Advisory Committee to the Director
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Dileep G. Bal, MD, MS, MPH

District Health Officer, Island of Kauai, Hawaii

Dileep G. Bal, MD, MS, MPH, is the district health officer for the Island of Kauai, Hawaii, and a special advisor on cancer, chronic disease, tobacco, and nutrition to the director of the Hawaii State Department of Health. Prior to this position, he had been the chief of the Cancer Control Branch with the State of California for more than two decades. He was a clinical professor at the medical school of the University of California at Davis and published extensively in the cancer prevention and control areas. Before coming to California in 1981, Dr. Bal was the director of the Pima County Health Department and served on the College of Medicine faculty at the University of Arizona. He is very active with the American Cancer Society and was the national president in 2000–2001. Dr. Bal was born in New Delhi, India. He received his medical degree from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and his graduate degrees in public health from Columbia and Harvard universities.

Georges C. Benjamin, MD, FACP, FNAPA, FACEP (E), Hon FRSPH

Executive Director
American Public Health Association

Georges C. Benjamin is well-known in the world of public health as a leader, practitioner and administrator. He has been the executive director of the American Public Health Association, the nation's oldest and largest organization of public health professionals, since December 2002. He came to that post from his position as secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. He became secretary of health in Maryland in April 1999, following four years as its deputy secretary for public health services. As secretary, Dr. Benjamin oversaw the expansion and improvement in the state's Medicaid program.

Dr. Benjamin, of Gaithersburg, Md., is a graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He is board-certified in internal medicine and a fellow of the American College of Physicians, a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, a fellow emeritus of the American College of Emergency Physicians and an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health.

At APHA, Benjamin also serves as publisher of the nonprofit's monthly publication, The Nation's Health, the association's official newspaper, and the American Journal of Public Health, the profession's premier scientific publication. He is the author of more than 100 scientific articles and book chapters.

He also serves on the boards of Research!America, Partnership for Prevention, the Reagan-Udall Foundation and is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. In 2008, he was named one of the top 25 minority executives in health care by Modern Healthcare Magazine, in addition to being voted among the 100 most influential people in health care from 2007 through 2011 and one of the nation's most powerful physician executives from 2009 to 2011.

Nisha D. Botchwey, PhD, MCRP, MPH

Associate Professor
Georgia Institute of Technology

Nisha Botchwey joined the Georgia Institute of Technology School of City and Regional Planning as an Associate Professor in January 2012. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard University, Master's and Doctorate degrees in City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master's of Public Health from the University of Virginia. Dr. Botchwey was an Associate Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning and Public Health Sciences at the University of Virginia since 2003 where she taught the first Healthy Communities course in the nation and launched the Built Environment and Public Health Curriculum website. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on community-led approaches to improve population health through built environment changes. Her publications are in a variety of journals including the Journal of Planning Education and Research, IEEE, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, and Peer Review and she is coauthor on Health Impact Assessments in the USA (forthcoming 2012, Springer) with Catherine Ross and Marla Ornstein. She serves on the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Governing Board and the National Academy for Environmental Design Research Committee on Design and Health. She is also the recipient of numerous awards and grants from the Annie E Casey Foundation, NIH, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Benjamin K. Chu, MD, MPH, MACP

Group President, Kaiser Permanente Southern California and Hawaii
President, Permanente Southern California Region
Pasadena, California

Benjamin Chu, MD, MPH, MACP, was appointed regional president of Kaiser Permanente Southern California in February 2005. He directs health plan and hospital operations for 11 hospitals and 130 medical offices in an area that ranges from Bakersfield to San Diego, and includes more than 50,000 employees who work in partnership with 5,800 physicians, to serve 3.2 million members. Prior to his current role, Dr. Chu had served since 2002 as president of New York City's Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC), a $4.2-billion public hospital system composed of 11 acute-care hospitals, 40,000 employees, and 7,000 contracted physicians.

A primary care internist by training, Dr. Chu possesses extensive health care experience as a clinician, administrator, and policy advocate. He was senior vice president for medical and professional affairs at HHC from 1990 to 1994. During that period, he also served as acting commissioner of health for the New York City Department of Health and acting executive director for Kings County Hospital Center. From 2000 to 2002, Dr. Chu was senior associate dean at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons for the Harlem Hospital Affiliation, where he managed the college's and hospital's contract relationship and directed the graduate medical education and research programs.

Before joining Columbia University, Dr. Chu served from 1994 to 2000 at the New York University School of Medicine and Medical Center in a variety of leadership roles, including serving as associate dean and vice president for clinical affairs. From 1989 to 1990, he gained extensive experience in crafting public policy as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow and legislative assistant for health policy for Senator Bill Bradley.

His areas of interest include health care access and insurance, graduate medical education policy, primary care, and public health issues. Dr. Chu has served on numerous advisory and nonprofit boards that focused on health care policy issues. He currently serves on the board of the Commonwealth Fund in New York, the American Legacy Foundation and is an at-large board member of the American Hospital Association. Dr. Chu earned his medical degree at New York University, his master's of public health from Columbia University, and a bachelor's in psychology from Yale University.

Sylvia Drew Ivie, JD

Senior Deputy for Human Services and Development Office of Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas Second District, LA County Board of Supervisors Los Angeles, California

Sylvia Drew Ivie most recently worked as a consultant to The California Endowment, advising on disparities in health including better nutrition in low-income communities and assessment of the crisis around King Drew Medical Center, when Supervisor Ridley-Thomas tapped her to be his Chief of Staff, then his Senior Deputy for Human Services and Development.

Until February 2005, Ms. Drew Ivie was Executive Director of the T.H.E. (To Help Everyone) Clinic, a primary health care clinic that provides health services to minority and immigrant women and families in South Central and Southwest Los Angeles. Her 100-member staff successfully served patients in ten languages. Her legal experiences include serving as Deputy City Attorney for the City of Los Angeles, practicing poverty and civil rights law for the National Health Law Program in Los Angeles, Assistant Counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in New York, and the Director of the US Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC during the Carter administration.

A graduate of Vassar College with a degree in political science and a law degree from Howard University School of Law, Ms. Drew Ivie is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the 1994 Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation's Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights.

Thomas Farley, MD, MPH

New York City Health Commissioner New York, New York

Thomas Farley, MD, MPH, was appointed New York City Health Commissioner in May 2009. One of the world′s oldest and largest public health agencies, the department has an annual budget of $1.6 billion and more than 6,000 staff. In recent years, the agency has undertaken a number of innovative initiatives, including a comprehensive tobacco control program, the elimination of trans fats in restaurant food, a requirement for chain restaurants to post calorie information on menu boards, and development of an electronic health record. Before joining the Agency, Dr. Farley was chair of the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. He received his MD and Master of Public Health degrees from Tulane University. Trained as a pediatrician, he served in the Centers for Disease Control′s Epidemic Intelligence Service and worked for the CDC and the Louisiana Office of Public Health from 1989 to 2000. During that period, Dr. Farley directed programs to control various infectious diseases. He has conducted research and published articles on a wide range of topics, including Legionnaires' disease, prevention of HIV/STDs, infant mortality, and obesity. Dr. Farley is coauthor with RAND Senior Scientist Deborah Cohen of Prescription for a Healthy Nation (Beacon Press). He served as Senior Adviser to then New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden in 2007 and 2008.

David W. Fleming, MD

Director and Health Officer for Public Health–Seattle-King County Bainbridge Island, Washington

David W. Fleming, MD, is Director and Health Officer for Public Health–Seattle–King County, WA, a large metropolitan health department with 1900 employees, 39 sites, and a budget of $296 million, serving a resident population of 1.8 million people. Department activities include core prevention programs, environmental health, community oriented primary care, emergency medical services, correctional health services, public health preparedness, and community-based public health assessment and practices. Before assuming this role, Dr. Fleming directed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Global Health Strategies Program, where he was responsible for cross-cutting programs targeting diseases and conditions disproportionately affecting the world's poorest people and countries.

Dr. Fleming has also served as Deputy Director, CDC. While at CDC, Dr. Fleming led efforts to develop the agency's scientific and programmatic capabilities and served as the principal source of scientific and programmatic expertise in CDC′s Office of the Director. He provided oversight of CDC′s global health portfolio through its Office of Global Health and also oversaw the Director's offices of Minority Health, Women's Health, and the Associate Director for Science. Dr. Fleming has published scientific articles on a wide range of public health issues. He has served on a number of Institute of Medicine and federal advisory committees, the Boards of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, as President of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists and as the State Epidemiologist of Oregon. Dr. Fleming received his medical degree from the State University of New York Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. He is board certified in internal medicine and preventive medicine and serves on the faculty of the departments of public health at both the University of Washington and Oregon Health Sciences University.

Lynn R. Goldman, MD, MPH

Dean, School of Public Health and Health Services
Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health
George Washington University
Washington, DC

A pediatrician and an epidemiologist, Dr. Goldman is Dean of George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. Formerly she was a Professor at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health Department of Environmental Health Sciences, where her areas of focus were children's environmental health, public health practice, and chemical regulatory policy. In 1993, Dr. Goldman was appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate to serve as Assistant Administrator (AA) for the US Environmental Protection Agency, where she directed the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) from 1993 through 1998. As AA for OCSPP she was responsible for the nation's pesticide, toxic substances and pollution prevention laws. Under her watch, EPA overhauled the nation's pesticides laws to assure that children would be protected by pesticide regulations. At EPA she was successful in promoting children's health issues and furthering the international agenda for global chemical safety.

Prior to joining the EPA, from 1985 until 1993, Dr. Goldman served in several positions at the California Department of Public Health, most recently as chief of the Division of Environmental and Occupational Disease Control. She has conducted public health investigations on pesticides, childhood lead poisoning and other environmental hazards. She established the California Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program and co-founded the Children's Environmental Health Network.

She has a BS in Conservation of Natural Resources, an MS in Health and Medical Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, an MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and an MD from the University of California, San Francisco. She completed pediatric training at Children's Hospital, Oakland, California and is board-certified in pediatrics.

She was elected a member of the Institute of Medicine in 2007. She has received several awards including the Woodrow Wilson Award for Distinguished Government Service from the Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association (1999), Alumna of the Year from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health (2002), National Library of Medicine, Changing the Face of Women in Medicine (2003), election to the Delta Omega Honor Society (2007), the Children's Environmental Health Network Child Health Advocate Award (2008), Maryland's Top 100 Women, Maryland Daily Record (2009) and the Heinz Award for Global Change, (2010).

Dr. Goldman currently is vice chairman of the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, a member of the NAS Board on Environmental Sciences and Toxicology and a member of the NAS Report Review Committee. She serves as a member of the US Food and Drug Administration Science Board. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Environmental Defense Fund.

Alan Greenberg, MD, MPH

Professor and Chair, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services Washington, DC

Alan Greenberg, MD, MPH, is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. He is also Professor in the Departments of Medicine and of Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine in the School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

Among recent activities, Dr. Greenberg is the Co-founder and Co-Director of the GW HIV/AIDS Institute, dedicated to linking and expanding the University′s HIV-related research and educational activities in basic science, prevention, epidemiology, clinical care, education and health policy. He also founded and is Director of the newly chartered GW Center for HIV/AIDS Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health Laboratory Research, committed to expanding HIV/AIDS research activities in these domains in Washington, DC. He is the principal investigator of the “Academic-Public Health Partnership” between GW and the District of Columbia Department of Health. The partnership has focused on core HIV/AIDS and hepatitis surveillance activities, the CDC-funded National HIV Behavioral Surveillance System, and monitoring and evaluation of DC′s HIV testing campaign. He is also the principal investigator of several World Health Organization-sponsored management and policy projects, including the development of a legal and policy framework to support “task-shifting” among health care workers to scale up HIV prevention, care and treatment services in the developing world. Before joining SPHHS, Dr. Greenberg spent two decades at CDC, where he provided scientific leadership for its domestic and international HIV epidemiologic research program. He served as chief of the agency′s HIV Epidemiology Branch, supervising research studies in 28 US states and nine countries. His assignments have taken him around the globe, including Cote d′Ivoire, where he spent four years directing the CDC's research, training and clinical services in West Africa. He received his Doctor of Medicine from George Washington University School of Medicine in 1982 and his Masters in Public Health in 1999 from Harvard School of Public Health.

Kelly J. Henning, MD

Director, International Health Programs Bloomberg Foundation New York, New York

Kelly J. Henning, MD, currently directs international health programs at the Bloomberg Foundation, New York City, including the $375 million Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, a global project aimed at curbing the tobacco epidemic in low and middle income countries. She received her medical training at the Tufts University School of Medicine and completed her internal medicine internship and residency at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Henning completed her infectious disease fellowship training at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. She received her epidemiology training in the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and assigned to the NYC Department of Health, Bureau of Communicable Diseases from 1990 to 1994. Subsequently, Dr. Henning worked in communicable disease surveillance, hospital epidemiology, and bioterrorism preparedness, serving as Assistant Professor at the Thomas Jefferson University School of Medicine and Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine. From 2002 to 2003, she was a hospital epidemiologist at the Veteran′s Administration Hospital in Philadelphia, PA. With more than 20 years of experience in epidemiology and public health, Dr. Henning was the Director of the newly formed Division of Epidemiology at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene from 2003–2006 before joining the Bloomberg Foundation in January 2007.

George J. Isham, MD, MS

Chief Health Officer
HealthPartners Incorporated
Bloomington, Minnesota

Dr. George Isham is responsible for quality, utilization management, health promotion and disease prevention, research, and health professionals' education at HealthPartners. He is active in strategic planning and policy issues. He is a founding board member of the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement, a collaborative of Twin Cities medical groups and health plans that is implementing clinical practice guidelines in Minnesota. Dr. Isham is a past member of the board of directors of the American's Health Insurance Plans and he is currently on the board of directors of the Alliance of Community Health Plans. He is past co-chair and current member of the National Committee for Quality Assurance's (NCQA) Committee on Performance Measurement which oversees health plan quality measurement standards.

He has served on the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) Task Force on Community Preventive Services and on the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) Advisory Board for the National Guideline Clearinghouse. He has served on the Institute of Medicine's Board on Population Health and Public Health Services and chaired the committee that authored the report Priority Areas for National Action, Transforming Health Care Quality. In 2003, Dr. Isham was appointed as a lifetime National Associate of the National Academies of Science in recognition of his contributions to the work of the Institute of Medicine. Epidemic of Care, published in April 2003, with co-author George Halvorson, is Dr. Isham's examination of the impending healthcare crisis with suggestions on ways to solve it. Prior to his current position, Dr. Isham was medical director for MedCenters Health Plan in Minneapolis and executive director for University Health Care, Inc., in Madison, Wisconsin. His practice experience as a primary care physician includes eight years at the Freeport Clinic in Freeport, Illinois, and three and one-half years as clinical assistant professor in Medicine at the University of Wisconsin.

Anthony B. Iton, MD, JD, MPH

Senior Vice President, Healthy Communities The California Endowment Oakland, California

Anthony B. Iton, MD, JD, MPH, as Senior Vice President of Healthy Communities, joined The Endowment in October 2009. Prior to his appointment at The Endowment, Dr. Iton served since 2003 as both the director and County Health Officer for the Alameda County Public Health Department. In that role, he oversaw the creation of an innovative public health practice designed to eliminate health disparities by tackling the root causes of poor health that limit quality of life and lifespan in many of California's low-income communities.

Dr. Iton also served for three years as director of Health and Human Services and School Medical Advisor for the City of Stamford, Connecticut. Concurrent to that, he also served as a physician in internal medicine for Stamford Hospital's HIV Clinic. In addition, Dr. Iton served for five years as a primary care physician for the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
 His varied career also includes past service as a staff attorney and Health Policy analyst for the West Coast regional office of Consumer's Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine.

Dr. Iton, who has been published in numerous public health and medical publications, is a regular public health lecturer and keynote speaker at conferences across the nation. He earned his BS in Neurophysiology, with honors, from McGill University, in Montreal, Quebec, his JD at the University of California, Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, and his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Herminia Palacio, MD, MPH

Executive Director
Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services
Houston, Texas

Herminia Palacio applies a broad range of academic, clinical, and public policy experience to meet the diverse public health challenges of today. She served as Special Policy Advisor to the Director for the San Francisco Department of Public Health before relocating to Houston. In January 2003, she was appointed to the post of Executive Director of Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services (HCPHES), the local health department for approximately 2 million people. She was awarded the Excellence in Health Administration Award by the American Public Health Association in 2007.

She received her medical degree from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. She completed her residency training at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Primary Care Internal Medicine Program at San Francisco General Hospital. After becoming an Internist, she obtained a Master's of Public Health, with an emphasis in Epidemiology, from the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health. She has held numerous faculty appointments, including several years as a full-time faculty member, health services researcher, and primary care physician at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine (UCSF). During her tenure with the San Francisco Department of Public Health, she continued part-time clinical practice and research at UCSF. She continued these activities at the Houston VA Medical Center and the Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in Houston from 2001- 2003. After joining HCPHES in 2003, she has maintained adjunct faculty appointments at the Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas School of Public Health.

She has served on the Board of Directors of organizations including, the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), the Mickey Leland National Urban Air Toxics Research Center, the Texas Association of Local Health Officials (TALHO), the Harris County Healthcare Alliance (HCHA) and she currently serves as Chair of the Texas Public Health Coalition. She has also served as a member of numerous scientific advisory panels and committees, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Preparedness & Response Emergency Center at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health and the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Prepositioned Medical Countermeasures for the Public. Most recently she was appointed to the Board of Scientific Counselors for the CDC Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response.

Lynne D. Richardson, MD, FACEP

Professor of Emergency Medicine and of Health Evidence and Policy
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
New York, New York

Dr. Lynne D. Richardson is Professor of Emergency Medicine and Vice Chair for Academic, Research and Community Programs of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. A native New Yorker, she holds Bachelor's degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Life Sciences and Management; and the MD degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She completed her Emergency Medicine Residency at Jacobi Hospital/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and completed a research fellowship with the AAMC Health Services Research Institute. Dr. Richardson is a nationally recognized Emergency Medicine health services researcher; her areas of interest are access and barriers to care, and improving effective utilization of health care resources. She was the Principle Investigator for the New York City Site of the PAD Trial, an international, randomized, controlled trial of public access defibrillation; and is currently the Principal Investigator for the "Community VOICES" Study, an NIH-funded study of "Community Views on Informed Consent in Emergency Situations." Dr. Richardson serves on the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Health Public 2010 Task Force and the American College of Emergency Physicians Public Health Committee. She is a member of the New York City Board of Health, the first emergency physician ever to serve in that Board's one hundred and thirty-nine year history, and was recently nominated to serve on the Institute of Medicine Committee to Review the NIH Strategic Plan to Reduce and Ultimately Eliminate Health Disparities.

Sara Rosenbaum, JD

Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor
Founding Chair, Department of Health Policy
George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Service
Washington, DC

Sara Rosenbaum, J.D., is the Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor and founding Chair of the Department of Health Policy, George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, a unique center of learning, scholarship, and public service focusing on all aspects of health policy. She has devoted her career to issues of health law and policy affecting low income, minority, and medically underserved populations. Between 1993 and 1994, Professor Rosenbaum worked for President Clinton, directing the legislative drafting of the Health Security Act and developing the Vaccines for Children program. Professor Rosenbaum also served on the Presidential Transition Team for President-Elect Obama.

A graduate of Wesleyan University and Boston University School of Law, she has authored a leading health law textbook as well as more than 350 articles and studies focusing on all phases of health law and health care for medically underserved populations. A holder of numerous awards for her scholarship and service, Professor Rosenbaum is the recipient of the Richard and Barbara Hansen National Health Leadership Award (University of Iowa), a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research, and the Oscar and Shoshanna Trachtenberg Award for Scholarship, George Washington University's highest award for scholarship.

Professor Rosenbaum also serves as a member of CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice (ACIP) and as a Commissioner on the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, which advises Congress on federal Medicaid and CHIP policy.