Dr Octavia M. Peck Palmer is Vice Chair of Health Equity, Division Director of Clinical Chemistry, and Associate Professor of Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, with secondary faculty appointments within the departments of Critical Care Medicine and Clinical and Translational Science. She earned her Ph.D. in Physiology from The Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Clinical Chemistry at Washington University School of Medicine in Saint Louis, Missouri. She is the immediate Past President of the Association for Diagnostics and Laboratory Medicine (ADLM, formerly the American Association of Clinical Chemistry). Her research interests and publications focus on host immune response to sepsis and biomarker discovery, lab medicine’s role in ensuring health equity, and women’s health. Her publications span highlighting the field of laboratory medicine leading the efforts to ensure health equity and include “Recognizing Laboratory Medicine's Collaborative Role in Identifying and Eliminating Health Disparities” and “Reconsidering the Use of Race Adjustments in Maternal Serum Screening. Dr. Peck Palmer is the Chair of the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute’s (CLSI) 1st edition international document on Clinical Testing for Early Detection and Management of Sepsis. She recently hosted the 2024 series of ADLM’s ‘Laborastories: The Podcast’.