NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Maureen Byrnes
George Washington University
For over 30 years Maureen Byrnes served in leadership positions in the federal government, philanthropy, and the nonprofit sector. She served as Executive Director of Human Rights First and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. From 1997 to 2005, Byrnes served as Director of the Health and Human Services program at The Pew Charitable Trusts. In the 1980’s, Byrnes worked with Senator Lowell Weicker as the Staff Director of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, HHS, Education, and Related Agencies to provide early government funding to address the HIV epidemic. Later she served as Executive Director of the National Commission on AIDS. Currently, Byrnes is a Lead Research Scientist in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. Byrnes came to Washington, DC in the 1980s as a Presidential Management Intern. Byrnes participated in the original prototyping group of Community Benefit Insight.
James Corbett
Initium Health
James Corbett, MDiv, JD, is a seasoned healthcare executive bringing over a decade of C-level leadership experience from both the for-profit and the non-profit sectors of the industry. James has served as a fellow at Harvard Medical School, Harvard’s Safra Center for Ethics and the Nashville Healthcare Council. In addition, he served a 4-year term on the National Institute of Health’s National Advisory Council for Nursing Research; having been honored to receive the appointment from former Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebellius. His experience comes from serving in four health systems, providing strategic and operational leadership for behavioral health, consumer segmentation, population health, hospital re-design, hospital-housing development, research, innovation, global health, advocacy and ethics. James’s work around health system network composition has encompassed efforts in multiple states partnering with organizations to analyze appropriate asset utilization, diversification and analysis of bed need, and repurposing of an organizations bricks and mortar assets.
Corbett has also lectured at Harvard Medical School, Harvard’s School of Public Health and numerous other universities across the country. Mr. Corbett earned his Bachelor of Science in International Relations from Syracuse University, his Juris Doctorate from St. John’s University and a Master of Divinity from Duke University.
Paul Hattis
Tufts University
Paul Hattis, MD, JD, MPH, is Senior Associate Director of the Masters of Public Health Program and Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University Medical School.
In his career as a physician-attorney, Dr. Hattis has worked in a wide variety of roles in the fields of health administration, law, and policy as well as in the field of preventive medicine. In addition to his administrative and teaching roles, Dr. Hattis’ research efforts have focused on the issue of consumer advocacy in shaping health policy with special interests in health care cost and hospital community benefit issues. On the latter issue, Dr. Hattis recently co-authored a report summarizing the current state of hospital community benefits in Massachusetts.
Dr. Hattis recently served three years on the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission, filling the position of Consumer Advocate as an appointee of Attorney General Coakley.
Dorothy Hopkins
Frazier Revitalization, Inc.
Dorothy was named the President and CEO of Frazier Revitalization, Inc. in October 2011, and has worked with the organization since its inception in 2006 as the CFO. She was instrumental in the closing of most of the land acquisition over the years. She has also worked with the Foundation for Community Empowerment (a sister organization also working in the south Dallas Fair Park area) since its inception in 1995, and is currently on the board and its CFO.
Dorothy has worked with J. McDonald Williams, retired Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Trammell Crow Company and Chairman and Founder of both nonprofit organizations, since 1988. She was a controller for the Austin Offce and Retail Divisions of Trammell Crow Company in the mid 80’s, and prior to that was an auditor for Ernst & Young, LLP/Kenneth Leventhal & Co. in Dallas. Dorothy received her CPA in 1982, and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Texas Christian University in 1980.
Chris Kabel
Kresge Foundation
Chris Kabel serves as Deputy Director of Kresge’s Health Program, while also directing the foundation’s efforts to invest more effectively at the intersection of six of its programs and two practices. Kabel is responsible for managing a $30 million grant portfolio; leading the development and implementation of key initiatives (such as Fresh, Local, and Equitable and the BUILD Health Challenge); and developing and implementing grantmaking and investment strategies that promote health equity by addressing conditions that lead to poor health outcomes. In his cross-team role, Chris leads Kresge’s engagement on multi-sector initiatives such as the Strong, Prosperous, and Resilient Communities Challenge (SPARCC) and the Center for Community Investment. Prior to joining Kresge, Kabel was a senior program officer at the Northwest Health Foundation (NWHF), where he led a $28 partnership with Kaiser Permanente and NWHF’s work to promote healthy eating and active living. Kabel earned his Master’s in Public Health from Portland State University and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Southern California.
Denise Koo
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Denise Koo, MD, MPH retired last year from the CDC, where she was the chief architect of the CDC Community Health Improvement Navigator, a unifying framework and tools for stakeholders interested in improving the health of their communities, played a key role in the development of the Department of Health and Human Services Public Health 3.0 initiative, and led the development of an innovative tool for accelerating learning about social determinants of health, the Health and Well-Being for All: Meeting-in-a- box.
Dr. Koo received her BA from Harvard, her MPH from UC Berkeley, and her MD from UC San Francisco. Dr. Koo held several leadership positions during her 25 years at the CDC, including as Chief of the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System, Director of the Division of Public Health Surveillance and Informatics, and Director of the Division of Scientific Education and Professional Development. She is also Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology and Global Health at Emory University’s School of Public Health, and Consulting Professor of Family and Community Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Mercy Health, headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Alicia Lara
United Way Worldwide
Alicia Lara serves as Senior Vice President of Impact for United Way Worldwide. She is responsible for the development and design of strategies and programs for the United Way networks in the United States and internationally. United Way fights for the health, education, and financial stability of every person in every community. Most recently, Lara was the Vice President for Community Investment at the United Way of Greater Los Angeles where for nine years where she was responsible for the development and management of policy, research, and grantmaking programs.
Previously, Lara was with The California Endowment, a private foundation with priorities in the areas of health care access, health disparities, and mental health. For eight years, she held a number of positions there including vice president of program; director of responsive grantmaking; and senior program officer. She currently serves on the board of directors for The Ms. Foundation for Women, National Health Foundation, and the Larchmont Charter School. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from San Diego State University and a Master’s Degree in Public Health from the University of California at Los Angeles.
Claudia Lennhoff
Champaign County Health Care Consumers (CCHCC)
Claudia Lennhoff is the Executive Director and a Community Organizer with Champaign County Health Care Consumers (CCHCC). CCHCC is a grassroots citizen-action consumer health advocacy organization founded in 1977. Lennhoff has been on staff at CCHCC since 1997 and is a past recipient of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Community Health Leaders Award for her work to expand access to health care in Champaign County. She has extensive experience working to improve access to health care, both through direct client service and through community organizing and advocacy.
Lennhoff has led many community organizing campaigns that have resulted in the creation of new or expanded services and benefits for Champaign County residents, including a county-wide Public Health Department, a dental access program for low-income children, and the Promise Healthcare organization – an FQHC that now operates Frances Nelson Health Center and the Smile Healthy dental clinic and programs.
Lennhoff also led CCHCC’s groundbreaking work on medical debt, hospital billing and collection practices, hospital accountability, and hospital community benefits programming. This work brought national attention to the issue of hospital billing and collection and charity care policies, put a halt to harmful hospital debt collection practices, and resulted in a model community collaboration with local hospitals for establishing decent charity care, billing, and collection policies.
Sue Pechilio Polis
National League of Cities (NLC)
Sue Pechilio Polis is responsible for directing the health and wellness portfolio for the National League of Cities (NLC) as part of the Institute for Youth, Education and Families. The portfolio includes efforts to combat childhood obesity and build a culture of health through the strong engagement of mayors and city leaders.
Prior to the National League of Cities, Polis led the development and management of the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) external relations and strategic partnership efforts in support of the organization’s public policy goals. She oversaw the development of the web-based Healthy Communities Navigator tool and multi-sector stakeholder efforts to improve community health. Prior to joining TFAH, Polis worked at AARP on health and financial security-related issues with an emphasis on legislative advocacy campaigns, strategic planning and evaluation. Polis was the first National Director of Grassroots Advocacy for the American Heart Association. She was responsible for the development and implementation of a five-year strategic plan that led to significant growth of the organization’s advocacy capacity in support of public policy objectives at the federal and state levels.
Her background also includes consulting on health, environmental and tobacco-related issues campaigns, and overseeing political programs for a life insurance industry trade association. She began her career in New Jersey as a paralegal with the firm of Crummy, DelDeo, Dolan, Gringer and Vecchione and is a graduate of Seton Hall University with a major in political science.
Sara Rosenbaum
George Washington University
Sara Rosenbaum J.D. is the Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor of Health Law and Policy and Founding Chair of the Department of Health Policy at the Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University. Professor Rosenbaum has devoted her 40-year career to issues of health justice for populations who are medically underserved because of race, poverty, disability, or cultural exclusion.
Professor Rosenbaum has emphasized public engagement as a core element of her professional life, providing service to six Presidential Administrations and nineteen Congresses. She is best known for her work on the expansion of Medicaid, expanding healthcare access to medically underserved communities, civil rights and health care, and national health reform. She has received many national awards for her work and is a past Chair of Academy Health.
A member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Professor Rosenbaum also serves on the CDC Director’s Advisory Committee and has served on CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice (ACIP). She is a founding Commissioner of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC), which advises Congress on Medicaid and CHIP policy, and has served as Chair since December 2015.
Mark Rukavina
Community Catalyst
Mark Rukavina, Business Development Manager for the Center for Consumer Engagement in Health Innovation at Community Catalyst, is responsible for facilitating business opportunities with innovative healthcare organizations. Prior to joining Community Catalyst, he ran a consultancy providing assistance to nonprofit hospitals on community benefit and supporting the efforts of nonprofit organizations working to address unaffordable health care costs and medical debt. He directed The Access Project, which conducted research and provided assistance to consumer groups on efforts to improve access to coverage and care. Rukavina’s experience also includes serving as program director at Cambridge Health Alliance, as organizing director at Health Care For All in Massachusetts, and as the lead healthcare organizer for the Massachusetts Senior Action Council.
Rukavina has extensive experience advising hospitals, non-profit organizations, and policymakers on health access and community health improvement. He’s a recognized expert on healthcare affordability, financial assistance, billing and collection, and community benefit requirements for tax-exempt hospitals and has published on these topics. He has testified before the US Congress and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as well as state legislative bodies.
Rukavina is a member of the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) and serves on their Surprise Medical Billing Working Group. He has also served on the HFMA/ACA International Medical Debt Task Force and HFMA’s Price Transparency Task Force and has advised HFMA on their Dollars and Sense initiative.
Pamela Russo
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)
Pamela Russo, MD, MPH joined the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2001 as a senior program officer. Her work concentrates on improving population health at the community level, based on the understanding of health as the result of interactions between social, environmental, behavioral, health care, and genetic determinants.
Dr. Russo’s work includes developing robust collaborative partnerships across different sectors, agencies, and organizations and addressing the root causes underlying inequities in the determinants between different populations or neighborhoods; transforming the governmental public health system, including national accreditation as a platform for quality improvement; health impact assessment and related approaches bringing a health lens to decisions made in other sectors; and working with communities to identify and implement financing innovations to sustain their progress in improving the health of all in their communities. Dr. Russo is a member of the National Academies of Medicine Population Health Roundtable. Dr. Russo participated in the original prototyping group of Community Benefit Insight.
Prior to joining the Foundation, Dr. Russo was an associate professor of medicine, researcher in clinical outcomes, and program co-director for the master’s program and fellowship in clinical epidemiology and health services research at the Cornell University Medical Center in New York City. Her education includes a BS from Harvard College, MD from the University of California, San Francisco, and an MPH in epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health.
Lyndia Wilson
Spokane Regional Health District
Lyndia Wilson started her public health career in 1988 with the Nevada State Health Department in Maternal and Child Health, and then in 1991 joined the Spokane Regional Health District. She has a Master of Science degree in health education. As the Disease Prevention and Response division director for the past 15 years, Lyndia oversees 34 staff in the areas of Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response; Data Center; Communicable Disease Epidemiology; Immunization Outreach; and HIV/STD.
She has worked with diverse community agencies and individuals to facilitate community health assessment processes, data informed decision-making, and action planning. Her work has also included quality improvement initiatives providing local and state trainings and consultations on conducting assessments, using collective impact methodology, developing logic models, using project management, and more.
She currently serves on the local Priority Spokane steering committee, which is working to reduce the number of homeless students in grades K-8 in Spokane County, and the Spokane Neighborhood Action Partnership board. She is a member of the Washington State Public Health Association and on the board of the Washington State Association of Local Public Health Officials.