community Pediatrics and was an AAP delegate to the AMA House of Delegates, focusing on the needs of children, particularly those with serious illnesses.

Dr. Ajayi’s research focuses on digital health equity and maternal-fetal outcomes. At the Joan & Irwin Jacobs Center for Health Innovation at UC San Diego, she studies how mobile health technologies can reduce disparities in pregnancy care and chronic disease management. She was the principal investigator for PowerMom, an observational cohort study using patient-reported data and wearable technology to improve pregnancy outcomes, with recent findings published in eBioMedicine and JMIR Mental Health. In 2025 her work on postpartum blood pressure monitoring earned an Early Career Investigator Award from the Society for Reproductive Investigation. Having previously contributed to the NIH’s All of Us Research Program and the Palliative Care Research Cooperative, Dr. Ajayi currently serves on the Guideline Expert Panel for the National Consensus Project’s Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care, 5th edition.

Dr. Ajayi resides in San Diego with her partner, Kyle Edmonds, MD, and their three children, Ayokárí, Tiwalolá and Palmer.

2026–2027

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