Appendix F
Committee Biographical Sketches
RICHARD J. BONNIE, L.L.B. (Chair), is the director of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry, and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. He is also a charter fellow of the College on the Problems of Drug Dependence, where he has served twice on the board of directors. In addition to these positions, Bonnie is the Harrison Foundation Professor of Medicine and Law in the School of Law and a professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences in the School of Medicine at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on criminal law, bioethics, and public policies relating to mental health, substance abuse, aging, and public health. Mr. Bonnie received his law degree from the University of Virginia. He has been a major contributor to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the National Research Council (NRC), where he has served on multiple committees, including the Workshop for Understanding the Demand for Illegal Drugs (2010); the Committee on Reducing Tobacco Use: Strategies, Barriers and Consequences (chair, 2007); the Committee on Developing a Strategy to Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking (chair, 2004); the Committee on Data and Research for Policy on Illegal Drugs (2001); and the Committee on Preventing Nicotine Dependence in Children and Adolescents (vice chair, 1994). He is currently the chair of the Committee on Improving the Health, Safety and Well-Being of Young Adults (2013–2015). Mr. Bonnie was elected to the IOM in 1991.
ANTHONY J. ALBERG, Ph.D., M.P.H., is the Blatt Ness Endowed Chair in Oncology and a professor of public health sciences and currently serves as the interim director of cancer control of the Hollings Cancer Center at the Medical University of South Carolina. He is an epidemiologist whose
research focuses on non-melanoma skin cancer, cigarette smoking, health effects of secondhand smoke, etiology of tobacco-associated malignancies, and tobacco prevention and control. Dr. Alberg is a member of the editorial board for cancer screening and prevention of the National Cancer Institute’s Physician Data Query (PDQ), editor for the epidemiology section of the American College of Chest Physician’s Lung Cancer Guidelines III, and associate editor of the American Journal of Epidemiology. He was a standing member of the National Institutes of Health’s epidemiology of cancer study section, and he has been a contributing author to two U.S. Surgeon General’s reports on the health consequences of smoking. He is a member of South Carolina’s Cancer Control Advisory Committee (CCAC) and chair of the CCAC’s Cancer Surveillance Committee. Dr. Alberg received his M.P.H. from the Yale School of Medicine and his Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
REGINA BENJAMIN, M.D., M.B.A., is the NOLA.com/Times Picayune Endowed Chair of Public Health Sciences at Xavier University of Louisiana and from 2009 to 2013 served as the 18th Surgeon General of the United States. She specializes in prevention policies and health promotion among both individuals and large populations, especially concerning obesity, childhood obesity, and children’s health. She has special interests in rural health care, health disparities among socioeconomic groups, suicide, violence, and mental health. Prior to her role as Surgeon General, Dr. Benjamin founded and directed a rural primary care health clinic in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, where she administered health care to residents without easy access to doctors. Dr. Benjamin attended Morehouse School of Medicine, and she received her M.D. from the University of Alabama, Birmingham, and her M.B.A. from Tulane University. She has served on several IOM and NRC committees, including the Committee on Health Threats and Workforce Resilience (2009); the Committee on a Comprehensive Review of the DHHS Office of Family Planning Title X Program (2007–2009); the Committee on Cancer Survivorship: Improving Care and Quality of Life (2004–2005); the Committee on Crossing the Quality Chasm-Next Steps Summit (2003–2004); and the Committee on Cancer Research Among Minorities and the Medically Underserved (1997–1999). She was elected to the IOM in 1997. She became a MacArthur Fellow in 2008.
JONATHAN CAULKINS, Ph.D., is the H. Guyford Stever Professor of Operations Research at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College of Public Policy and Management. Dr. Caulkins was also the founding director of the Pittsburgh branch of RAND, a corporation designed to improve decision making and to implement better policy worldwide. His main research methods are focused on mathematical problem solving and model develop-
ment related to social policy and interventions. His interests are focused on drugs, crime, delinquency, and prevention. He received his M.S. in systems science and mathematics from Washington University and his S.M. in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He holds a Ph.D. in operations research, also from MIT. For the IOM and the NRC, he has served on the Committee on Reducing Tobacco Use: Strategies, Barriers, and Consequences (2007); the Committee on Immunotherapies and Sustained-Release Formulations for Treating Drug Addiction (2004); and the Committee on Estimating Costs to the Department of Justice of Increased Border Security Enforcement by the Department of Homeland Security (2010–2011), and, since 2013, the Committee on Modernizing the Nation’s Crime Statistics.
BONNIE HALPERN-FELSHER, Ph.D., is a professor of pediatrics, the director of research, and the associate director of the Adolescent Medicine Fellowship Program in the Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics at Stanford University. Prior to holding these positions, she was the co-director of research for the Adolescent Medicine Fellowship, co-director of the General Pediatric Fellowship, and a professor in the Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics at the University of California. She was a faculty member in the following programs: the Psychology and Medicine Postdoctoral Program at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), the Center for Health and Community, the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, and the UCSF Heller Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Halpern-Felsher’s main research areas are child, adolescent, and emerging adult development; adolescent and young adult health; risk behavior and risk perceptions; decision making; risk communication; tobacco control among adolescents and young adults; and tobacco prevention. Dr. Halpern-Felsher received her M.A. in psychology and her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of California, Riverside. She has contributed her knowledge and time to several IOM and NRC studies, including the following committees: the Committee on Scientific Standards for Studies on Modified Risk Tobacco Products (2011); the Committee on Contributions for the Behavioral and Social Sciences in Reducing and Preventing Teen Motor Vehicle Crashes (2007); the Committee on Reducing Tobacco Use: Strategies, Barriers and Consequences (2007); and the Committee on Developing a Strategy to Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking (2004).
SWANNIE JETT, Dr.P.H., is the executive director of the Seminole County Department of Health in Florida. Dr. Jett has been influential in improving county health efforts by strengthening infrastructure through funding improvements, increasing workforce competencies, and creating strong
partnerships that are aimed at improving overall population health outcomes. With more than 18 years of public health experience, he has worked to promote health awareness and public health policy, mainly concerning health disparities and air pollution. He was previously the public health director for Bullitt County Health Department in Kentucky, the manager of clinical operations for the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness, and the public health officer for the U.S. Air Force National Guard. Dr. Jett received his M.S. in biosystems engineering and environmental science from the University of Tennessee and his doctorate in public health with a preventative medicine/environmental health emphasis from the University of Kentucky.
HARLAN JUSTER, Ph.D., is the director of the New York State Department of Health’s Bureau of Tobacco Control. The bureau administers the statewide tobacco control program, which uses a population-oriented, policy, and systems change approach to altering the tobacco environment in New York. The program relies on evidence-based and promising interventions to reduce youth initiation, promote adult cessation, and eliminate exposure to secondhand smoke. Prior to his role as director, he served as manager of the tobacco surveillance, evaluation, and research team for the same program. In that role he was responsible for program evaluation, local and statewide surveillance, and contributing to the science of tobacco control. Dr. Juster earned his Ph.D. in psychology from the University at Albany and is a licensed psychologist in New York State.
JONATHAN D. KLEIN, M.D., M.P.H., is the associate executive director of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the director of the academy’s Julius B. Richmond Center of Excellence for Children. He is also a professor of adolescent medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester in New York, where he previously served as the associate chair of the Department of Pediatrics. Dr. Klein’s research at the Richmond Center is focused on secondhand smoke exposure, health systems and behavior change for adolescent tobacco cessation, and education to engage pediatricians and other clinicians in helping eliminate childhood exposure to tobacco. Dr. Klein’s other research areas are in the access, quality, and effectiveness of child and adolescent preventive services and in related survey methods. He joined the academy in 2009, and his oversight responsibilities there include research, tobacco control, membership and strategic planning, and international health. Dr. Klein received his M.P.H. in health policy and management from the Harvard School of Public Health and his M.D. from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
PAULA M. LANTZ, Ph.D., is a professor and the chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management at George Washington University as well as a professor of public health policy and public administration. Her research interests are focused on the role of public health in health care reform; clinical preventive services; and health disparities as a result of social inequalities. Prior to her role as chair and professor, she was a professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, and she served as chair of the Department of Health Management and Policy. Her published research on tobacco includes Radon, Smoking and Lung Cancer: The Need to Refocus Radon Control Policy (2012). Dr. Lantz received her M.S. in preventive medicine epidemiology and her Ph.D. in sociology, both from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She was elected to the IOM in 2012 and since 2013 has served on the IOM Roundtable on Population Health Improvement.
ROBIN MERMELSTEIN, Ph.D., is the director of the Institute of Health Research and Policy. She is also a professor of psychology and a clinical professor of community health sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Mermelstein has more than 25 years of tobacco-based research experience ranging from longitudinal studies of the etiology of youth smoking to cessation interventions for adult smokers. She is nationally recognized for her research approaches to studying contextual factors related to the development of nicotine addiction and the development of clinical intervention methods for adolescent and adult smokers. Dr. Mermelstein received her Ph.D. in clinical and community psychology from the University of Oregon.
RAFAEL MEZA, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. His research focuses lie in cancer risk assessment and cancer epidemiology data analysis, using mathematically based models to assess disease dynamics. Dr. Meza’s current research centers on developing models that will be used to evaluate the public health impact of screening strategies for lung, colon, and esophagus cancer risk. Some of his recently published peer-reviewed studies concerning tobacco usage are “Lung Cancer in Never Smokers: Epidemiology and Risk Prediction Models” (2012) and “Impact of the Reduction in Tobacco Smoking on Lung Cancer Mortality in the U.S. During the Period 1975–2000” (2012). In addition to his duties as a professor, Dr. Meza is a member of the Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network (CISNET) and the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at the University of Michigan’s Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Meza attended the University of Washington, where he received his Ph.D. in applied mathematics.
PATRICK O’MALLEY, Ph.D., is a research professor at the Survey Research Center of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. He specializes in the epidemiology of drug use, with a special focus on tobacco usage in youth populations. He is a co–principal investigator of Monitoring the Future: A Continuing Study of the Lifestyles and Values of American Youth, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The study focuses on substance abuse, including tobacco abuse, and related behaviors among secondary school students, college students, and young adults. He is also a co–principal investigator on the Youth, Education, and Society study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Dr. O’Malley received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He has served on committees for the NRC, including the Committee on Opportunities in Drug Abuse Research (1995) and the Committee on Drug Abuse Prevention Research (1992).
KIMBERLY THOMPSON, Sc.D., is the president of Kid Risk, Inc., and a professor of preventive medicine and global health at the University of Central Florida’s College of Medicine. She previously served on the faculty of the Harvard School of Public Health in the departments of health policy and management and maternal and child health, as well as at the Children’s Hospital Boston in adolescent medicine. She founded and directed the Harvard Kids Risk Project, which she later developed into a nonprofit organization called Kid Risk, Inc. Her research interests and teaching focus on developing and applying economic, dynamic, risk, decision, and integrated mathematical models to examine and connect the benefits of preventive medicine interventions and global health policies. She leads global health research related to managing infectious diseases, including polio, measles, rubella, and cholera. Her research on policy development and implementation assesses the effects of methodological choices on modeling decisions and economics (including cost-effectiveness, benefit–cost, decision, value-of-information, and risk analysis) and how a consideration of uncertainty, variability, and time affect policy outcomes. Dr. Thompson received her M.S. in chemical engineering from MIT and her Sc.D. in environmental health from Harvard University. She has served on several IOM and NRC committees, including the Committee on Ranking FDA Product Categories Based on Health Consequences (2009).
