Appendix E
Speaker and Moderator Biographies1
Gregory T. Angelo is the current Executive Director of Log Cabin Republicans. Prior to his current position, Mr. Angelo served as the Chairman of Log Cabin Republicans of New York State, where he led Log Cabin Republicans as part of New Yorkers United for Marriage, a coalition that collaborated to make marriage equality legal through legislative vote for the first time in a Republican-controlled legislature. Angelo is also the Executive Director of the Liberty Education Forum, a non-partisan think tank that advocates a message of gay acceptance among conservatives and people of faith throughout the United States. He has been featured in numerous media outlets, including The O’Reilly Factor, Hardball with Chris Matthews, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, CNBC, ABC News, NPR, NBC, C-SPAN, and more.
Martha Argüello has served in the nonprofit sector for the past 32 years as an advocate, community organizer, and coalition builder. She joined Physicians for Social Responsibility–Los Angeles (PSR–LA) in 1998 to launch the environmental health programs, and became Executive Director in November 2007. She is committed to making the credible voice of physicians a powerful instrument for transforming California and our planet into a more peaceful and healthy place. Ms. Argüello grew up in the
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1 Notes: Names appear in alphabetical order; “†” = member of the workshop planning committee; “*” = member of the IOM Roundtable on Population Health Improvement; “**” = member of the IOM Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity and the Elimination of Health Disparities.
Pico-Union area of Los Angeles. At the young age of 14, she made a lifelong commitment to effect social change after seeing her friend killed by a school security guard. While working as a health educator in the 1990s, Ms. Argüello had an epiphany—she realized that although early detection can prevent death from breast cancer, it does not prevent breast cancer, which has been increasingly linked to the exposure of environmental toxicants. Since that realization, Ms. Argüello has dedicated her career to the environmental justice movement, and has lectured nationwide on the use of precautionary principle policies. As a coalition builder, Ms. Argüello has emphasized the need for local grassroots advocacy working in partnership with statewide policy actions. She is an active board member of numerous organizations, including Californians for Pesticide Reform, and Californians for a Healthy and Green Economy. She also co-founded the Los Angeles County Asthma Coalition and the Coalition for Environmental Health and Justice, and was appointed to Cal/Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Justice Committee and the California Air Resources Board’s Global Warming Environmental Justice Advisory Committee.
Raymond J. Baxter, Ph.D., is Kaiser Permanente’s (KP’s) senior vice president for Community Benefit, Research and Health Policy. As a member of Kaiser’s National Executive Team, Dr. Baxter leads the organization’s activities to fulfill its social mission, including care and coverage for low income people, community health initiatives, health equity, environmental stewardship and support for community-based organizations. He also leads KP’s work in research, health policy and diversity, and serves as President of KP International. Dr. Baxter has more than 35 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. Dr. Baxter also led The Lewin Group, a noted health policy firm. Dr. Baxter holds a doctorate from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. He serves on the Advisory Boards of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health and the Duke University Institute for Health Innovation, the Board of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Foundation, the Global Agenda Council on Health of the World Economic Forum, and is a member of the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM’s) Roundtable on Population Health Improvement and the Roundtable on Value & Science-Driven Health Care. In 2001 the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health honored him as a Public Health Hero for his service in the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. In September 2006 he received the CDC Foundation Hero Award for addressing the health consequences of Hur-
ricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast, and for his longstanding commitment to improving the health of communities.
Ned Calonge, M.D., M.P.H., is the President and CEO of The Colorado Trust, a health equity foundation, which was created in 1985 with the proceeds of the sale of PSL Healthcare Corporation. The mission of the Trust is to advance the health and well-being of the people of Colorado, with a vision that all Coloradans should have fair and equal opportunities to lead healthy, productive lives regardless of race, ethnicity, income or where they live. Dr. Calonge is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine at the Colorado School of Medicine, University of Colorado, Denver, and an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health. Nationally, he chairs the CDC’s Evaluating Genomic Applications for Practice and Prevention Working Group and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Electronic Data Methods Forum Advisory Committee, and is a member of the CDC’s Task Force on Community Preventive Services and of CDC’s Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection and Control Advisory Committee. Dr. Calonge is a past Chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and is a past member of the Secretary’s Discretionary Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders in Newborns and Children. Prior to coming to the Trust, Dr. Calonge was the Chief Medical Officer of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Dr. Calonge received his B.A. in Chemistry from The Colorado College, his M.D. from the University of Colorado and his M.P.H. from the University of Washington, where he also completed his preventive medicine residency. He completed his family medicine residency at the Oregon Health Sciences University. He was elected to the IOM in 2011.
Karoleen Feng, M.C.P., is Community Development Manager of Mission Promise Neighborhood initiative at Mission Economic Development Agency where she coordinates policy and program partnerships for housing, violence prevention, nutrition and physical fitness for the Mission neighborhood in San Francisco. Formerly as Associate Director of the Real Estate Department at East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation, her role spanned planning and advocacy as well as real estate development of office, retail, multifamily residential and for-sale single family homes. She has assembled and managed complex mixed-use real estate development projects ranging $4 million to $50 million from site acquisition through planning entitlements and construction to operations and/or sales. Ms. Feng has a master’s of City Planning from the University of California, Berkeley, and a bachelor of arts from the University of California, Berkeley, in Political Economy of Industrialized Societies.
Marshall Ganz, Ph.D., M.P.A., Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, entered Harvard College in the fall of 1960. In 1964, 1 year before graduating, he left to volunteer as a civil rights organizer in Mississippi. In 1965, he joined Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers; over the next 16 years he gained experience in union and community issues, and political organizing, and became Director of Organizing. During the 1980s, he worked with grassroots groups to develop effective organizing programs, designing innovative voter mobilization strategies for local, state, and national electoral campaigns. In 1991, in order to deepen his intellectual understanding of his work, he returned to Harvard College and, after a 28-year “leave of absence,” completed his undergraduate degree in history and government. He was awarded an M.P.A. by the Kennedy School in 1993 and completed his Ph.D. in sociology in 2000. He teaches, researches, and writes on leadership, organization, and strategy in social movements, civic associations, and politics. He has published in the American Journal of Sociology, American Political Science Review, American Prospect, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. His newest book, Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Organization and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement was published in 2009, earning the Michael J. Harrington Book Award of the American Political Science Association. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in divinity by the Episcopal Divinity School in 2010.
Anthony Iton, M.D., J.D., M.P.H., is Senior Vice President for Healthy Communities at The California Endowment. In the fall of 2009, Dr. Iton began to oversee the organization’s 10-Year, Multimillion-Dollar Statewide Commitment to Advance Policies and Forge Partnerships to Build Healthy Communities and a Healthy California. Dr. Iton served for 7 years as the Alameda County Public Health Department Director and Health Officer where he oversaw a budget of $112 million with a focus on preventing communicable disease outbreaks, reducing the burden of chronic disease and obesity. He has worked as an HIV disability rights attorney at the Berkeley Community Law Center, a health care policy analyst with Consumers Union West Coast Regional Office, and as a physician and advocate for the homeless at the San Francisco Public Health Department. Dr. Iton’s primary focus includes health of disadvantaged populations and the contributions of race, class, wealth, education, geography, and employment to health status. His awards include the Champion of Children Award from the United Way and the National Association of City and County Health Officials Award of Excellence for the use of information technology in public health. In February 2010, Dr. Iton was recognized by the California Legislative Black Caucus with the Black History Month Legends Award and presented on the floor of the
California State Assembly with a resolution memorializing his life’s work and achievements. Dr. Iton serves on the board of directors of the Public Health Institute, the Public Health Trust, the Prevention Institute, and Jobs for the Future. Dr. Iton received his medical degree at Johns Hopkins University Medical School and subsequently trained in internal medicine and preventive medicine at New York Hospital, Yale, and Berkeley and is board certified in both specialties. Dr. Iton also holds a law degree and a master’s of public health from the University of California, Berkeley, and is a member of the California Bar.
Michelle Larkin, J.D., M.S., R.N.,* As assistant vice president and deputy director for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF’s) Health Group, Ms. Larkin helps to shape the Foundation’s strategies, policies, and programs to create a culture of health for the nation, including reversing the childhood obesity epidemic, driving fundamental improvements in the nation’s public health system, and addressing the needs of the country’s most vulnerable populations. Larkin also co-leads the Foundation’s major initiative on public health law to establish effective public health laws, regulations, and policies; enhance the public health law infrastructure to support practitioners, advocates, and their legal counsel in improving health; and promote the use of law in fields that impact health. Previously, Ms. Larkin directed the Foundation’s Public Health team in its work to improve federal, state, and local public health systems, build the evidence for effective public health practice and policy, and advocate for the use of law and policy to improve health. From 2003 through 2006, she co-led the Foundation’s Tobacco team, promoting increased tobacco excise taxes, state and local smoke-free air laws, and funding for tobacco prevention and treatment. Before joining the Foundation, Ms. Larkin worked as a health policy analyst at the Office on Smoking and Health at CDC in Washington, DC; as a Presidential Management Fellow; as a legislative fellow for the U.S. Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee; and as a hematology-oncology nurse at the University of Maryland Medical System in Baltimore, Maryland. Ms. Larkin is a member of the American Public Health Association, the Public Health Law Association, the American Bar Association, and the New Jersey Bar. She also serves on the National Board of Public Health Examiners. Ms. Larkin received a J.D. from the Seton Hall University School of Law, an M.S. in nursing/health policy from the University of Maryland, and a B.S.N. from the University of Pennsylvania.
Jeff Levi, Ph.D.,* is Executive Director of the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH), where he leads the organization’s advocacy efforts on behalf of a modernized public health system. He oversees TFAH’s work on a range of
public health policy issues, including implementation of the public health provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and annual reports assessing the nation’s public health preparedness, investment in public health infrastructure, and response to chronic diseases such as obesity. TFAH led the public health community’s efforts to enact, and now defend, the prevention provisions of the ACA, including the Prevention and Public Health Fund and the new Community Transformation Grants. In January 2011, President Obama appointed Dr. Levi to serve as a member of the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health. In April 2011, Surgeon General Benjamin appointed him chair of the Advisory Group. Dr. Levi is also Professor of Health Policy at George Washington University’s School of Public Health, where his research has focused on HIV/AIDS, Medicaid, and integrating public health with the health care delivery system. In the past, he has also served as an associate editor of the American Journal of Public Health and Deputy Director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy. Beginning in the early 1980s, he held various leadership positions in the LGBT and HIV communities, helping to frame the early response to the HIV epidemic. Dr. Levi received a B.A. from Oberlin College, an M.A. from Cornell University, and a Ph.D. from George Washington University.
Sanne Magnan, M.D., Ph.D.,* is the President and CEO of the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement (ICSI) in Bloomington, Minnesota. ICSI is an independent, nonprofit organization that facilitates collaboration to improve health and health care value by medical groups, hospitals, nonprofit health plans, purchasers, and community stakeholders. From 2007 to 2010, Dr. Magnan served as Commissioner of Health for the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) and was responsible for significant implementation of Minnesota’s 2008 health reform legislation. Before working at ICSI and MDH, she was vice president and medical director of consumer health at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. Currently, Dr. Magnan also serves as a staff physician at the Tuberculosis Clinic at St. Paul-Ramsey County Department of Public Health, and a clinical assistant professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota. She is a board-certified general internist and serves on several community boards, including Minnesota Community Measurement and NorthPoint Health and Wellness Center, a federally qualified health center. Dr. Magnan is 1 of the 100 Influential Health Care Leaders named by Minnesota Physician in 2004, 2008, and 2012. Her medical degree and Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry are from the University of Minnesota.
Mary Pittman, Dr.P.H.,†* is president and chief executive officer of the Public Health Institute (PHI). A nationally recognized leader in improving
community health, addressing health inequities among vulnerable people and promoting quality of care, Dr. Pittman assumed the reins at PHI in 2008, becoming the organization’s second president and CEO since its founding in 1964. Her primary focus has been guiding the development of a strategic plan that builds on existing PHI program strengths to achieve greater impact on public policy and practice in public health. “In a changing environment, strategic planning is an ongoing process, not an end product,” she said. Dr. Pittman’s overarching goal is for PHI to become known for leadership in creating healthier communities. To this end, PHI continues to work closely with the state on many programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. What’s more, she advocates that all PHI projects take the social determinants of health into account to better address health disparities and inequities. Under Dr. Pittman’s leadership, PHI has emphasized support for the ACA and the Prevention and Public Health Fund, the integration of new technologies and the expansion of global health programming. Other top priorities are: increasing advocacy for public policy and health reform, and addressing health workforce shortages and the impacts of climate change on public health. Under Dr. Pittman, PHI has created Dialogue4Health.com, the online platform for conferencing and social networking, and has been recognized as a preferred place to work. She strives for PHI’s independent investigators to work together to achieve a synergy in which the sum of their contributions is greater than the whole. Dr. Pittman has deep, varied, and multisectoral experience in local public health, research, education, and hospitals. Before joining PHI, Dr. Pittman headed the Health Research and Educational Trust, a Chicago-based affiliate of the American Hospital Association, from 1993 to 2007. Previously, she was president and CEO of the California Association of Public Hospitals and a director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Dr. Pittman has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals and two books. She has served on the PHI board of directors since 1996. Dr. Pittman also serves on numerous boards and committees, including the World Health Organization’s Health Worker Migration Global Policy Advisory Council and the National Patient Safety Foundation’s board of governors.
Francesca Polletta, Ph.D., came to University of California, Irvine, from Columbia University, where she was an assistant and associate professor of sociology. She works in the areas of culture, politics, social movements, and law. Much of her work investigates how culture sets the terms of strategic action, but culture understood less as beliefs and worldviews than as familiar relationships, institutional routines, and conventions of self-expression. In her award-winning Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements (University of Chicago Press, 2002),
Dr. Polletta showed that activists over the course of a century have styled their radical democracies variously on friendship, religious fellowship, and tutelage—and fractured along the lines of those relationships. In her award-winning It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2006), she investigated the political advantages and risks of telling stories, especially for disadvantaged groups. Popular conventions of storytelling have served to reproduce the status quo, she argues, less by limiting what disadvantaged groups can imagine than by limiting the occasions on which they can tell authoritative stories. Dr. Polletta’s current research focuses on new modes of citizen participation, and aims both to account for the new enthusiasm for participatory democracy and to determine whether popular participation has become effectively detached from power.
Doran Schrantz is the Executive Director of ISAIAH, a faith-based community organization of 100 member congregations in the Twin Cities metropolitan region, St. Cloud, and Rochester in Minnesota. Ms. Schrantz has been at the center of ISAIAH’s development from a small, more locally focused organization of 64 member institutions, to an organization considered one of the most powerful voices in Minnesota around issues of racial and economic justice. In the past 5 years, ISAIAH has explored the intersection of community organizing, movement building, politics, policy, and research and has launched powerful partnerships at the state level such as Minnesotans for a Fair Economy, which is a collaborative of faith, community, and labor. This collaborative has been at the center of working to end income inequality, passing significant state legislation as well as winning a state-wide ballot initiative to defeat Voter ID in 2012. Working at the intersection of health and organizing, ISAIAH has led two significant, community-led health impact assessments funded by the Health Impact Project, one on the built environment and the other looking at education equity and integration policies. Ms. Schrantz has also worked to launch Healthy Heartlands, a collaborative of five Midwestern states working at the intersection of the social determinants of health and democracy building in order to stage interventions which reduce health inequities. Healthy Heartlands is currently working with the People Improving Communities through Organizing National Network to build a national center for health organizing. Ms. Schrantz is on the Board of Human Impact Partners, a lead organization in the field of health impact assessments. In 2012, Ms. Schrantz was awarded the Young Leader Award from RWJF, an award that recognized 10 leaders under 40 who are innovating around health and health care.
Mildred Thompson, M.S.W.,†** is the Senior Director and Director of the PolicyLink Center for Health Equity and Place. She leads the organization’s health team, with work focusing on healthy food access, improving the built environment, and the systemic integration of health equity. A significant component of her work involves exploring community factors that impact health and identifying effective solutions. Prior to joining PolicyLink, she was director of community health services for Alameda County’s Public Health Department; director of Healthy Start; and director of the San Antonio Neighborhood Health Center. Ms. Thompson has degrees in nursing, psychology, and social work. She has taught at Mills College and San Francisco State University, and also worked as an organizational development consultant. Ms. Thompson is a frequent speaker on topics related to health equity and serves on several boards and commissions, including The Zellerbach Family Foundation and she is co-chair of the IOM’s Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity and Elimination of Health Disparities.
Joan Twiss, M.A., is the founding executive director of the Center for Civic Partnerships, which provides leadership and management support to build healthier communities and more effective nonprofit organizations. She has more than 30 years of experience working in both the public and private sectors at the local, state, and national levels with extensive expertise in program planning, community indicators, implementation, technical support, training, policy development, and evaluation. Ms. Twiss is responsible for the center’s development, strategic direction, management, and program evaluation in both community and organizational development. She designed and continues to direct California Healthy Cities and Communities, the first and largest program of its kind in the United States. She researches, publishes, presents, and consults on the factors that allow for aging well in communities. Ms. Twiss currently leads the coaching support function for the National Leadership Academy for the Public’s Health, another PHI program. She has extensive experience leading multiple statewide technical support programs, often as part of comprehensive community health improvement initiatives. She has authored numerous articles for peer-reviewed journals and practitioner-oriented publications. Ms. Twiss has a master’s in health education, with coursework in urban studies, from the University of Maryland. She also holds a bachelor’s in public health from the University of Massachusetts. She is a certified charrette planner.
Winston Wong, M.D., M.S.,** joined KP in 2003 as Clinical Director, Community Benefit, with joint appointments at the Care Management
Institute and the National Program Office of Community Benefit. In this role, he is responsible for developing and cultivating partnerships with communities and agencies in advancing population management and evidence-based medicine, with a particular emphasis on safety net providers and the elimination of health disparities. From 1993–2003, Dr. Wong was a Commissioned Officer of the U.S. Public Health Service, serving as both the Chief Medical Officer for the Health Resources and Services Administration, Region IX, and its Director of California Operations. He achieved the rank of Captain, and was awarded the Outstanding Service Medal from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Wong received a master’s degree in health policy and his medical degree from the University of California, Berkeley–San Francisco, Joint Medical Program. A board-certified family practitioner, continues a small clinical practice at Asian Health Services, a federally qualified health center in Oakland, California, where he served previously as Medical Director. Dr. Wong has served on a number of state and national advisory groups addressing issues in cultural competence, health care access, and improving health care for vulnerable populations.
