Appendix C

Biographical Sketches of Workshop Planning Committee Members and Speakers¹

PLANNING COMMITTEE

Sara Rosenbaum, J.D. (Chair) is the Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor of Health Law and Policy and the founding chair of the Department of Health Policy at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at The George Washington University. She also holds professorships in the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy & Public Administration and the Schools of Law and Medicine & Health Sciences. A graduate of Wesleyan University and the Boston University School of Law, Dr. Rosenbaum has devoted her career to issues of health justice for populations who are medically underserved as a result of race, poverty, disability, or cultural exclusion. An honored teacher and scholar, a highly popular speaker, and a widely read writer on many aspects of health law and policy, Dr. Rosenbaum has emphasized public engagement as a core element of her professional life, providing public service to 6 presidential administrations and 19 Congresses. She is best known for her work on national health reform, Medicaid and private insurance, Medicaid managed care, health care access for medically underserved communities and populations, and civil rights and health care. Dr. Rosenbaum’s current research focuses on the transformation of Medicaid and its effects on poor populations and

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¹ Planning committee members marked with an asterisk also served as speakers at the workshop.

communities. She also focuses on national health reform, Medicaid managed care, and community health centers, the largest primary health care system for medically underserved rural and urban populations. She is best known for her research into the impact of laws affecting health care access and coverage and the potential effects of major shifts in laws affecting low income and medically underserved populations.

James Bowman, M.D., M.S., FACS, has been a senior physician with the Division of Transplantation at the Health Resources and Services Administration in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services since 2009. Dr. Bowman supports the division’s leadership in its oversight of the nation’s solid organ and blood stem cell transplant programs. He served as a senior medical officer with the Chronic Care Policy Group at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in support of Medicare payment policy for end-stage renal disease/dialysis units, inpatient rehab hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, hospital prospective payment systems, and the physician fee schedule. He has medical management experience with several national health insurers and was a transplant and general surgeon in the U.S. Air Force and civilian practice. Dr. Bowman is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and participates with the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and the American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy. He earned his M.D. from Virginia Commonwealth University and his M.S. in management from North Carolina State University. He trained in general surgery at Wright State University and abdominal transplant surgery at the University of Pittsburgh and the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

John A. Goss, M.D., FACS, is a professor of surgery in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at the Baylor College of Medicine and the chief of the Abdominal Transplantation Division. He specializes in adult and pediatric liver transplantation, hepatobiliary surgery, and surgical management of liver tumors. He is board certified by the American Board of Surgery and a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. After earning his M.D. from Creighton University, Dr. Goss completed his general surgical residency at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis Surgical Program. He then completed a 2-year multi-organ transplant fellowship in the Division of Liver and Pancreas Transplantation at the University of California, Los Angeles, David Geffen School of Medicine. Dr. Goss has performed many surgical “firsts” in Houston, including the first

split liver adult and pediatric transplants, adult living donor liver transplant, dual organ lung–liver transplant, and dual organ heart–liver transplant.

Paul L. Kimmel, M.D., MACP, FRCP, FASN, has made significant contributions in patient care, research, and service to professional organizations. He has been a faculty member in the Department of Medicine at The George Washington University since 1983 and was the director of the university’s Division of Renal Diseases and Hypertension Medical Center from 2001 to 2006. Dr. Kimmel served as the director of education for the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) from 2006 to 2007 and joined the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institutes of Health in 2008. He is currently the senior advisor to the director of the Division of Kidney, Urologic, and Hematologic Diseases, where he has managed programs in HIV-associated kidney disease, acute kidney injury, clinical genetics of kidney disease, kidney precision medicine, clinical outcomes of kidney organ donation by African Americans, and opioid use in dialysis patients. His research interests include sleep disorders, quality of life, and psychosocial issues (including depression, anxiety, and perception of social support) in end-stage kidney disease and chronic kidney disease patients. He is also interested in HIV-associated kidney diseases, long-term outcomes of acute kidney injury, perception of pain, and inflammatory and immunologic factors mediating outcomes of kidney failure. He recently fostered patient and community engagement in clinical research. He has published more than 300 papers and edited 2 editions of the textbook Chronic Renal Disease. Dr. Kimmel served on the editorial boards of Blood Purification, the American Journal of Kidney Diseases, the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, and the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. He was recently inducted as a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London and is a master of the American College of Physicians. He served as a board member and the president of the National Academy of Medicine in Washington, DC. He received the Belding H. Scribner M.D. Memorial award from ASN in 2019. Dr. Kimmel received his M.D. from the New York University Grossman School of Medicine and trained in internal medicine at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. He completed a fellowship in renal and electrolyte disorders at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and remained a faculty member until joining The George Washington University.

Erika D. Lease, M.D., FCCP,* is the medical director of the University of Washington Lung Transplant Program and an associate professor of medicine within the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at the University of Washington. Dr. Lease also specializes in infectious diseases relating to all solid organ transplant recipients and is an attending with the Solid Organ Transplant Infectious Disease program. Her research interests include lung transplant, solid organ transplant, and infectious diseases.

George V. Mazariegos, M.D., FACS, FAST,* is the chief of the Pediatric Transplantation Division at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, the Hillman Center for Pediatric Transplantation, and the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute. He is a professor at the University of Pittsburgh in the Departments of Surgery, Anesthesiology, and Critical Care Medicine and holds the Jamie Lee Curtis Chair in Surgery and Critical Care. Dr. Mazariegos earned a bachelor’s degree in medical science at Northwestern University in 1984 and graduated from medical school there. He completed residency training at Michigan State University and fellowship training at the University of Pittsburgh in 1993. Dr. Mazariegos has been involved in the academic field of transplantation surgery for more than 25 years and served as the past chair of the Society of Pediatric Liver Transplantation, the immediate past president of the Intestinal Rehabilitation and Transplant Association, a counselor for the International Pediatric Transplant Association, and the immediate past chair of the United Network for Organ Sharing/Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network pediatric committee. He is a member of the International Liver Transplantation Society, the Society of University Surgeons, and the American Surgical Association. Recently, Dr. Mazariegos and colleagues founded the Starzl Network for Excellence in Pediatric Transplantation (www.starzlnetwork.org), a consortium bringing innovation and technology partners together with patients, families, and transplant centers to transform outcomes in children. Dr. Mazariegos authored or co-authored more than 265 original articles, more than 230 abstracts, and 20 book chapters.

Melissa McQueen* is the executive director of Transplant Families and works with parents and caregivers of children listed for or already having received a lifesaving organ transplant to help guide them to support, education, and assistance to help them through that difficult time. Ms. McQueen

believes that education and support bring hope and healing for families. She volunteers with the United Network for Organ Sharing/Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network in their Pediatric Committee and their Data Advisory Committee, where she helped co-author “What Every Parent Needs to Know.” She was also selected as a leader with Quality Improvement Collaboratives at the ACTION Learning Network (pediatric cardiac quality improvement [QI], Cincinnati Children’s Hospital) and Starzl Learning Network (pediatric liver QI, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) to give input and help co-create materials for clinicians and families. She worked on the spearheading committee that helped Donate Life America create National Pediatric Transplant Week (the last week of every April). She is the charter chair of the Heart Center Family Advisory Council and Alumni Patient and Family Advisory Council at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. Ms. McQueen is a trained developer/engineer who has worked at companies such as Honeywell—Aeronautics Division, APS, Wells Fargo, and Phoenix Children’s Hospital. Most recently, she helped to develop “My journey with” applications, covering patient education from diabetes to transplant for the newly diagnosed. Ms. McQueen holds a bachelor’s degree in computer information systems from DeVry University.

Shari S. Rogal, M.D., M.P.H.,* is an assistant professor of medicine and transplant surgery at the University of Pittsburgh and a core member of the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion, VA Healthcare System in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Dr. Rogal is a transplant hepatologist whose clinical research focuses on addressing the psychosocial contributions to quality of life and transplant outcomes. She identified an association between untreated depression and increased rejection and mortality. Depression is associated with pain, and both conditions are often suboptimally managed in transplant populations. Dr. Rogal is currently developing and implementing a program to increase evidence-based management of these symptoms in the peritransplant period. Dr. Rogal also works in implementation science more broadly and has developed novel methods to assess the contributions of implementation strategies to the quality and equity of care.

Dorry Segev, M.D., Ph.D.,* is the Marjory K. and Thomas Pozefsky Professor of Surgery and Epidemiology and the associate vice chair of surgery at Johns Hopkins University. He is the founder and the director of the Epidemiology Research Group in Organ Transplantation. Dr. Segev was the first

to demonstrate the survival benefit of incompatible kidney transplantation across the United States and is responsible for the first HIV–HIV transplants in the United States. His National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded research includes kidney exchange, desensitization, long-term donor risk, access to transplantation, and expanding transplantation, including HIV positive donors, geographic disparities, posttransplant outcomes, and the intersection between transplantation and gerontology. Dr. Segev focuses on novel statistical and mathematical methods to simulate medical data, analysis of large health care data sets, and outcomes research. Dr. Segev published nearly 500 peer-reviewed research articles and was recently awarded the American Society of Transplantation’s Clinical Science Investigator Award. He is a current councilor of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and the former chair of the American Transplant Congress. His work has directly influenced policy, including two congressional bills (the Charlie W. Norwood Living Organ Donation Act for kidney exchange and the HIV Organ Policy Equity [HOPE] Act for HIV–HIV transplants). Dr. Segev is most inspired by his role as a mentor, having mentored more than 100 graduate students, residents, and faculty, and he is the only general surgeon in the United States funded by an NIH/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases Mentoring Grant.

Hannah Valantine, M.B.B.S., MRCP, FACC,* received her M.B.B.S. degree (bachelor of medicine, bachelor of surgery; the United Kingdom’s equivalent to an M.D.) from St. George’s, University of London, in 1978. She moved to the University of Hong Kong Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine for specialty training in elective surgery before returning to the United Kingdom. She was awarded a diploma of membership by the Royal College of Physicians in 1981. In addition, she completed postgraduate training and numerous fellowships, serving as the senior house officer in cardiology at Royal Brompton Hospital and the registrar in cardiology and general medicine at Hammersmith Hospital. In 1985, Dr. Valantine moved to the United States for postdoctoral training in cardiology at Stanford University. In 1988, she received a Doctor of Science, Medicine, from the University of London. Dr. Valantine became a clinical assistant professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Stanford University and rose through the academic ranks to a full professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and the director of Heart Transplant Program. She came to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in 2014 to continue her research while also serving as the first chief officer of scientific workforce diversity. Dr. Valantine

has received numerous awards, including a Best Doctor in America honor in 2002. She has authored more than 160 primary research articles and reviews and previously served on the editorial boards of the journals Graft and Ethnicity & Disease. Dr. Valantine’s past and current memberships include the American College of Cardiology, the American Society of Transplant Physicians, and the American Heart Association. She was the past president of the American Heart Association Western States Affiliates.

WORKSHOP SPEAKERS

Clifford Chin, M.D., is a professor of pediatrics and the medical director of the Advanced Cardiomyopathy Services and Pediatric Heart Transplant at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. He completed his pediatric training at the University of California, Davis, Medical Center and pediatric cardiology postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University. His academic focus has been on outcomes after transplantation, including prevention of posttransplant morbidity. He has collaborated with many pediatric and adult heart transplant colleagues, nationally and internationally, and outside the field of cardiology, including professionals in immunology, infectious diseases, oncology, and nephrology. His collaborative works include peer-reviewed publications, university and National Institutes of Health–funded projects, and patient care initiatives.

Carol Conrad, M.D., joined the clinical faculty at Stanford Children’s Health/Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in 1995. Her training in pediatric (and adult) lung transplant began informally in 2004, and she was named the director of the program in 2007. The program separated from the adult service in 2009 and is the only pediatric program on the west coast, west of Texas. The team performs three pediatric lung or heart–lung transplants per year, on average, to treat cystic fybrosis, pulmonary hypertension, and some congenital vascular malformations that lead to pulmonary hypertension. Dr. Conrad’s center has participated in national multicenter clinical research projects under the aegis of the Clinical Trials in Organ Transplantation in Children funding mechanism of the National Institutes of Health to discover mechanisms of lung graft failure in children. Dr. Conrad served as the chair of the Pediatric Scientific Council of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation from 2019 to 2020, which then, under a reorganization business plan, became the representative of the Pediatric Lung Transplant Professional Community to the Advanced Lung Failure

and Transplant steering committee. Dr. Conrad attended the Charles R. Drew/University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Education Program (1985–1989) and did her residency at the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles in pediatrics (1989–1992). Dr. Conrad was a postdoctoral fellow (July 1992–July 1995) in the division of Pediatric Pulmonary Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Andrea DiMartini, M.D., is a professor of psychiatry and surgery at the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute at the University of Pittsburgh. She completed her medical school training at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and her residency at the Western Psychiatric Hospital. She has nearly 30 years of clinical and research experience working with the solid organ transplant teams at the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute. She is considered an expert in transplant psychiatry and has written extensively and lectures both nationally and internationally on these issues. She has been awarded several National Institutes of Health grants to conduct longitudinal research on patients’ mental health and behavioral outcomes following transplantation.

Dawn P. Edwards is a self-described “27-year chronic kidney disease (CKD) warrior.” Ms. Edwards has experienced firsthand every renal replacement modality, including a kidney transplant and rejection. She is currently a nocturnal home hemodialysis patient. She has extensive insight into the needs of people with CKD, always keeping in mind that they need different things at different times in their lives. Ms. Edwards is dedicated to improving the quality of life of people with kidney disease and also a resource to her community, sharing her story and educating people about the relationships among hypertension, diabetes, and kidney disease, especially in underserved communities. Ms. Edwards has served the community for more than 25 years through the IPRO End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Network program of New York as a communicator, mentor, and educator. She is on many kidney disease–related boards and reinvented herself by working as a patient advocate for Fresenius/NxStage and a wellness ambassador for the Rogosin Institute. Ms. Edwards is also the co-chairperson of the National Forum of ESRD Networks Kidney Patient Advisory Council, actively involved with the National Kidney Foundation and the American Association of Kidney Patients, a patient advisor for studies with the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, and the chief executive officer of her own advocacy

and education organization, the New York State CKD Champions, whose motto is to educate, encourage, and empower. She believes that faith, family, and education are the keys to her longevity and every day is an opportunity to thrive, not just survive. Ms. Edwards recently co-authored an article in the January 2021 issue of Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology titled “Personal Experiences of Patients in the Interaction of Culture and Kidney Disease.”

Aditi Gupta, M.D., is a nephrologist and a clinical investigator with the long-term goal of pursuing impactful patient-oriented research in vascular risk reduction and dementia. After her training in internal medicine and nephrology, she started her career on the clinical educator track with a focus on clinical care and education. Having trained in the same program, she had the opportunity to follow many patients over the years who struggle with cognitive impairment and report improvement in cognition after a kidney transplant. These clinical observations inspired her to change her career path and immerse herself in clinical research. Dr. Gupta crossed interdepartmental boundaries, developed multidisciplinary collaborations, and embarked on and successfully completed challenging out-of-the-box studies. She received pilot grant awards from the Kidney Institute at the University of Kansas Medical Center, the Frontiers Pilot and Collaborative Studies Funding 4 Program, and the Office of Scholarly, Academic, & Research Mentoring. These led to a National Institutes of Health (NIH) K23 award in 2017 to examine cognition and brain changes from before to after kidney transplant to elucidate mechanisms underlying cognitive impairment in kidney disease. She has presented several abstracts and recently published a manuscript on brain changes from before to after transplant in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, a leading nephrology journal. She has two other investigator-initiated studies evaluating changes in cerebral blood flow with calcineurin inhibitors to understand observations of decrease in cerebral blood flow after transplantation in the K23 study. She has several studies investigating the prevalence of cognitive impairment in kidney transplantation and its impact on transplant candidacy. To further her research goals and bring changes in the real world in actual clinics, she trained in implementation science. This knowledge led to the NIH R61/R33 award Remote Monitoring and Virtual Collaborative Care for Hypertension Control to Prevent Cognitive Decline, funded in 2020. In this pragmatic study, she is testing a new hypertension program to achieve goal blood pressure to prevent cognitive decline.

Nitika Gupta, M.D., DCH, DNB, MRCPH, is a triple board-certified pediatric gastroenterologist and transplant hepatologist in the Department of Pediatrics at the Emory University School of Medicine and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. She did her pediatric residency, pediatric gastroenterology, and transplant hepatology fellowships at Emory University. Over the past 20 years, the focus of her work has been in liver diseases of children and liver transplantation. She conducts basic, clinical, and translational research in pediatric liver transplantation and immune-mediated liver disease, such as autoimmune hepatitis and primary sclerosing cholangitis. She has received several honors for her work and published well-cited articles. She has a special interest in the transition of pediatric to adult health care and was the founding director of the adolescent transition program for liver transplant recipients. She also established a joint clinic between the pediatric and adult health care systems, resulting in improved graft and patient survival after transition. She has a strong focus on connecting the bench to the bedside with the overall goal of developing strategies and treatment options to improve the quality of life of children with liver disease and liver transplant. As she is in the southeast, a significant proportion of her patients are from minority backgrounds, and her recent research has demonstrated that significant racial disparities exist in African American children with liver disease and liver transplant with high risk of mortality after transferring from pediatric to adult health care. She has developed new interventions and programs to help mitigate these risks, resulting in improved outcomes. She is a member of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion councils of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and the Emory University School of Medicine. She is interested in education and has mentored several undergraduates, medical students, residents, and fellows for laboratory and clinical research. She also serves on the Emory senate overseeing the university’s activities, which includes several schools. She is on the American Board of Medical Specialties stakeholder committee and was selected to serve on its Vision commission, which was charged with developing a roadmap for the future of board certification of U.S. diplomats.

Stephanie Hoyt-Trapp, Ph.D., is a clinical–community psychologist. She received a new liver about 6 years ago after being diagnosed with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. Severe depression and ongoing medical complications have made her transplant journey quite difficult. She faced portal hypertension, internal bleeding, encephalopathy, and an occluded hepatic vein. Dr. Hoyt-Trapp is currently working part time as a consulting psychologist on a grant regarding pain and cirrhosis.

Valen Keefer walks the line every day between survival and advocacy. At 38, she is thriving thanks to two lifesaving transplants resulting from polycystic kidney disease (PKD): a kidney when she was 19 and a liver at 35. Ms. Keefer has endured an arduous health journey full of hospital stays and illness. She has undergone 30 surgeries and has more than 60 inches of scars crisscrossing her body. Despite life challenging her at nearly every turn, Ms. Keefer is determined to help others who are fated to walk a similar path and hopes to be the role model she wishes she had. She has taken her new lease on life and is intent on paying it back 10-fold. As a passionate patient advocate since 2004, she works tirelessly to raise awareness of kidney disease, PKD, and organ donation and to help educate and empower others. Grounded in gratitude, Ms. Keefer works directly with countless patients and has shared her extraordinary story at more than 100 events across North America with an authentic optimism that inspires people and moves them to action. She has done many press interviews, coordinated educational and fundraising events, and helped raise more than $1 million for PKD research. Ms. Keefer has written hundreds of blogs (published by nonprofits), painting a genuine picture of the challenges and joys of this journey. Through her collaborations with numerous organizations, she has inspired 1.7 million social media followers with her story of hope and resilience that transforms people forever. Ms. Keefer has a way of connecting and touching the hearts and minds of all she meets, and her journey has become a beacon of hope for countless people around the world. She proves there is not just life posttransplant and with severe kidney disease but potentially a great one.

Sunita Mathur, B.Sc.P.T., Ph.D., is a physical therapist and an associate professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at the University of Toronto. She directs the Muscle Function and Performance Lab and conducts research on skeletal muscle dysfunction and sarcopenia in people with chronic lung disease and solid organ transplant candidates and recipients. The goals of the research program are to understand the link between muscle structure and function, the relationship between sarcopenia and clinical outcomes, and the effect of exercise training on improving muscle dysfunction. Dr. Mathur has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and holds grant funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Lung Health Foundation, and Canadian Thoracic Society. Dr. Mathur is the co-founder and the co-chair of the Canadian Network for Rehabilitation and Exercise for Solid Organ Transplant Optimal Recovery, a national network dedicated to achieving optimal well-being in trans-

plant patients through exercise and rehabilitation. She is an investigator with the Canadian Donation and Transplantation Research Program and the co-lead for the research theme on restoring long-term health after transplantation.

Mara McAdams-DeMarco, Ph.D., M.S., is an associate professor of epidemiology and surgery on faculty at the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) School of Medicine. She has a joint appointment in the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is the director of clinical and outcomes research for the JHU Department of Surgery and Surgery Center for Outcomes Research. In these roles, she collaborates with many clinical faculty, including nephrologists, transplant surgeons, and geriatricians, across JHU and other universities. She has published more than 130 manuscripts, with more than half co-authored by trainees, and is the principal investigator (PI) of three National Institutes of Health–funded R01 studies. Her research focuses on the intersection of aging and end-stage renal disease, with a particular focus on older kidney transplant candidates and recipients. She conducted some of the first studies of frailty, delirium, cognitive function, and Alzheimer’s disease among older kidney transplant patients. She is the PI of the oldest and largest cohort study of frailty among kidney transplant candidates and recipients and clinical trials of exercise interventions. Her career objectives are to better understand how novel aging metrics (frailty, cognitive function, physical function, and quality of life) can help improve risk prediction of adverse outcomes in older kidney transplant recipients and identify novel interventions to prevent adverse outcomes of aging.

Saeed Mohammad, M.D., M.S., cares for children with liver diseases, including those who may need a transplant. He has a great team who works hard to provide reassurance and care for both patients and their families during the stress of a critical illness, and he is extremely proud to work with them. Dr. Mohammad enjoys the long-term relationships that have developed with many of his patients and their families and is grateful to be a part of their lives. Dr. Mohammad’s research is focused on improving the long-term outcomes and quality of life of children with chronic illnesses, particularly pediatric liver transplant recipients. His team is studying ways to improve their lives beyond standard medical therapy by measuring serum biomarkers and personalizing treatment.

Robert A. Montgomery, M.D., D.Phil., FACS, is the chairman and a professor of surgery at New York University (NYU) Langone Health and the director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute. He received his M.D. with honors from the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry and D.Phil. in molecular immunology from Balliol College at the University of Oxford, England. Dr. Montgomery completed his general surgical training, multi-organ transplantation fellowship, and postdoctoral fellowship in human molecular genetics at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). For more than a decade, he served as the chief of transplant surgery and the director of the JHU Comprehensive Transplant Center. Dr. Montgomery was part of the team that developed the laparoscopic procedure for live kidney donation, a procedure that has become the standard throughout the world. He and the JHU team conceived the idea of the domino paired donation (kidney swaps) and the Hopkins protocol for desensitization of incompatible kidney transplant patients and performed the first chain of transplants started by an altruistic donor. He led the team that performed the first two-, three-, four-, five-, and six-way domino paired donations and eight-way multi-institutional domino paired donation, and he co-led the first 10-way open chain. He is credited in the 2010 Guinness Book of World Records with the most kidney transplants performed in 1 day. He is considered a world expert on kidney transplantation for highly sensitized and ABO incompatible patients and is referred the most complex patients from around the globe. Dr. Montgomery has had clinical and basic science research supported by the National Institutes of Health throughout his career. He has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed articles, has been cited more than 26,000 times, and has an H index of 84. His academic interests include HLA sensitization; tolerance protocols, including simultaneous solid organ and bone marrow transplantation; bio-artificial organs; and xenotransplantation. He has received important awards and distinctions, including a Fulbright Scholarship and a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship and memberships in the Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha academic honor societies. He has been awarded multiple scholarships from the American College of Surgeons and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons. The National Kidney Foundation of Maryland recognized his contributions to the field of transplantation with the Champion of Hope Award, the National Kidney Registry with the Terasaki Medical Innovation Award, and the Greater New York Hospital Association with the Profile in Courage Award. He also received a heart transplant in 2018.

David Mulligan, M.D., FACS, is a professor and the chair of transplantation and immunology at Yale University, skilled in liver transplantation (especially living donor transplants), kidney and pancreas transplantation, hepatobiliary surgery, and immunology. Dr. Mulligan graduated from the University of Louisville School of Medicine. He was honored to build the Multiorgan Transplant Program at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona from 1998 to 2013, with outstanding growth in all solid organ transplantation with some of the best outcomes in the United States. He transformed the multi-organ transplant program at Yale to be one of the most innovative and academic institutions where patient-centered care can be met with cutting-edge research and science. He was recently elected the president of United Network for Organ Sharing/Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and the chair of the Advisory Committee on Organ Transplantation to the Secretary of Health and Human Services to lead the oversight and policy development of organ transplantation in the United States. He also serves as the councilor at large for the board of governors of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and the chair of the Business Practice Services Committee of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons. Dr. Mulligan is heavily involved in developing new policies and guidance across all organ transplantation and allocation during the COVID-19 pandemic for the safest possible outcomes for patients and providers alike.

Jignesh K. Patel, M.D., Ph.D., FACC, FRCP, FAST, FAHA, is a clinical professor of medicine, the medical director of heart transplant, the director of the Cardiac Amyloid Program, and the director of heart transplant research at Cedars-Sinai Smidt Heart Institute. His clinical and research interests focus on cardiac amyloidosis and transplant immunology. Dr. Patel serves on the Leadership Advisory Forum and is the past chair of the Heart Failure and Transplantation Council of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation. He serves on the Heart Failure and Transplant Leadership Council at the American College of Cardiology. He is the associate editor of the American Journal of Transplantation and Current Transplantation Reports.

Tanjala S. Purnell, Ph.D., M.P.H., is an epidemiologist and health services researcher with more than a decade of research experience related to identifying and addressing patient/family, health care system, and community factors influencing health and health care disparities for adults with cardiovascular disease risk factors, including hypertension, chronic kidney

disease, and diabetes. She is an assistant professor of cardiovascular disease and clinical epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She holds joint faculty appointments in the Johns Hopkins University Departments of Surgery, Health Policy and Management, and Health, Behavior and Society. In her role as an associate director of the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute, Dr. Purnell co-leads the institute’s efforts to facilitate and recognize collaborations among communities, universities, health care delivery systems, government, and the private sector to build collective capacity for achieving health equity in Baltimore. She is also the associate director for education and training at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, where she leads the center’s award-winning educational and training programs for public health, nursing, and medical scholars working to advance health equity. She is the director of community and stakeholder engagement for the Johns Hopkins Epidemiology Research Group in Organ Transplantation; core faculty at the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research; and affiliated faculty with the Bloomberg American Health Initiative and the Center for Health Services and Outcomes Research. Nationally, Dr. Purnell is the chair of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, and she previously served as the Region 2 representative to the United Network for Organ Sharing/Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Minority Affairs Committee. She is a native of the Mississippi Delta and an alumna of Tougaloo College, where she obtained her B.S. in computer science. Dr. Purnell has received several national and international research honors and published findings from her work in leading medical and public health journals, including JAMA, Health Affairs, the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, the American Journal of Hypertension, the American Journal of Transplantation, and Diabetes Care. She is deeply committed to community engagement, teaching, and mentoring, and she speaks often on the impact of COVID-19 and systemic racism on existing health and health care disparities in the United States. She is also the recipient of multiple Teaching Excellence Awards from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Eyal Shemesh, M.D., is the chief of the Division of Behavioral and Developmental Pediatrics at the Kravis Children’s Hospital and a professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Shemesh trained in the Mount Sinai “Triple Board” program as a pediatrician, psychiatrist, and a child psychiatrist.

Since graduating from that program, he has been continuously funded by federal and philanthropic entities to conduct research in the interface between psychiatric/behavioral and medical disorders, with nonadherence as the important outcome, in children and adults. Among other areas of research concentration, Dr. Shemesh and his group discovered, studied, and developed the use of variation in medication blood levels as a marker of nonadherence (the Medication Level Variability Index) in transplant recipients and have been studying the impact of traumatic stress symptoms on several groups of chronically ill patients, including transplant recipients. In addition to this research work, Dr. Shemesh has created and has been directing specialty programs that enhance patients’ access to mental health care by integrating mental health concepts into the work of specialty and primary care clinics in pediatric and adult practices.

Charlie Thomas, M.S.W., LCSW, ACSW, FNKF, received his M.S.W. from Arizona State University in 1980 and his B.A. in 1979 from San Diego State University, where he graduated with distinction in social welfare. He is a licensed clinical social worker in Arizona and a member of the National Association of Social Workers’ Academy of Certified Social Workers. He has been employed as a transplant social worker with the Banner-University Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona, since 1985 and was the dialysis/transplant consultant for the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (1998–2012). He provides direct services to liver, kidney, and pancreas transplant patients and living kidney and liver donors. He also provided consultation regarding chronic kidney disease, including dialysis, transplantation, and organ donation with American Indians. Mr. Thomas has served with many national and regional organizations, including the American Society for Transplantation Public Policy Committee; the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) board of directors and as a national chairperson of its Council of Nephrology Social Workers and Public Policy Task Force; the NKF of Arizona board of directors since 1988 and several affiliate committees; the medical review board of the Intermountain End-Stage Renal Disease Network; United Network for Organ Sharing Patient Affairs Committee, Task Force on Access to Transplantation, and the chairperson of the Social Work Advisory Task Force; the National Living Donor Consensus Conference; and the Arizona Coalition on Donation as the president. In 1999, Mr. Thomas was an expert advisor to the Institute of Medicine regarding the proposed Final Rule for the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. In 2000, the governor of Arizona appointed

him to the State Rehabilitation Council, where he was the chair from 2003 to 2005. In 2007, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recruited Mr. Thomas to train its surveyors on the psychosocial issues of organ transplant recipients and living donors. He teaches social welfare policy and community practice to graduate and undergraduate social work students at Arizona State University. He has authored many articles and presented at many national conferences and meetings. He has organized a coalition of transplant hospitals and nonprofit health associations to promote living donor leave for Arizona State employees, and in 2008, the Arizona legislature passed relevant legislation signed by the governor. His awards include the Health Care Heroes Award—Non-Physician by the Phoenix Business Journal (2006), the Robert W. Whitlock Lifetime Achievement Award from the NKF Council of Nephrology Social Workers (2015), and the Clinician of Distinction Award from the American Society of Transplantation (2020).

Fanny Vlahos, J.D., L.L.B., is a patient with cystic fibrosis (CF) who underwent a double lung transplant in 2012, when her son was only 10 months old. She is a licensed attorney (Illinois) and holds degrees in American and Canadian law and an undergraduate degree in English language and literature, with honors. In recent years, Ms. Vlahos has used her unique position to champion access to quality health care and is involved with the CF Foundation on the Clinical Care Guidelines Committee, Lung Transplant Initiative, and Steering Committee, among others. She has dedicated her efforts to public policy advocacy at both the state and national levels.

Kirsten Wentlandt, M.D., Ph.D., M.HSc., is a palliative care physician from the University of Toronto, the W. Gifford-Jones Professor in Pain Control and Palliative Care, and the head of the Division of Palliative Care. Her clinical work and research are focused on nonmalignant palliative care populations, with ambulatory clinics supporting advanced lung, heart, pulmonary hypertension, and transplant populations. She also works with various national, provincial, and regional committees that focus on developing strategies to improve access to quality palliative care for all patients.

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