Appendix C
Biosketches of Speakers and Moderators1
Allison Aiello, Ph.D.,* is a professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Gillings School of Global Public Health and an adjunct professor of social medicine at the UNC School of Medicine. She leads the Social Epidemiology Program in the Department of Epidemiology, directs the Integrating Special Populations Program of the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute at the UNC School of Medicine, and co-directs the Interdisciplinary Training in Life Course Research Program at the Carolina Population Center. Dr. Aiello is a fellow at the Carolina Population Center and an alumna of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars Program. Her multidisciplinary research has applied approaches from epidemiology, genomics, sociology, and immunology to address complex health questions related to social determinants, infection, and chronic disease.
Eileen Crimmins, Ph.D., is the AARP Chair in Gerontology and a University Professor at the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. She co-directs the USC/University of California, Los Angeles, Center on Biodemography and Population Health, the National Institute on Aging–sponsored Biomarker Network, and the Multidisciplinary Research in Gerontology Training Program at USC. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine, and a fellow of the American
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1 * denotes planning committee member; † denotes roundtable member.
Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Crimmins is a demographer whose work focuses on health and aging. Dr. Crimmins’s research is in the area of factors promoting healthy aging and healthy life expectancy, which examines the interaction of trends in life expectancy and population health. She has received the Kleemeier Award for research from the Gerontological Society of America and the Matilda White Riley Distinguished Scholar Award from the Section on Aging and the Lifecourse of the American Sociological Association.
Jennifer Doleac, Ph.D., is an associate professor of economics at Texas A&M University and the director of the Justice Tech Lab. She is also a nonresident fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, a research fellow at the Institute of Labor Economics, and a research affiliate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty. Professor Doleac studies the economics of crime and discrimination, with a particular focus on the effects of technology on public safety. Past and current work addresses topics such as DNA databases, gun violence, and prisoner reentry. Her research has been supported by several governmental and philanthropic organizations and published in leading academic journals, including the Review of Economics and Statistics, the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, and the Economic Journal. Professor Doleac’s work has been highlighted in an array of media outlets, including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and Time. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University and a B.A. in mathematics and economics from Williams College.
Sandro Galea, M.D., M.P.H., Dr.P.H., a physician, epidemiologist, and author, is the dean and the Robert A. Knox Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. He previously held academic and leadership positions at Columbia University, the University of Michigan, and The New York Academy of Medicine. He has published more than 750 scientific journal articles, 50 chapters, and 13 books, and his research has been featured extensively in current periodicals and newspapers. His latest book, Healthier: Fifty Thoughts on the Foundations of Population Health, was published by Oxford University Press in 2017. Fortune magazine called it “The book everyone interested in health must read.” Dr. Galea holds a medical degree from the University of Toronto and graduate degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University. He also holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow. Dr. Galea was named one of Time magazine’s epidemiology innovators and has been listed as one of the “World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds.” He is the past president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research and the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science. He is an elected member of the
National Academy of Medicine and the American Epidemiological Society. Dr. Galea has received several lifetime achievement awards, including the Rema Lapouse Award from the American Public Health Association and the Robert S. Laufer Memorial Award from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. He is a regular contributor to, and his work is regularly featured in, a range of public media.
Rahul Gupta, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., serves as the commissioner for the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources’ Bureau for Public Health and the West Virginia State Health Officer. Dr. Gupta is a practicing internist with 25 years of clinical experience who also has faculty appointments as an adjunct professor of management and leadership in the Department of Health Policy at the West Virginia University School of Public Health, an associate professor at the University of Charleston School of Pharmacy, and visiting faculty at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Dr. Gupta earned an M.D. and subspecialty training in pulmonary medicine from the prestigious University of Delhi and completed his internship and residency training at St. Joseph Hospital at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. Additionally, he earned an M.P.H. in healthcare organization and policy from the The University of Alabama at Birmingham and an M.B.A. in Innovation and Technology Management at the London School of Business & Finance. He is also a fellow of the American College of Physicians.
Dr. Gupta has authored more than 125 peer-reviewed scientific publications in medicine and public health and served as a principal investigator for numerous well-known clinical trials. He presently serves as the secretary of the West Virginia Board of Medicine. He was elected to lead his peers as the 2016–2017 president of the West Virginia State Medical Association.
Dr. Gupta is a steering committee member on Population Health at the National Quality Forum and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. He currently serves as the Region III director of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) Board of Directors. He also serves as the chair of ASTHO’s Prevention Policy Committee and the Tobacco Issues Forum. He is a former member of the National Association of County & City Health Officials Board of Directors.
As the recipient of several state and national awards, including the 2016 Howell Special Meritorious Service Award to Public Health by the Southern Health Association; the 2015 Milton and Ruth Roemer Prize for Creative Local Public Health Work by the American Public Health Association; the 2015 Jay Rockefeller Lifetime Achievement Award for advancements in public policy in health care; and the 2013 Marie Fallon
Award for Public Health Leadership by the National Association of Local Boards of Health, Dr. Gupta is a national and global leader in transforming public health practice to advance health equity and create healthier communities. In 2017, the West Virginia Human Rights Commission recognized Dr. Gupta as a Civil Rights Day Award honoree for his outstanding contributions in the areas of civil rights, human rights, and the betterment of West Virginia’s citizens. Also in 2017, Dr. Gupta was named West Virginian of the Year for his work toward battling the opioid epidemic by the Pulitzer Prize–winning Charleston Gazette-Mail.
Robert Hummer, Ph.D.,* is the Howard W. Odum Distinguished Professor of Sociology and a fellow of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). He came to UNC in summer 2015 after spending 19 years at The University of Texas at Austin, where he served as the director of its Population Research Center between 2001–2005 and the chairperson of their Department of Sociology from 2006–2010. In 2010, he was presented with the Clifford Clogg Award for Early Career Achievement by the Population Association of America. Dr. Hummer’s research focuses on the accurate description and more complete understanding of population health and mortality patterns and trends in the United States. His recent move to UNC was made in large part to become centrally involved in the long-running National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). He is currently an investigator on the Wave V data collection funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and is the principal investigator of an NICHD grant to make Add Health data more easily accessible and usable. He is slated to become the director of Add Health for the sixth wave of data collection.
Joneigh S. Khaldun, M.D., M.P.H., FACEP, FAAEM, is the director and the health officer for the Detroit Health Department and a practicing emergency physician at Henry Ford Hospital. Under Dr. Khaldun’s leadership, Detroit implemented a robust community health assessment and accreditation process, bridged health systems and public health in an effort to reduce infant mortality and teen pregnancy, and successfully responded to the largest hepatitis A outbreak in modern history. She is the driving force behind a proactive strategy to prevent child lead poisoning, and is leading the expansion and restructuring of the city’s animal welfare services.
Previously, Dr. Khaldun was the Baltimore City Health Department’s chief medical officer, where she oversaw seven health department clinics and led efforts to combat the opioid epidemic and youth violence. She has held several local and national leadership positions, including the director
of the Center for Injury Prevention and Control at The George Washington University, the founder and the director of the Fellowship in Health Policy in the University of Maryland Department of Emergency Medicine, and a fellow in the Obama administration’s Office of Health Reform. She serves on several local and national boards and committees, including Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southeastern Michigan, the Governor-appointed Michigan Public Health Advisory Council, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Health Disparities Subcommittee. She was recently selected for the 40 Under 40 Leaders in Minority Health Award by the National Minority Quality Forum.
Dr. Khaldun obtained her undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Michigan, her M.D. from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.P.H. in health policy from The George Washington University.
David A. Kindig, M.D., Ph.D.,*† is an emeritus professor of population health sciences and the emeritus vice-chancellor for health sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. He is the former co-chair of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on Population Health Improvement and co-directs the Wisconsin site of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Health & Society Scholars Program. He was an initial co-principal investigator on the RWJF MATCH grant, under which the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps was developed, and was the founder of the RWJF Roadmaps to Health Prize. From 2011 to 2013 he was the editor of the Improving Population Health blog.
He received a B.A. from Carleton College in 1962 and an M.D. and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine in 1968. He completed residency training in social pediatrics at the Montefiore Medical Center in 1971.
Dr. Kindig served as a professor of preventive medicine/population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin from 1980–2003. He was the vice chancellor for health sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 1980–1985, the director of the Montefiore Medical Center (1976–1980), the deputy director of the Bureau of Health Workforce, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1974–1976), and the first medical director of the National Health Services Corps (1971–1973). He was the national president of the American Medical Student Association in 1967–1968.
He served as the chair of the federal Council on Graduate Medical Education (1995–1997), the president of the Association for Health Services Research (1997–1998), a Prospective Payment Assessment Commission commissioner from 1991–1994, and as the senior advisor to Donna
Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services from 1993–1995. In 1996 he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine. He received the Distinguished Service Award of the University of Chicago School of Medicine in 2003. He chaired the Institute of Medicine Committee on Health Literacy in 2002–2004, chaired Wisconsin Governor Doyle’s Healthy Wisconsin Taskforce in 2006, and received the 2007 Wisconsin Public Health Association’s Distinguished Service to Public Health Award.
Paula Lantz, Ph.D.,*† is a professor and the associate dean for academic affairs at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and a professor of health management policy in the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan. As a social demographer and social epidemiologist, Professor Lantz teaches and conducts research regarding public policy approaches to reducing health disparities in the United States. She is currently researching the potential for pay-for-success financing and other social impact investment approaches to funding interventions aimed at upstream social determinants of health, especially in low-income populations. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Social Insurance.
Bruce Link, Ph.D., is a Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and Sociology at the University of California, Riverside. Dr. Link’s interests are centered on topics in psychiatric and social epidemiology as they bear on policy issues. He has written on the connection between socioeconomic status and health, homelessness, violence, stigma, and discrimination. With Jo Phelan, he has advanced the theory of social conditions as fundamental causes of disease. Currently, he is conducting research on the life-course origins of health inequalities by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status, the consequences of social stigma for the life chances of people who are subject to stigma, and on evaluating intervention efforts aimed at reducing mental illness stigma in children attending middle school.
Sanne Magnan, M.D., Ph.D.,*† is the co-chair of the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She is the former president and chief executive officer of the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement (2006–2007; 2011–2016). In 2007, she was appointed Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Health by Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. She served from 2007 to 2010 and had significant responsibility for implementation of Minnesota’s 2008 health reform legislation, including the Statewide Health Improvement Program, standardized quality reporting, development of provider peer grouping, certification process for health care homes, and baskets of care.
Dr. Magnan was a staff physician at the Tuberculosis Clinic at St. Paul–Ramsey County Department of Public Health (2002–2015). She was a member of the Population-Based Payment Model Workgroup of the Healthcare Payment Learning and Action Network (2015–2016) and a member of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Multi-Sector Collaboration Measure Development Technical Expert Panel (2016). She is on Epic’s Population Health Steering Board and on the Healthy People 2030 engagement subcommittee.
She served on the board of MN Community Measurement and the board of NorthPoint Health & Wellness Center, a federally qualified health center and part of Hennepin Health. Her previous experience also includes vice president and medical director of consumer health at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. Currently, she is a senior fellow with HealthPartners Institute and an adjunct assistant professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Magnan holds an M.D. and a Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry from the University of Minnesota, and is a board-certified internist.
Lourdes J. Rodríguez, Dr.P.H.,*† serves as the director of the Center for Place-Based Initiatives at the The University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School. She works on community-engaged research and practice projects that build on ideas elicited from community colleagues. Previously, she served as the program officer at the New York State Health Foundation. From 2004–2012, she was a faculty member of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Rodríguez received a B.S. in industrial biotechnology from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, an M.P.H. from the University of Connecticut, and a Dr.P.H. from Columbia University.
Joshua M. Sharfstein, M.D.,† is the vice dean for public health practice and community engagement and a professor of the practice in health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is also the director of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative. His book, The Public Health Crisis Survival Guide: Leadership and Management in Trying Times, was published in 2018 by Oxford University Press.
Previously, Dr. Sharfstein served as the secretary of the Maryland Department of Health & Mental Hygiene from January 2011 to December 2014. In this position, he led efforts to align Maryland’s health care system with improved health outcomes, culminating in the adoption of a revised payment model for all hospital care for Maryland residents. He also oversaw the development of a statewide health improvement process with 18 local public–private coalitions and the reshaping of the state’s approach to health information exchange, long-term care, and behavioral health.
From March 2009 to January 2011, Dr. Sharfstein served as the principal deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, where he oversaw the agency’s successful performance management and transparency initiatives. From December 2005 to March 2009, as the commissioner of health for the City of Baltimore, Dr. Sharfstein led innovative efforts that contributed to major declines in both overdose deaths and infant mortality rates. From July 2001 to December 2005, as minority professional staff and the health policy advisor for Congressman Henry A. Waxman, Dr. Sharfstein was engaged in a wide range of oversight and legislative activities on health care topics, including emergency preparedness, HIV, and the politicization of science.
Dr. Sharfstein graduated summa cum laude with an A.B. in social studies from Harvard College in 1991. From August 1991 to August 1992, he worked on public health projects in Guatemala and Costa Rica with a Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship. He graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1996 from the Boston Combined Residency Program in Pediatrics at the Boston Medical Center and Boston Children’s Hospital in 1999 and from the fellowship in general academic pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine in 2001.
Dr. Sharfstein is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Medicine (2014) and the National Academy of Public Administration (2013). He serves on the Board of Population Health and Public Health Practice of the Health and Medicine Division of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and on the editorial board of the Journal of the American Medical Association. His awards have included the Jay S. Drotman Memorial Award from the American Public Health Association (1994), Public Official of the Year from Governing magazine (2008) and the Circle of Commendation Award from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (2013).
Ellen-Marie Whelan, Ph.D., CRNP, FAAN,*† is a senior advisor at the Innovation Center within the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, where she is working to develop, implement, and test innovative payment and service delivery models strengthening primary care, accountable care, perinatal care, and community-based population health. She coordinates the pediatric portfolio across the Innovation Center.
Previously, Dr. Whelan was the associate director of health policy at the Center for American Progress, and she was also a health policy advisor in the U.S. Senate for 5 years, working for both Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle and as the staff director for the Subcommittee on Aging to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions with Senator Barbara Mikulski. In this capacity she worked on developing and passing legislation related to Medicare, Medicaid, the
Children’s Health Insurance Program, public health, and the Food and Drug Administration.
She has worked in a variety of primary care settings and started an adolescent primary care clinic in West Philadelphia. For this effort she received the Secretary’s Award for Innovations in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, presented by Donna Shalala, and was one of the first nurse practitioners in Pennsylvania to obtain an independent Medicaid provider number. In 2011 the American Association of Colleges of Nursing honored Dr. Whelan with its Luminary Award acknowledging her contributions in public policy.
David Williams, Ph.D., M.P.H., is the Florence Sprague Norman and Laura Smart Norman Professor of Public Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a professor of African and African American studies and sociology at Harvard University. His prior academic appointments were at Yale University and the University of Michigan. He holds an M.P.H. from Loma Linda University and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan.
Dr. Williams is an internationally recognized authority on social influences on health. He has been invited to keynote scientific conferences in Europe, Africa, Australia, the Middle East, South America, and across the United States. As the author of more than 400 scientific papers, his research has enhanced our understanding of the complex ways in which race, socioeconomic status, stress, racism, health behavior, and religious involvement can affect health. The Everyday Discrimination Scale that he developed is one of the most widely used measures of discrimination in health studies.
He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He was ranked as one of the Top 10 Most Cited Social Scientists in the world in 2005, as the Most Cited Black Scholar in the Social Sciences in 2008, and as one of the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds in 2014. He has also received Distinguished Contributions awards from the American Sociological Association, the American Psychological Association, and The New York Academy of Medicine.
Dr. Williams has served on the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics and on eight committees for the National Academy of Medicine, including the committee that produced the report Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. He has also played a visible, national leadership role in raising awareness levels of the problem of health inequalities and identifying interventions to address them. This includes his service as the staff director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Commission to Build a Healthier America
and as a key scientific advisor to the award-winning PBS film series Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? His research has been featured by some of the nation’s top news organizations and in his TEDMED talk released in 2017.
