B
Speaker Biographical Sketches
Sharen Anthony has worked with the Public Health Foundation Enterprises Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (PHFE WIC) Program for more than 15 years. Recent projects include the WIC Empowers Teens program for 15,000 pregnant and parenting teen participants and the Beyond 9-state funded Preconception Health care training. In 2006, Ms. Anthony spearheaded and later became coordinator of the Health is Wealth PHFE WIC Employee Wellness Program for more than 650 employees. Health is Wealth served as a model for the California WIC Association’s (CWA’s) WIC Worksite Wellness Program. Ms. Anthony currently serves in an advisory capacity for the CWA WIC Worksite Wellness Program and was instrumental in establishing PHFE WIC as one of the pioneering WIC Worksite Wellness Certified Programs. Ms. Anthony has utilized her expertise as a clinician to provide internal training and technical assistance on special topics such as child abuse and domestic violence. In the past few years, she has participated in many local initiatives, such as the Department of Public Health’s Early Childhood Obesity Prevention Project and Los Angeles County’s Healthy Weight for Women of Reproductive Age Learning Collaborative. Currently, she serves as co-chair of the Los Angeles Adolescent Health Collaborative Steering Committee. She also has participated in numerous work groups and roundtables focused on teens, including the Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect’s (ICAN’s) Task Force on Pregnant and Parenting Adolescents, the Teen Family Life Network, the Community Network Council, and the Orange County Teen Collaborative Network. In addition to holding her full-time position at PHFE WIC, Ms. Anthony is pursuing her license as a marriage and family therapist.
Raymond J. Baxter, Ph.D., is Kaiser Permanente’s senior vice president for community benefit, research and health policy. As a member of Kaiser’s National Leadership Team, Dr. Baxter leads the organization’s
activities to fulfill its social mission, including care and coverage for low-income people, community health initiatives, environmental stewardship, and support for community-based organizations, as well as research and the Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy. He also serves as president of KP International. In 2004 he served as interim president for Kaiser Permanente’s Southern California Region, serving more than 3 million members. Dr. Baxter has more than 30 years of experience managing public health, hospital, long-term care, and mental health programs, including heading the San Francisco Department of Public Health and the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation. He also led The Lewin Group, a health policy firm. Dr. Baxter holds a doctorate from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. He serves on the board of directors of Grantmakers in Health; the advisory board of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health; the Technical Board of the Milbank Memorial Fund; and the National Public Health and Hospital Institute. He is also a member of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences Expert Panel. In 2001 the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health honored him as a public health hero for his service during the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. In September 2006 he received the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Foundation Hero Award for addressing the health consequences of Hurricane Katrina by supporting public health teams in the Gulf Coast and for his long-standing commitment to improving the health of communities.
Ryan M. Buchholz, M.D., practices pediatrics and internal medicine at Unity Health Care, a community health center that serves an ethnically diverse immigrant community in Washington, DC, and is the medical home for more than 22,000 patients. He serves on the steering committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Institute for Healthy Childhood Weight. As a practitioner, assistant medical director, and quality improvement team leader at the health center, Dr. Buchholz is actively engaged—through Unity’s Ways to Enhance Children’s Activity and Nutrition (We Can!) team—with clinicians, community partners, and patients in innovative efforts to diagnose, prevent, and treat overweight and obesity in a predominantly low-income community. Dr. Buchholz completed his residency training and a chief residency at the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, where
he obtained additional qualifications in the management and continuous improvement of outcomes and services in health care.
Deborah Burnet, M.D., M.A., is a professor of medicine and pediatrics and serves as section chief for general internal medicine and vice chair for faculty development in the Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago. Dr. Burnet comes from a background in the humanities and social services. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English with a theology minor from Georgetown University. She went on to work at Youth Enrichment Services, providing foster care for troubled teenagers on Chicago’s South Side. Dr. Burnet attended the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago, earning her M.D. degree and a master’s degree in public policy from the Harris School of Graduate Studies in Public Policy at the University of Chicago. She served a 4-year combined residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Chicago. Dr. Burnet cares for a panel of primary care patients (adults and children) at the University of Chicago Primary Care Group. She also performs translational research on obesity and risk of type 2 diabetes in youth. She conducted focus groups with African American children and families on Chicago’s South Side to assess community habits and preferences regarding nutrition and exercise behaviors, and used these insights to implement a community-based, family-oriented diabetes risk reduction program for African American youth. This program, the Reach-Out Chicago Children’s Diabetes Prevention Project, was subsequently adapted for use in the after-school setting as the Power-Up After-School Collaborative Child and Family Obesity Prevention Program. Dr. Burnet serves as director of the Community-Based Participatory Research Unit for the University of Chicago Institute for Translational Medicine and as a member of various National Institutes of Health (NIH) review panels concerned with community-based research.
Patricia B. Crawford, Dr.P.H., R.D., is director of the Dr. Robert C. and Veronica Atkins Center for Weight and Health, Cooperative Extension nutrition specialist in the Department of Nutritional Science and Toxicology, and adjunct professor in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Crawford directed the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Growth and Health Study, a longitudinal study of the development of cardiovascular risk factors in African American and white girls, as well as the Five-State FitWIC Initiative to Prevent Childhood Obesity. She has developed numerous
obesity prevention materials, including the Fit Families novella series for Latino families and Let’s Get Moving, an activity program for those who work with young children. Dr. Crawford has served on a number of advisory committees, including the California Legislative Task Force on Diabetes and Obesity. Her current studies include evaluations of large community-based obesity initiatives and school-based policy interventions. Dr. Crawford is currently a member of the Standing Committee on Childhood Obesity Prevention and has served as a member or chair of three Institute of Medicine (IOM) obesity-related planning committees. She also served as a member of the Committee on Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention. She earned a Ph.D. in public health and completed her training as a registered dietitian at the University of California, Berkeley.
Lori Dorfman, Dr.P.H., directs Berkeley Media Studies Group (BMSG), a project of the Public Health Institute, overseeing BMSG’s research, media advocacy training, and strategic consultation for public health advocates and professional education for journalists. BMSG works with advocates to build their capacity to use media advocacy in confrontational policy environments so they can focus attention on transforming systems and structures to foster health. Dr. Dorfman’s research examines how the media portray health issues, including alcohol, tobacco, nutrition, food, children’s health, health inequities, and violence, among others. Dr. Dorfman is part of an interdisciplinary team that helped news organizations include a public health perspective in their crime and violence coverage. With colleagues at the Center for Digital Democracy, she has been conducting research on how food and beverage companies are using digital marketing to target children and youth (see http://digitalads.org). With colleagues at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, she co-convenes the Food Marketing Workgroup, a national network of organizations and experts concerned about the proliferation of marketing of unhealthful foods and beverages targeting children and youth. Dr. Dorfman also serves on Voices for America’s Children’s Board of Trustees.
Myron F. Floyd, M.S., Ph.D., is professor and director of graduate programs in the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management at North Carolina State University. Along with colleagues and graduate students, he conducts research examining effects of the built and natural environments on physical activity and health. Dr. Floyd specializes in understanding racial/ethnic disparities in access to parks
and open space. His research appears in a wide variety of scientific journals, including Leisure Sciences, Journal of Physical Activity and Health, and American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Dr. Floyd holds degrees from Clemson University (B.S., M.S.) and Texas A&M University (Ph.D.). He is a fellow of the Academy of Leisure Sciences and is the 2008 recipient of the Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt Award for Excellence in Recreation and Park Research, the highest honor for research given by the National Recreation and Park Association.
Tracy Fox, R.D., is president of Food, Nutrition & Policy Consultants, LLC, with more than 25 years of experience working in the federal government and the private sector. Her areas of expertise include child nutrition and school health; nutrition education; food labeling and marketing; federal, state, and local nutrition policy; advocacy; and government relations. Clients range from federal, state, and local agencies, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Feeding America, and Partnership for a Healthier America. Ms. Fox has served (and serves) on numerous boards and committees, including the IOM committees on Nutrition Standards for Foods in School, Local Government Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity, and Front of Package Nutrition Rating Systems and Symbols. Her previous positions include serving as policy analyst with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (Washington, DC, office) and as past president of the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior. Ms. Fox is also a retired commander, U.S. Navy.
Robert García, J.D., is founding director and counsel of The City Project, a nonprofit legal and policy advocacy organization based in Los Angeles, California. He has extensive experience in public policy and legal advocacy, mediation, and litigation involving complex social justice, civil rights, human health, environmental, education, and criminal justice matters. Mr. García graduated from Stanford University and Stanford Law School, where he served on the board of editors of the Stanford Law Review. As reported in the New York Times, “The City Project [is] working to broaden access to parks and open space for inner city children, and … to fight childhood obesity by guaranteeing that … students get enough physical education.” Mr. García’s work in the past decade has focused on equal access to park, education, and health resources. He is a recognized leader in the urban park movement,
bringing the simple joys of playing in parks and school fields to children in communities that are park poor, income poor, and disproportionately of color. Mr. García received the American Public Health Association’s President’s Citation Award in 2010 for helping to make public health and the built environment a social justice imperative. He served as chairman of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Citizens’ School Bond Oversight Committee for 5 years, helping to raise $27 billion to build new and modernize existing public schools as centers of their communities. He previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York and as western regional counsel with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. Mr. García taught at the Stanford and University of California, Los Angeles, law schools and practiced law at a large New York law firm.
Ross A. Hammond, Ph.D., is senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, where he is also director of the Center on Social Dynamics & Policy. His primary area of expertise is modeling complex social dynamics in economic, political, and public health systems. He has more than 15 years of experience with mathematical and computational complex systems science techniques. His current research topics include obesity, behavioral epidemiology, tobacco control, corruption, ethnocentrism, segregation, trust, and decision making. Dr. Hammond received his B.A. from Williams College and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He has authored numerous scientific articles, and his work has been featured in New Scientist, Salon, The Atlantic Monthly, and major news media. Dr. Hammond currently serves on the editorial board of the journal Childhood Obesity, on the steering committee for the NIH Comparative Modeling Network of the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research, and as a member of the NIH MIDAS (Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study) and NICH (Network on Inequality, Complexity, and Health) networks. He has been a consultant to The World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the IOM, and NIH. He has taught systems science and computational modeling at the University of Michigan, Harvard School of Public Health, Washington University, and the NIH/CDC Institute on Systems Science and Health. Dr. Hammond previously held positions as the Okun-Model fellow in economics, a National Science Foundation fellow in the Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan, a
visiting scholar at The Santa Fe Institute, and a consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP.
Arnell J. Hinkle, R.D., M.P.H., is founding executive director of Community Adolescent Nutrition and Fitness (CANFIT), a national nonprofit organization that provides training, technical assistance, and strategic consultation on nutrition, physical activity, and policy development for after-school providers and community-based organizations. Ms. Hinkle has experience working directly with African American, Latino, Southeast Asian, Filipino, and American Indian low-income communities throughout the nation. She has served as a technical assistance provider for a variety of foundation initiatives, including The California Endowment’s Healthy Eating Active Communities (HEAC) Program and the W.K. Kellogg Food and Fitness Initiative. Her efforts to produce culturally appropriate nutrition and physical activity education training and policy resources emphasizing youth leadership are nationally recognized, and she has provided training, technical assistance, and consultation to community and after-school organizations and numerous local, state, and national agencies, including 100 Black Men of America, Inc.; the South Dakota Lakota Sioux Diabetes Education Project; Region 10, U.S. Bureau of Maternal and Child Health; and CDC. She is a recipient of the 2003 Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leader Award. As a Eureka communities leadership fellow in 2004, Ms. Hinkle worked with the Washington, DC-based policy group Forum for Youth Investment to examine how the youth development field can incorporate nutrition and physical activity standards into after-school programs. In 2005, she received the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio, Italy Study Center Fellowship in recognition of her experiences designing and implementing nutrition and physical activity programs for Asian American, Pacific Islander, Latino, and African American adolescents. Ms. Hinkle was a 2008-2010 food and society policy fellow and has served on the California Department of Education’s After School Healthy Snacks, Physical Activity, and Physical Activity Expert Panel Steering Committees. In 2010, Ms. Hinkle was selected as an Ian Axford public policy fellow, examining healthy eating and physical activity programs in Maori and Pasifika communities for the New Zealand government. Prior to her work at CANFIT, she was a professional chef, clinical dietitian, and organic farmer.
Donald Schwarz, M.D., M.P.H., is deputy mayor for health and opportunity and health commissioner for the City of Philadelphia. In his role as deputy mayor, he oversees the Departments of Human Services and Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services and the Office of Supportive Housing. As health commissioner, Dr. Schwarz has worked to initiate antiobesity and smoking cessation programs, condom promotion efforts, electronic health records for the city’s eight federally qualified (look-alike) health centers, and risk-based restaurant inspections. Rates of HIV continue to decline in Philadelphia, and the city has reached its lowest rates of infant mortality (and smallest disparities in infant deaths) and highest rates of immunization (with the highest rate of human papillomavirus [HPV] immunization among America’s large cities). Before entering government service, Dr. Schwarz served as vice chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and as deputy physician-in-chief and Craig-Dalsimer division chief for adolescent medicine at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He was Mary D. Ames professor of pediatrics in the University of Pennsylvania Schools of Medicine and Nursing at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Schwarz was an active researcher in the area of adolescent risk behaviors for more than 22 years. He received both public and private funding for work examining the issues of injury and its prevention in urban minority communities, public policy approaches to adolescent violence, and physician- and nurse practice-based interventions to improve outcomes for high-risk infants.
Anthony Signorelli, M.B.A., is vice president campaign director at the Advertising Council. Mr. Signorelli leads the strategic development, creation, and evaluation of numerous multimedia advertising and cause marketing campaigns, including initiatives for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Office of the First Lady, Feeding America, the U.S. Olympic Committee, and the American Heart Association. His work includes Association for Manufacturing Excellence and ADDY award–winning communications programs, as well as collaboration with global brands such as Disney, PepsiCo, NFL, and Kraft. Mr. Signorelli also leads strategic partnership development across the Ad Council’s many issues, working with media companies, entertainment partners, and corporations to extend the organization’s important campaign messages. Mr. Signorelli received his
M.B.A. from Fordham’s Graduate School of Business in 2005 and currently serves as an adjunct professor in the Communications & Media Studies Department at Fordham University. He has been a featured speaker on panels and at major conferences on behalf of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Grocery Manufacturers of America, Partnership for a Healthier America, and the Children’s Advertising Review Unit.
Rodney K. Taylor is director of nutrition services for the Riverside Unified School District in Riverside, California. A noted pioneer and expert in farm-to-school salad bars, he is known in particular for establishing the Farmers’ Market Salad Bar program in 1997 while working as director of food and nutrition services in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District in Santa Monica, California. As a result of his work for this and other programs in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District and Riverside Unified School District, Mr. Taylor is frequently invited to speak at workshops, participate in panels, conduct training, and speak directly to government agencies and officials. Mr. Taylor also serves on the California State Board of Food and Agriculture, the University of California President’s Advisory Commission for Agriculture and Natural Resources, and the Network for a Healthy California’s executive committee.
Joseph W. Thompson, M.D., M.P.H., is surgeon general of the State of Arkansas, director of the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement, and associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Dr. Thompson has led efforts involving planning and implementing health care financing reform; worked with tobacco- and obesity-related health promotion and disease prevention programs in Arkansas, including documenting the state’s success in halting the progress of the childhood obesity epidemic; and helped implement ARHealthNet, Arkansas’ health insurance waiver for low-income workers. He has served as Robert Wood Johnson Foundation clinical scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Luther Terry fellow in preventive medicine in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health in the Department of Health and Human Services, and assistant vice president and director of research at the National Committee for Quality Assurance in Washington, DC. In 1997, he served as a child and adolescent health scholar for the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (then the U.S. Agency for Health Care Policy and Research) before returning to Arkansas. Dr. Thompson is a
