Dr. Sade Kosoko-Lasaki has built collaborative relationships worldwide and is a recognized community and academic leader in Omaha, Nebraska. From 2000 to 2024, she led Creighton University's Office of Health Sciences Multicultural and Community Affairs, directing programs such as the Health Careers Opportunity Program, Cultural Awareness Seminars, and Health Disparities Initiatives focused on Community-Based Participatory Research.
Over the past 25 years, Dr. Kosoko-Lasaki has mentored more than 18,000 students through STEM pipeline programs designed to increase diversity in the health professions. She created and directed innovative post-baccalaureate and pre-matriculation programs that have helped more than 450 students gain admission to medical, dental, pharmacy, and other health professional schools. She also led the training and education of more than 300 Community Health Workers, strengthening community capacity to address health disparities, improve health literacy, and promote preventive healthcare.
A nationally and internationally recognized speaker, Dr. Kosoko-Lasaki has lectured extensively on cultural proficiency, health equity, workforce diversity, and strategies for supporting underrepresented students from elementary school through professional education.
As an ophthalmologist with a Master of Public Health degree, Dr. Kosoko-Lasaki has dedicated her career to blindness prevention, glaucoma awareness, and global eye health. She collaborated with the World Health Organization (WHO), USAID, UNICEF, and Helen Keller International on programs addressing Vitamin A deficiency and childhood blindness prevention in Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, and Mauritania, as well as in Asia, particularly the Philippines. Through these international initiatives, she helped advance public health strategies aimed at reducing preventable childhood blindness and improving the nutritional health of vulnerable populations.
Since 1986, she has conducted glaucoma research in St. Lucia, West Indies, and has organized glaucoma screening and eye health outreach programs throughout Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Dominican Republic. She also developed "Preventing Glaucoma Blindness in Nebraska: A Creighton University Initiative," a program targeting individuals at increased risk for glaucoma-related vision loss.
Through her leadership in education, mentorship, public health, and community engagement, Dr. Kosoko-Lasaki has made significant contributions to reducing health disparities, expanding healthcare access, preventing blindness, and developing the next generation of healthcare professionals in the United States and around the world.