Physician Spokespeople
Read the bios and background on our experts.
Bryan N. Becker, MD
Dr. Becker is President of the National Kidney Foundation. He is Professor of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health where he serves as Vice-Chair of the Department of Medicine, Physician-in-chief and head of the section of Nephrology.
He specializes in the medical care of chronic kidney disease and kidney-pancreas transplant recipients. Dr. Becker’s research interests include basic and clinical mechanisms of chronic allograft nephropathy and hypertension and renal epithelial cell biology.
A volunteer with the National Kidney Foundation for more than a decade, Dr. Becker earned his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College, his medical degree from University of Kansas and completed fellowships at Duke and Vanderbilt.
Joseph A. Vassalotti, MD
Dr. Vassalotti is the National Kidney Foundation's Chief Medical Officer. He also currently serves on the clinical faculty of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. Dr. Vassalotti oversees the medical operations of NKF’s Kidney Early Evaluation Program, which identifies early chronic kidney disease (CKD) in high risk individuals.
He plays a major role in the development and evaluation of professional education programs and materials produced by NKF's Kidney Learning System and works closely with NKF's medical leadership and Scientific Advisory Board on the full range of NKF's medical programs. He is Co-Principal Investigator for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demonstration project to identify individuals at high risk for CKD in the United States using state-based screening.
Dr. Vassalotti holds an MD from SUNY Stony Brook. He served his Residency and Nephrology Fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. His areas of expertise are dialysis and chronic kidney disease.
Leslie Spry, MD, FACP
Dr. Spry practices consultative nephrology and is the medical director of the Dialysis Center of Lincoln in Lincoln, Nebraska where he participates in research and innovative projects for the benefit of dialysis patients. His areas of expertise include nephrology, hypertension, dialysis, acute renal failure, kidney stone disease and chronic kidney disease.
Dr. Spry is an active member of the Public Policy Committee at the National Kidney Foundation, which is dedicated to developing policies on health care issues that affect kidney patients, transplant recipients and organ and tissue donors. Dr. Spry received his medical degree from Washington University and St. Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri.
