Dr. Leonard is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics at the Perelman School of Medicine. He serves as a faculty and Executive Committee member for the Center for Real-World Effectiveness and Safety of Therapeutics (CREST); faculty for the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics; senior fellow for the Leonard Davis Institute; fellow for the Institute on Aging; and an affiliate member of the Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology (CEET)―all at the University of Penn. Dr. Leonard is a Special Government Employee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and an Honorary Lecturer at the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences. 

As a pharmacoepidemiologist with extensive expertise in post-market prescription drug safety, causal inference methods, and real-world evidence (RWE) generation, Dr. Leonard is internationally recognized for his work in the comparative safety of medical products among minority and economically-disadvantaged populations. He has presented his transdisciplinary work to clinical and scientific audiences at national and international conferences; federal regulators and policymakers at the U.S. FDA, Saudi Food and Drug Authority, AHRQ, and CDC; colleagues at universities and institutes across the globe; and clinical decision support stakeholders at health information technology firms. 

Dr. Leonard’s scientific contributions aim to generate RWE and close knowledge gaps in four major areas of post-market prescription drug safety: 1) Population health effects of drug interactions; 2) comparative safety of antidiabetes drugs; 3) drug-induced sudden cardiac arrest; and 4) methods development in pharmacoepidemiology. His research is principally funded by the National Institutes of Health.