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Biographical Sketches of Workshop Speakers and Planning Committee Members

Maria Rosario (Happy) G. Araneta, Ph.D., M.P.H., is professor of epidemiology in the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health and assistant dean of diversity and community partnerships at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), School of Medicine. She is UCSD co–principal investigator of the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study, and principal investigator of the UCSD Filipino Health Study, the oldest and largest longitudinal study of type 2 diabetes, regional fat distribution, and cardiovascular disease among Filipino Americans. She is a co-author of the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA’s) position statement on the revised diabetes screening guidelines for Asian Americans. Dr. Araneta received the 2014 ADA Vivian Fonseca and Nagendran Family Diabetes Research Award for her research on diabetes among Asians and Pacific Islanders; the Best of Care Award as author of the nine leading publications in Diabetes Care in 2015; and the Inaugural Wing Family Lectureship at the Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School in 2017. She was an invited thought leader for the American Association of Clinical Cardiologists’ Cardiometabolic Think Tank in 2014, and an invited speaker at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases workshop on Enhancing Opportunities in Addressing Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes Disparities in 2017. Dr. Araneta was appointed to a 4-year term on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Advisory Council for the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities from 2015 to 2019, and was selected to serve on the NIH Council of Councils from 2018 to 2023. She received her B.A. in biology from UCSD and her M.P.H and Ph.D. in epidemiology from Yale University.

Shavon L. Arline-Bradley, M.P.H., M.Div., is the founding principal of R.E.A.C.H. Beyond Solutions, LLC, a faith, advocacy, executive leadership, and public health firm with more than 18 years of experience. She is also a co-founder of the Health Equity Cypher Group, a collaborative of nationally recognized health equity experts designed to expand the work of health, equity, and diversity and inclusion in all sectors. She transitioned from the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General as director of external engagement and senior advisor, where she managed all congressional, corporate, nonprofit, and advocacy organizational relationships. Prior to her tenure in the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, Mrs. Arline-Bradley served as executive vice president of strategic planning and partnerships for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). During the interim transition for the search for a new president and chief executive officer in 2014, she served as chief of staff and chief programs officer, responsible for overall staff strategic planning, board/staff relations, operations, and issue area advocacy agenda. She was formerly senior director of health programs for the NAACP, setting the national health agenda, and served the association for 6 years. Mrs. Arline-Bradley is a member of the American Public Health Association, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., the Links Incorporated (Columbia, Maryland), and Jack & Jill of America, Inc. She is an ordained preacher and an associate minister of the Alfred Street Baptist Church and is the youngest member of the advisory board of the Proctor School of Theology. She earned a B.S. in exercise science and an M.P.H. from Tulane University. She also received an M.Div. from the Samuel Dewitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University.

Don Bradley, M.D., M.H.S.-C.L., is a consulting professor in the Duke University School of Medicine Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, core faculty for the Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy, and executive director for the Practical Playbook (www.practicalplaybook.org). He retired from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC) in 2014, where he served in a number of roles, including as executive director for BCBSNC’s federally qualified health maintenance organization and as senior vice president, health care, and chief medical officer. His accomplishments there include producing the company’s first primary care provider profiles/reports, implementing BCBSNC’s first fully transparent online medical policy, developing and successfully marketing the State of Preventive Health Summits, developing and implementing the country’s first bariatric surgery centers of excellence in collaboration with the American Society of Bariatric Surgery, developing an office-based endoscopy network (so members could obtain endoscopy services for an office copay rather than a deductible and coinsurance), creating BCBSNC’s Healthy Lifestyle Choices program (nutrition counseling benefits, coaching,

and incentives for physical activity and healthy lifestyle choices), and leading the implementation of the patient-centered medical home program.

Ann Bullock, M.D., is a board-certified family physician who has worked for the Indian Health Service (IHS) for more than 28 years. She served in various clinical and administrative roles with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in Cherokee, North Carolina, from 1990 to 2009. Since 2009, Dr. Bullock has worked for the IHS Division of Diabetes Treatment and Prevention, first as its clinical subject matter expert and now as its director. She has been an author for numerous publications, as well as IHS diabetes treatment guidelines, clinical tools, and best practices. She served on the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Progress in Preventing Childhood Obesity, whose report was published in 2007. In addition to diabetes, her interests include the effects of chronic stress, trauma, historical trauma, and poverty and food insecurity on the risk for chronic disease and other adverse life outcomes. Dr. Bullock is an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. She received her medical degree from the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Marshall H. Chin, M.D., M.P.H., is Richard Parrillo family professor of healthcare ethics in the Department of Medicine, The University of Chicago, and a general internist and health services researcher with extensive experience in improving the care of vulnerable patients with chronic disease. He co-directs the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Advancing Health Equity: Leading Care, Payment, and Systems Transformation Program Office and the Merck Foundation’s Bridging the Gap: Reducing Disparities in Diabetes Care National Program Office. Dr. Chin serves on the National Advisory Council to the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Community Preventive Services Task Force, and the Families USA Health Equity and Value Task Force Advisory Council. He co-chairs the National Quality Forum’s Disparities Standing Committee and is a former president of the Society of General Internal Medicine. Dr. Chin was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2017. He received his M.D. from the University of California, San Francisco.

Carlos J. Crespo, Dr.P.H., M.S., FACSM, is a professor at Oregon Health & Science University and the Portland State University School of Public Health and vice provost for undergraduate training in biomedical research at Portland State University. His previous work experience includes working for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at the National Center for Health Statistics and as a public health analyst for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). His main areas of research involve

the epidemiology of physical activity in the prevention of chronic diseases and minority health issues. He lists more than 100 publications and has been a contributing author to 5 textbooks on minority health and sports medicine and more than 10 government publications, including the Surgeon General’s Report on Physical Activity and Health. Dr. Crespo received the 1997 U.S. Secretary of Health Award for Distinguished Service as part of the Salud para su Corazon campaign, and in 2003 became an NIH minority health scholar. He is a former member of the National Advisory Council of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Active Living Research program, director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center in Urban and Health Sustainability, and the Oregon Health Policy Board and is emeritus board member of the American Council on Exercise and the Oregon Public Health Institute. He is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, and serves on the board of trustees of the American College of Sports Medicine and on the Advisory Committee for the Community Guide for Physical Activity and the Built Environment for CDC. He is also on the editorial board of the journal Cities and Health. Dr. Crespo graduated from the Inter American University of Puerto Rico, and holds an M.S. in sports health from Texas Tech University and a Dr.P.H. in preventive care from the Loma Linda University.

William (Bill) H. Dietz, M.D., Ph.D., is a consultant to the Roundtable on Obesity Solutions and chair of the Sumner M. Redstone Global Center for Prevention and Wellness at the Milken Institute School of Public Health, The George Washington University. He was director of the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity in the Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 1997 to 2012. Prior to his appointment to CDC, he was a professor of pediatrics at the Tufts University School of Medicine and director of clinical nutrition at the Floating Hospital of New England Medical Center Hospitals. Dr. Dietz has been a counselor and past president of the American Society for Clinical Nutrition and is past president of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity. From 2001 to 2003, he served as a member of the advisory board to the Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism, and Diabetes of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. In 2000, Dr. Dietz received the William G. Anderson Award from the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, and was recognized for excellence in his work and advocacy by the Association of State and Territorial Public Health Nutrition Directors. In 2002, he was made an honorary member of the American Dietetic Association, and received the Holroyd-Sherry award for his outstanding contributions to the field of children, adolescents, and the media. In 2005, Dr. Dietz received the George Bray Founders Award from the North American Association for

the Study of Obesity. In 2006, he received the Nutrition Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics for outstanding research related to nutrition of infants and children. In 2008, he received the Oded Bar-Or award from The Obesity Society for excellence in pediatric obesity research. In 2012, he received a Special Recognition Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics Provisional Section on Obesity, and the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Georgia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Dietz is the author of more than 200 publications in the scientific literature and the editor of 5 books, including Clinical Obesity in Adults and Children, and Nutrition: What Every Parent Needs to Know. He received his B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1966 and his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1970. After completing his residency at Upstate Medical Center, he received a Ph.D. in nutritional biochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Dietz is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Jennifer Fassbender, M.S., is director of program initiatives at Reinvestment Fund, a national community development financial institution reimagining neighborhood revitalization by combining expertise, analysis, and creative approaches to investing with a social purpose. Ms. Fassbender is responsible for the national Invest Health initiative, providing strategic planning and program implementation. Invest Health brings together diverse leaders from midsized U.S. cities to develop new strategies for increasing and leveraging private and public investment and accelerating improvements in neighborhoods facing the greatest barriers to better health. Prior to joining Reinvestment Fund in 2017, Ms. Fassbender served in a national leadership role with the American Diabetes Association, where she developed subject-matter content, created partnerships, and led strategic initiative development related to lifestyle management. Her prior experience includes serving as program director for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Healthy Weight Program, overseeing a major program expansion of the clinical, research, educational, and community components of the program. Additionally, as a senior research project manager at the University of Pennsylvania, she managed health behavior change research with underserved populations to reduce health disparities in Philadelphia. Ms. Fassbender is also a certified clinical exercise physiologist and serves on several national boards, councils, and committees related to building more equitable communities for improved health and well-being. She has contributed editorial review and content to many peer-reviewed publications and book chapters, as well as presented at national and regional meetings. She holds a B.S. from The Pennsylvania State University in exercise science and did her graduate work in exercise physiology at the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health.

David Fukuzawa, M.Div., M.S.A., is managing director of Kresge’s Health Program and has more than 28 years of experience in philanthropy, with a special focus on children and youth. His experience as a youth worker and community organizer in Detroit and Chicago taught him that health and well-being are profoundly affected by the condition of the communities, schools, and environment in which people live. Those lessons inform the efforts he has led to reenvision and redesign Kresge’s approach to health grantmaking. Mr. Fukuzawa joined Kresge in 2000 and has served as a program officer and senior program officer. In 2002, he helped develop the Special Opportunities Initiative, which focused on building the capacity of high-impact organizations that reached underserved populations but were uncompetitive in the foundation’s historical brick-and-mortar challenge program. He then managed the initiative. Mr. Fukuzawa was a program officer at The Skillman Foundation in Detroit from 1990 to 1999. At Skillman, he focused on child and youth health. He was responsible for a major initiative to address the lack of safe and accessible out-of-school opportunities for Detroit youth, a primary factor in the city’s high incidence of violence, delinquency, substance abuse, and teen pregnancy. He also helped develop Michigan’s first statewide childhood immunization registry. Before his career in philanthropy, Mr. Fukuzawa served as director of human needs at New Detroit, Inc. (NDI), where he was responsible for policy analysis and development, particularly in the areas of welfare reform and health care reform. He drafted NDI’s policy statement for health care reform and was NDI’s liaison to the Michigan Legislature regarding liability/tort reform and its effect on physicians in Detroit. He also administered a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant that established the first school-based health centers in the Detroit Public Schools. Mr. Fukuzawa moved to Detroit in 1981, fresh from seminary, to work with youth on the streets, where he learned firsthand about the roots of urban drug-related violence. That experience directly informed a booklet, which he co-wrote while at NDI, titled Drug Free Neighborhoods: How We Can Do It. The Michigan Substance Abuse and Traffic Safety Information Center reprinted the booklet in 1993 with a new title, Creating Drug Free Neighborhoods in Michigan: How We Can Do It. A Yale University graduate, Mr. Fukuzawa also holds an M.Div. from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and an M.S. in administration from Central Michigan University.

Vanessa Northington Gamble, M.D., Ph.D., is university professor of medical humanities and professor of health policy and American studies at The George Washington University. A physician, scholar, and activist, she is an internationally recognized researcher on the history of American medicine, racial and ethnic inequities in health and health care, and bioethics. Dr. Gamble has taught at the Harvard School of Public Health; the University

of Massachusetts; and Hampshire College, where she was also appointed to the board of trustees. In 1989, she joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin, where she developed one of the first courses in the country to explore the history of race and American medicine and public health. She was then appointed associate professor of history of medicine and family medicine and was founder and director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at the University of Wisconsin Medical School. In 1997, Dr. Gamble chaired the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Legacy Committee. In 1999, she was appointed head of the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Division of Community and Minority Programs. In 2003, she was appointed associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she was deputy director of the Center for Health Disparities Solutions. In 2004, she became director of the Tuskegee University National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care. Dr. Gamble has also served on the National Advisory Council of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Ethics Subcommittee of the Advisory Committee to the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research, and the boards of Ibis Reproductive Health and the National Caucus and Center on Black Aged, Inc. She received her M.D. in 1983 from the University of Pennsylvania, and 4 years later, her Ph.D. in the history and sociology of science. A proud native of West Philadelphia, Dr. Gamble is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and a fellow of the Hastings Center.

Debra Haire-Joshu, Ph.D., R.N., M.S., M.A., is a scholar of health behavior who develops, tests, and disseminates population-wide interventions to reduce obesity and prevent diabetes, particularly among underserved women and children. She is Joyce Wood Professor of Public Health and Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, with a joint appointment to the Brown School and School of Medicine, and is a senior scholar in the Washington University Institute for Public Health. Dr. Haire-Joshu is director of the Center for Obesity Prevention and Policy Research (since 1998) and principal investigator of the National Institutes of Health–funded Center for Diabetes Translation Research (since 2011), which supports a network of researchers addressing health equity among rural, American Indian/Alaska Native, and African American populations. Her current research focuses on the testing and dissemination of interventions embedded within the routine practice of a national home visiting program, designed to prevent weight gain among women of childbearing age. Dr. Haire-Joshu was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation health policy fellow, a role that informs her work linking evidence to policy, including the development of a bistate database for tracking obesity. She has published extensively in the

peer-reviewed literature and authored textbooks addressing diabetes management across the lifespan and transdisciplinary public health, as well as numerous chapters on obesity prevention.

Marjorie Innocent, Ph.D., is senior director of health programs of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In this position, she leads the development and management of NAACP’s policy and programmatic agenda to reduce health disparities and improve health outcomes for African Americans and other communities of color in alignment with organizational strategy. Dr. Innocent is responsible for establishing the NAACP health department as a resource and standing source of expertise in the national and international health policy and public education arenas to advance NAACP’s policy agenda around health issues. She also collaborates with internal and external colleagues to advance public discourse about the intersection of health and other social issues impacting populations of color, including education, community development, and criminal justice. In addition, she leads the health team’s efforts to work with research, technology, and communications staff to develop reports and other internal and external narratives and/or analytical documentation relating to program and project activities and results, with careful attention to pursuing program and project goals. As a health policy professional, Dr. Innocent’s experience includes vice president, programs, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc., Washington, DC; evaluation specialist, Department of Shared Accountability, Montgomery County Public Schools, Rockville, Maryland; research associate, Center for Applied Research and Technical Assistance, Inc., Baltimore, Maryland; and director, Maryland School-Based Health Center Initiative, Governor’s Office for Children, Youth and Families, Baltimore. She received her Ph.D. in health policy and management from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a B.A. in political science and French literature from Columbia College, Columbia University. Dr. Innocent has published numerous articles and other writings covering various health- and education-related topics.

Valarie Blue Bird Jernigan, Dr.P.H., M.P.H., is a community-based participatory researcher trained in intervention science, with the goal of combining research with action for social change. Dr. Jernigan is the principal investigator of four National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded R01 studies aimed at improving Indigenous food environments, including “THRIVE,” a randomized trial of healthy makeovers in tribally owned convenience stores, and “FRESH,” a food sovereignty intervention currently being implemented with Osage Nation. She is a standing member of the Community Level Health Promotion Study Section for NIH and a member of the College of Reviewers for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Dr. Jernigan is a professor of rural health at the Center for Health Sciences, Oklahoma State University, and director of the Center for Indigenous Health Research and Policy. She is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. She received her Ph.D. in public health from the University of California, Berkeley, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cardiovascular disease prevention at Stanford University, where she also completed a degree in documentary filmmaking.

Joseph Keawe’aimoku Kaholokula, Ph.D., is professor and chair of Native Hawaiian health in the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa and a licensed clinical psychologist. His research involves developing community-based and culturally relevant health promotion programs to address diabetes and cardiovascular disease inequities in Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders using community-based participatory research approaches. His research also examines how biological, psychosocial, and sociocultural factors interact to affect the risk for and management of chronic diseases in those populations. His work has had an impact at the local, regional, and national levels in bringing systemic improvements to health care delivery, clinical outcomes, and policy through community-based research efforts. He has a strong commitment to achieving health equity and improving the health of Indigenous communities, reflected in his service at the national level as past chair for the Intervention Research to Improve Native American Health network and his recent appointment to the National Advisory Council on Minority Health and Health Disparities. On a local level, Dr. Kaholokula serves on boards of organizations with a mission to improve population and Native Hawaiian health, including the Queen’s Health Systems, Hawaii Public Health Institute, and Papa Ola Lokahi Native Hawaiian Health Board. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa in 2003 and completed a clinical health psychology postdoctoral fellowship in 2004 at the Triple Army Medical Center. As a Native Hawaiian, he is passionate about improving the health of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders and has made a lifelong commitment to improving their social and cultural determinants of health.

Shiriki Kumanyika, Ph.D., M.P.H., joined the Dornsife School faculty as a research professor in fall 2015. She is founder and chair of the African American Collaborative Obesity Research Network (AACORN), a national research network she founded in 2002 while at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). With Dr. Kumanyika’s move to Drexel, AACORN now has its national office at the Dornsife School. AACORN, which has members in approximately 20 states around the country, seeks to advance the health of U.S. black communities through research and research

translation on nutrition, physical activity, and body weight. Dr. Kumanyika retains an appointment as an emeritus professor of epidemiology at Penn. During her 15-year tenure there, she also held a secondary appointment as professor of epidemiology in pediatrics (gastroenterology, nutrition section), served as associate dean for health promotion and disease prevention, and was the founding director of Penn’s university-wide M.P.H. program. Dr. Kumanyika’s research focuses on identifying effective strategies for reducing nutrition-related chronic disease risks, with a particular focus on achieving health equity for black Americans. Over more than three decades, she has led or collaborated on single- or multicenter randomized clinical trials or observational studies related to obesity, sodium intake, and other aspects of diet and lifestyle. Several of these studies have evaluated interventions to promote healthy eating and physical activity in African American children or adults in clinical or community-based settings. Her recent research with AACORN colleagues has included studies of the marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages and food price influences on household food availability in black communities. Dr. Kumanyika was vice-chair of the Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Healthy People 2020 objectives, is a past president of the American Public Health Association, and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. She has extensive experience in advisory roles related to public health and nutrition policy in the United States and abroad. Dr. Kumanyika is currently a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Task Force on Community Preventive Services, co-chair of the Policy and Prevention Section of the World Obesity Federation, a member of the Lancet Commission on Obesity, and a nutrition policy advisor to the World Health Organization and the World Cancer Research Fund. She completed a Ph.D. in human nutrition at Cornell University.

Thomas A. LaVeist, Ph.D., is dean and professor at the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University. Prior to this position, he was chairman of the Department of Health Policy and Management at The George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health. For 25 years, Dr. LaVeist was on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he was William C. and Nancy F. Richardson Professor in Health Policy and director of the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions. He has published more than 100 articles in scientific journals. He is a highly sought-after lecturer at leading universities, corporations, professional conferences, and workshops. He has also provided consultation services for numerous federal agencies and health care organizations on minority health and cultural competency issues and racial disparities in health. Dr. LaVeist received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and his Ph.D. in medical

sociology from the University of Michigan, and did his postdoctoral fellowship in public health at the Michigan School of Public Health.

Angela K. McGowan, J.D., M.P.H., is a project director at the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). She is an assignee from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Program Performance and Evaluation Office. She works to advance the use of policy and law as tools to improve health, and currently leads an effort of partners to develop evidence-based products to highlight the state of laws and policies related to specific topic areas within the HHS Healthy People 2020 initiative. From 2007 to 2014, she was a senior program officer with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), focusing on public health and specific issues including childhood obesity, tobacco prevention, and preparedness. She focuses on advancing the use of policy, advocacy, and law to aid in creating a strong and comprehensive public health system; leadership development; and issues ranging from public health preparedness to promoting healthy eating and active living. Prior to working at RWJF, she was a health scientist/public health law analyst at the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Legislation in CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Ms. McGowan’s prior public health experience includes serving in CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, working primarily with the Guide to Community Preventive Services (Community Guide) on violence issues and as a legal services officer with Georgia’s Division of Public Health. She received a J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law, an M.P.H. from the Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University, and a B.A. in international relations from the College of William and Mary.

Cynthia Ogden, Ph.D., M.R.P., is an epidemiologist and chief of the Analysis Branch in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) Division at the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As NHANES Analysis Branch chief, she has developed a wide range of partnerships with scientists in federal and local governments, academia, and the private sector, and has fostered dissemination of scientific findings through peer-reviewed manuscripts, government reports, and presentations. As branch chief, she has mentored dozens of epidemiologists. Over a two-decade career at CDC, Dr. Ogden has become an internationally recognized expert in nutritional and obesity epidemiology. As a member of the team that developed the 2000 CDC pediatric growth charts that are used to define obesity in U.S. children, she led the evaluation of the charts. Her more than 130 publications on topics in nutrition, diet, obesity, growth, and physical

activity have garnered more than 81,000 citations in Google Scholar. Her impact as a scientific leader goes beyond her own publications, as she has set the research agenda for the NHANES Division, working with leadership to develop the publication plan. In 2016, she was invited to be an associate editor for Obesity, the journal of The Obesity Society. She is the NCHS spokesperson on matters related to obesity. Dr. Ogden joined CDC as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer after a postdoctoral year in the Nutrition Division at the New York State Department of Health, where she researched obesity among schoolchildren in New York counties. She has also worked on nutrition-related projects for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and currently is an adjunct professor at The George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, teaching popular courses on nutritional and obesity epidemiology. In this capacity, along with teaching hundreds of students, she has had the opportunity to advise master’s and doctoral students. Dr. Ogden earned her Ph.D. and M.R.P. from Cornell University, where her research focused on social contributions to malnutrition among young children in Kigali, Rwanda.

Ruth Petersen, M.D., M.P.H., serves as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity (DNPAO), which provides national leadership on nutrition, physical activity, and obesity prevention through policy and guideline development, surveillance, epidemiological and behavioral research, and technical assistance to states and communities. Dr. Petersen has held numerous leadership positions in multiple settings, including health care, local and state health departments, national advisory groups, academic settings, the private sector, and global health platforms. Her broad, deep, and diverse experience with populations and partners and stakeholders are strong assets for leading DNPAO in its focused efforts to prevent chronic diseases through population-wide public health initiatives and health system innovations. Throughout her career, she has drawn on her expertise in patient care, health system change, disease prevention, and community engagement to develop and guide programs, research, and policy to improve health behaviors and reduce chronic disease. Dr. Petersen received her M.D. and M.P.H. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). After training in obstetrics and gynecology in Rochester, New York, she completed a UNC preventive medicine residency and a postdoctoral fellowship in health services research.

Bill Purcell, J.D., is an attorney in Nashville, Tennessee, and an adjunct professor of public policy at Vanderbilt University. During his tenure as mayor of Nashville (1999–2007), his accomplishments as a civic leader

earned him Public Official of the Year honors in 2006 from Governing magazine. Elected to five terms in the Tennessee House, he held the positions of majority leader and chair of the Select Committee on Children and Youth. After retiring from the General Assembly, Mr. Purcell founded and became director of the Child and Family Policy Center at the Vanderbilt Institute of Public Policy Studies. From 2008–2010, he served as director of the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He was then appointed special advisor and co-chair of the Work Team for Allston in the Office of the President at Harvard University. He has served in various capacities on obesity-related committees of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, including the Committee on an Evidence Framework for Obesity Prevention Decision Making (member), the Committee on Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention (vice chair), and the Standing Committee on Childhood Obesity Prevention (member). He graduated from Hamilton College and the Vanderbilt University School of Law.

Pamela Schwartz, M.P.H., joined Kaiser Permanente in 2001 and serves as senior director for community health impact and learning. In that position, she leads the execution of Kaiser Permanente’s Community Health measurement, evaluation, and learning strategy. She ensures that Kaiser Permanente responds in the most impactful way to the needs of communities, deploying organizational assets in partnership with community leaders. She leads innovative, effective, and efficient strategies to align and strengthen measurement, evaluation, and learning; allocate community health investments and evaluation resources more effectively; and use data more proactively to improve the rigor of decision making and the impact on community health. Ms. Schwartz also leads a program-wide Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) approach, including reporting on the impact on community health. Under her leadership, the CHNA leverages Kaiser Permanente’s organizational assets toward addressing community needs. In addition, she has advanced the CHNA work to focus on identifying and responding to the social determinants of health, including behavioral health, violence, economic security, and climate and health. Ms. Schwartz earned her M.P.H. from San Jose State University.

Melissa Simon, M.D., M.P.H., is George H. Gardner professor of clinical gynecology, vice chair of clinical research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, founder and director of the Center for Health Equity Transformation and the Chicago Cancer Health Equity Collaborative, and co–program leader for cancer control and survivorship and community outreach and engagement at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center. She

leads a diverse portfolio of research that directly impacts local-, state-, and national-level thought and policy regarding inclusion and health equity. Her research creates transdisciplinary partnerships focused on improving vulnerable populations’ health and their interface with the health care system. Dr. Simon supports a large group of mentees ranging from high school–aged students through junior faculty and created the first health care workforce development massive open online course (MOOC): “Career 911: Your Future Job in Medicine and Healthcare.” She has been recognized with numerous leadership and mentoring awards, including the recent White House and National Science Foundation recognition with the Presidential Award in Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentorship. She is a member of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force; the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity; and the National Academy of Medicine’s Leadership Consortium Innovation Collaborative on Care, Culture, and Decision Making. She completed her bachelor’s degree at The University of Chicago, her M.D. at Rush Medical College, her residency at Yale University, and her fellowship in family planning at Northwestern University.

Ruth Zambrana, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Women’s Studies; director of the Consortium on Race, Gender, and Ethnicity at the University of Maryland, College Park; and adjunct professor of family medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, School of Medicine. Her work focuses on the intersections of gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and other contextual variables in disparities in the provision of public health, human services, and education, with an emphasis on Latino women, children, and youth. She has published extensively and serves on many social science and public health journal editorial boards. Her recent work includes an anthology with Sylvia Hurtado, The Magic Key: The Educational Journey of Mexican Americans from K–12, College and Beyond, an edited volume with Virginia Brennan and Shiriki Kumanyika titled Obesity Interventions in Underserved U.S. Communities: Evidence and Directions, and Latinos in American Society: Families and Communities in Transition. Awards include the 2013 American Public Health Association Latino Caucus, Founding Member Award for Vision and Leadership, 2013; the University of Maryland Outstanding Woman of Color Award for her lifetime achievements; and the 2011 Julian Samora Distinguished Career Award from the American Sociological Association, Sociology of Latinos/as Section for her contributions to the sociology of Latinos and immigrant studies, teaching, and mentoring. She was principal investigator of a study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on Understanding the Relationship Between Work Stress and U.S. Research Institutions’ Failure to Retain Underrepresented Minority (URM) Faculty and is currently

completing a book on these findings. Her most recent research award, from the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Expanding the Bench program initiative, aims to translate these new findings on URM faculty barriers and challenges into higher education policies to enhance retention and promotion. Dr. Zambrana received her Ph.D. from Boston University.

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