Cori Cross, MD, FAAP
Pediatrician, AAP Spokesperson, Council on Communications, and Media's 2022 Media Visiting Professor

Cori Cross is a board-certified pediatrician and has been serving the LA community since her residency at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) in 2004. She has been an active member of California Chapter2 (CA-2) for over 10 years, both as Treasurer and a Member-at-Large. In addition, she is an AAP spokesperson and uses these platforms to advocate for children and educate the public on pediatric and public health issues. In addition to interviews on behalf of the AAP, she is a repeat medical expert on CNN’s Headline News and Los Angeles’ CBS news, as well as a regular guest on RadioMD’s Healthy Children podcast.

Dr. Cross works as an advocate and public educator speaking nationally and locally to children and adults on a variety of topics. She has lobbied for vaping and nicotine laws to protect children, school lunch program funding, increasing the nutritional value of school meals, tamper-resistant marijuana packaging, and LATCH child safety restraints for all second-row seats in cars.

Early in her career, it was evident that screens would have a profoundly different effect on this next generation. She joined the AAP’s Council on Communications and Media and has since served two terms on the Executive Committee. She was a lead author on the AAP’s “Media Use in School Age Children and Adolescents” as well as the accompanying technical report “Children and Adolescents and Digital Media.” She has continued working and educating in this space, giving talks locally and nationally to parents, students, educators, and pediatricians. She has partnered with Common Sense Media locally to give panel discussions and nationally to develop resources for pediatricians to address these issues in their offices. In 2017, she won an Outstanding Achievement in Innovation Award from the AAP for her work in creating the Family Media Use Plan Toolkit on HealthyChildren.org Since then, she has continued to work with the AAP to update these resources and policies and is currently working to reaffirm the “Media Use in School-Age and Adolescents” policy statement due out in 2022.

In addition to clinical work, Dr. Cross works as a children’s advocate both locally and nationally. She has worked closely with LA-USD to combat obesity through the Fit to Play and Learn Obesity Prevention Curriculum a program she co-developed to educate parents and students on healthy life choices. In 2017, she was awarded the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA) Community Volunteer Award for her near-decade work in partnering with the nurses at LAUSD to address and curtail childhood obesity. During this time, she met with local leaders, participated in multiple Walk to School programs, and spoke at many public schools about nutrition and healthy lifestyle choices.

Dr. Cross graduated cum laude from Barnard College with a BA in philosophy. She attended The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, where she obtained her M.D. and was elected to the AOA honor society. She then moved to L.A. with her husband where she did her pediatric residency at CHLA. She currently lives in the Pacific Palisades with her husband and three children.