Published 9 Apr 2026
Quyen Ngo Metzger: Wise & Courageous
A conversation about leadership, policy, and mentorship.
A blog post Women Scholars and Professionals
We’re publishing our newest content on our Substack newsletter while we undergo some behind-the-scenes maintenance at The Well. Thank you for your patience! Read on for our latest from The Women Scholars & Professionals Podcast.
Welcome to The Wise & Courageous Podcast, where we host conversations with women leaders about how they are seeking and engaging wisdom and courage in their leadership and work in this unique season.
“Somebody came to me and said, ‘You are not supposed to sit at the table. You work for the government; you are supposed to let the guests sit at the table.’ And I reflected on it and I thought-absolutely not! You recruited me into government because I have a degree in medicine, because I have a Public Health and Policy degree. Why should I be sitting back and not contribute at the table? I think that was instrumental to my leadership style.” — Quyen Ngo Metzger
Quyen Ngo Metzger joins Nancy Pedulla on The Wise and Courageous Podcast for a conversation about leadership.
How do your values help you to locate your own North Star for your engagement in your work? Why is a good mentor, one who gives you opportunities to do what you haven’t done before, so critical? Quyen shares her wisdom on leading by inspiring others and developing them so that they focus on their strengths. She shares how she has learned to function authentically amid challenges.
Quyen is a professor in the Health Systems Science Department and Interim Dean of Faculty Affairs at the Kaiser Permenente School of Medicine. The focus of her work is exploring population health, prevention and care, health disparities and evidence based medicine. Before working for Kaiser, Quyen Served the US Government, reviewing research and providing guidelines on clinical effectiveness.
For the purposes of this podcast, we are defining leadership as the stewardship of people, culture and purpose, guiding and serving others toward a shared vision or outcomes.
Welcome to the conversation!
You can listen on iTunes or at The Women Scholars & Professionals Podcast. We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did.
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Further resources for this interview:
Dr. Quyen Ngo-Metzger’s areas of interest include clinical practice guidelines, population health, and health disparities. Her work includes cancer screening and prevention, cardiopulmonary disease prevention, and obesity and diabetes as well as mental health and depression care. Dr. Ngo-Metzger also brings expertise in health care policy across multiple healthcare settings, including primary care and the safety net settings, and a broad knowledge of federal research funding processes and priorities. She has methodological expertise in survey design and development, systematic evidence reviews, qualitative analysis, randomized controlled trials, and observational studies.