Expert Participants

John Auerbach was appointed Massachusetts's Commissioner of Public Health in April, 2007. Under his leadership the department has developed new and innovative programs to address racial and ethnic disparities, to promote wellness (including the Mass in Motion campaign), to combat chronic disease and to support the successful implementation of the state's health care reform initiative.

Sharon Begley, the senior health & science correspondent at Reuters, was the science editor and the science columnist at Newsweek from 2007 to 2011. From 2002 to 2007, she was the science columnist at The Wall Street Journal. She is the co-author (with Richard J. Davidson) of the 2012 book The Emotional Life of Your Brain and the author of the 2007 book Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain.

Robert Block is the current President of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He was the founding chair of the American Board of Pediatrics subboard on Child Abuse Pediatrics and continues to serve on the subboard. Dr. Block is Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma School of Community Medicine, where he served as Chair of the Department of Pediatrics for 12 years, capping a 36-year tenure at the medical school. Dr. Block served on the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect for 10 years, the final 4 years as chair of the Committee.

Patsy Brannon presently serves as a member of the Steering Committee for the International Harmonization and Standardization of Monitoring Vitamin D Status and Chair of the American Society of Nutrition's Public Policy Committee.

David Cutler has developed an impressive record of achievement in both academia and the public sector. He served as Assistant Professor of Economics from 1991 to 1995, was named John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Social Sciences in 1995, and received tenure in 1997. He is currently the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics in the department of economics and Kennedy School of Government and recently completed a five-year term as associate dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for Social Sciences.

Bess Dawson-Hughes graduated from Tufts University School of Medicine, completed her house training at Tufts, and went on to an endocrine fellowship at Harvard Medical School and the Brigham and Women's Hospital. She then received an Individual National Research Service Award at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Dawson-Hughes has served on the councils of several professional organizations, including the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, the American Society of Clinical Nutrition and the International Bone and Mineral Society.

Maggie Fox has been global Health and Science editor at Reuters since 2006, coordinating coverage of stories ranging from the swine flu pandemic to AIDS, malaria and the politics of stem cell research.

Julio Frenk became Dean of the Faculty and T & G Angelopoulos Professor of Public Health and International Development at the Harvard School of Public Health on January 1, 2009. Dr. Frenk is an eminent authority on global health who served as the Minister of Health of Mexico from 2000 to 2006.

Jeanne Guillemin's training in sociology and anthropology has led to her involvement in issues regarding infectious diseases and biological weapons. She is the author of Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak (University of California Press, 1999), which documents the inquiry into the controversial cause of the 1979 Sverdlovsk anthrax outbreak. Her next book was Biological Weapons: The History of State-sponsored Programs and Contemporary Bioterrorism (Columbia University Press, 2005).

Rogene Henderson has research interests in two major areas. She has had a long-term interest in the biochemistry of the lung, particularly the surfactant-lining layer. She has developed in vivo screening tests for pulmonary toxicants based on analysis of bronchoalveolar washings. A second area of interest is the pharmacokinetics of inhaled xenobiotics (particularly vapors) and their metabolites. In both areas, Henderson has studied the use of biological markers of exposure and of effects to link environmental exposure to induced disease.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin has a distinguished record as an academic, policy adviser, and strategist. Currently he is the President of the American Action Forum and a Commissioner on the Congressionally-chartered Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

Adrian Ivinson is the founding director of the Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center. Professor Ivinson helped develop the vision of an integrated and tightly managed research center engaged in groundbreaking and collaborative research at Harvard Medical School, its affiliated research hospitals, and other leading research groups around the world. From 1993-2000 he held a number of leadership positions at the Nature Publishing Group, including editor-in-chief of Nature Medicine and Publisher of the monthly journals.

Stefanos Kales is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, and Chief, Occupational & Environmental Medicine, at the Cambridge Health Alliance. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Dr. Kales is on the editorial boards of Environmental Health Perspectives and the Archives of Environmental and Occupational Health.

An expert in international humanitarian aid and disaster response, Stephanie Kayden is Director of the Humanitarian Studies program at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. She is an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Kayden serves on the editorial board for the American Medical Association’s Journal of Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness and has worked to improve emergency medical systems, humanitarian aid and disaster response in more than 20 countries. In 2010, Dr.

Editor In Chief, Healthy Living, The Huffington Post

An expert in public health and rights-based responses to humanitarian crises, Jennifer Leaning is the Director of the Harvard University François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), the FXB Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at HSPH and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Prior to her current appointment, Dr. Leaning served for five years as co-director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. From 1999 to 2005, Dr.

Marc Lipsitch is an epidemiologist and microbiologist who studies the population-level impact of medical and public health interventions to treat and control infectious diseases. His studies combine classical epidemiology, pathogen population genomics, mathematical modeling and laboratory experiments. Working closely with local, state, national and international health authorities, his group contributed to the modeling and analysis of the 2003 SARS epidemic and 2009 influenza pandemic, and most recently to the analysis of the 2011 E. coli O104:H4 outbreak in Europe.

JoAnn E. Manson is Professor of Medicine and the Elizabeth Fay Brigham Professor of Women's Health at Harvard Medical School. She also is Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, and Chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine and Co-Director of the Connors Center for Women's Health and Gender Biology at Brigham and Women's Hospital. An endocrinologist and epidemiologist, Dr.

John E. McDonough is a Professor of Public Health Practice at the Harvard School of Public Health and director of the new HSPH Center for Public Health Leadership. Most recently, he was the Joan H. Tisch Distinguished Fellow in Public Health at Hunter College in New York City. Between 2008 and 2010, he served as a Senior Advisor on National Health Reform to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Takashi Nagata is an emergency physician who responded with the Japan Medical Association to the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crises that rocked Japan in March 2011. He also is a former fellow with the Takemi Program in International Health at Harvard School of Public Health.

Deval Patrick was reelected to a second term as Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in November 2010, renewing his commitment to expanding opportunity and prosperity in Massachusetts. Governor Patrick's life has charted a path from the South Side of Chicago to the U.S. Justice Department, Fortune 500 boardrooms, and now the Massachusetts State House. In each of these capacities, Governor Patrick has been guided by the advice of his grandmother: hope for the best and work for it.

Aaron Pressman is a correspondent for Reuters.

Michael R. Reich is Taro Takemi Professor of International Health Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. Professor Reich received his BA in molecular biophysics and biochemistry, MA in East Asian Studies (Japan), and PhD in political science, all from Yale University. He has been a member of the faculty of the Harvard School of Public Health since 1983. He also serves as director of the Takemi Program in International Health at Harvard. His main research interests are the political dimensions of health policy, health systems, and pharmaceutical policy.

John Rother is the President and CEO of the National Coalition on Health Care, a coalition of major stakeholders promoting an affordable, sustainable, and fair health system for all Americans, whether covered by private insurance or public programs. The Coalition’s membership of 80 organizations includes major businesses, labor unions, insurers, providers, state based benefit programs and consumers.

Jack P. Shonkoff is the Julius B. Richmond FAMRI Professor of Child Health and Development at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Harvard Graduate School of Education; Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital Boston; and Director of the university-wide Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. He also chairs the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, a multi-university, multidisciplinary body of leading scholars. Under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr.

Gordon Thompson is the executive director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies and a senior research scientist at the George Perkins Marsh Institute, Clark University. He studied and practiced engineering in Australia, and then received a doctorate in applied mathematics from Oxford University in 1973, for analyses of plasma undergoing thermonuclear fusion. Mr. Thompson has been based in the USA since 1979. His professional interests encompass a range of technical and policy issues related to sustainability and global human security.

Ted Turner began his career as an account executive with Turner Advertising Company and entered the television business in 1970 when he acquired Atlanta independent UHF station channel 17. In 1976, Turner purchased Major League Baseball's Atlanta Braves and launched TBS Superstation, originating the "Superstation" concept. The following year, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. acquired the National Basketball Association's Atlanta Hawks, and in 1980 Turner launched CNN, the world's first live, 24-hour global news network.

John Walke is a senior attorney and Director of Clean Air Programs with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), where he has general responsibility for Clean Air Act implementation. His work focuses on PSD/NSR preconstruction review programs and a variety of State Implementation Plan measures under Title I of the Act; air toxics programs under Title III of the Act; Title IV's acid rain program; and the Title V operating permits program.

Dr. Walter Willett is Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition and Chair of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Willett studied food science at Michigan State University, and graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School before obtaining a Doctorate in Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health.