2024 National Leadership Conference Speakers
Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders is serving his third term in the U.S. Senate after winning re-election in 2018. Sanders remains on the veterans committee and was tapped by Senate leadership to be the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
Vivek Murthy
Dr. Vivek H. Murthy is the founder of Doctors for America and is currently serving as the 21st U.S. Surgeon General.
Kavita Patel, MD, MS
A primary care physician with extensive health policy expertise and experience working on Capitol Hill and in the White House.
Ellana Stinson, MD, MPH, MBA
A board-certified, emergency medicine physician and the president of the New England Medical Association.
Cedric Dark, MD, MPH
An ER physician and Associate Professor in the Henry J. N. Taub Department of Emergency Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.
Alister Martin, MD, MPP
An ER physician and Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Kennedy School.
Charles Gaba
Launched ACASignups.net as a hobby, using crowdsourcing to track enrollments in real time. His work soon caught the attention of major media outlets, and has been cited and used as a resource ever since.
Cynthia Cox
A vice president and Director of the Program on the ACA, where she conducts economic and policy research on the Affordable Care Act and its effects on private insurers and enrollees. Her work focuses on enrollment, pricing and competition in the ACA’s exchange markets.
Zachary Baron
A director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative at the O’Neill Institute and an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law. He focuses on providing technical assistance for policymakers and public education on health policy legal issues.
Aliya Bhatia
Executive Director at Vot-ER and Civic Health Month where she works to bring voter registration into health care settings, including emergency rooms, hospitals, and community health centers.
Hussain Lalani, MD, MPH, MSc
A board-certified and practicing primary care internist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and a medical officer in the Learning and Diffusion Group at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
Anand Parekh
Led specific efforts tackling a variety of policy issues including the COVID-19 pandemic, future of public health, opioid crisis, obesity epidemic & nutrition, health & housing, domestic and global HIV/AIDS, business & public health collaboration, emergency preparedness, social isolation, rural health, and prescription drug costs.
Cecelia Spitznas, PhD
Senior Science Policy Analyst at the Office National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), a component of the Executive Office of the President. She has been a career federal employee for 23 years including 12 years at the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Andrew Kolodny, MD
Serves as President of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, an
organization that advocates for more cautious opioid prescribing. He is one of the
nation's leading experts on the opioid crisis.
Gretta Gardner
Serves Ujima Inc., The National Center on Violence Against Women in the Black Community as Chief Legal Officer. Gretta is primarily responsible for managing operations and staff; engaging in state, local, and federal policy discussions impacting Black survivors of gender-based violence.
Tiffany Garner
Policy Advocate for Children & Health at Futures Without Violence in Washington, DC. Prior to her time at Futures, she focused on preventing further firearm violence and homicides through advocacy and lobbying for legislation that establishes community- based violence intervention and prevention funding throughout the states.
Jennifer Jones-Vanderleest, MD
Has 20 years of experience partnering with socially marginalized people at the clinical medicine and public health interface. She has experience in building cross-sector collaborations to improve health outcomes, and appreciates working with others who are invested in health equity & intersectional justice.
Sabrina Talukder
Sabrina Talukder is the director of the Women’s Initiative at American Progress. Talukder also worked at The Legal Aid Society in New York City for six years, where she started as an equal justice works fellow.
Sanjay Jumani, MD
Sanjay Jumani, is a first-year clinical fellow in the Inter-Institute Endocrinology Training Program. Under the mentorship of NICHD Director of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology, Veronica Gomez-Lobo, MD, he studies metabolic outcomes in transgender adolescents and young adults.
Skye Perryman
A lawyer, advocate, and leader with a track record of taking on and winning critical fights that advance democratic values, stop abuses of power, and improve the wellbeing of people and communities.
Britt Walsh
Britt Walsh leads a team of Trans Care Navigators in supporting medical patients of Whitman-Walker Health to access gender-affirming surgery.
George Chochos
George Chochos is a senior program associate with Vera's Unlocking Potential initiative, where he provides technical assistance to college-in-prison programs.
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All times are in Eastern Time unless otherwise noted.
Federal Legislation Sub-Committee Meeting
Please email Marlou Svenson at [email protected] to register.
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