Appendix B: Biographies

Paula  Braun,  Entrepreneur-in-Residence, CDC (Co-Moderator)

Paula Braun is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She tracks evolving tech trends and helps to communicate why they matter to public health. In 2019, she was named one of the top 50 Influencers in the Federal Government on artificial intelligence. She engages stakeholder groups from across government, academia, and industry to help improve public and population health. She is an internationally recognized expert on interoperability and innovation, and she collaborates with colleagues from across CDC to use design thinking and advances in technology to help address real world health challenges.

Aneesh Chopra, MPP, President, CareJourney

Aneesh Chopra is the President of CareJourney, an open data membership service building a trusted, transparent rating system for physicians, networks, facilities, and markets on the move to value. He served as the first US Chief Technology Officer under President Obama (’09-’12) and in 2014, authored, “Innovative State: How New Technologies Can Transform Government.” He serves on the Board of the Health Care Cost Institute and the New Jersey Innovation Institute. He earned his MPP from Harvard Kennedy School and BA from The Johns Hopkins University.

Letitia Dzirasa, MD, Commissioner of Health, City of Baltimore

Dr. Letitia Dzirasa joined Baltimore City government as the Commissioner of Health in March 2019. Dr. Dzirasa, a Hopkins-trained pediatrician, believes that equitable care is basic right for all and will tirelessly advocate for programs that support the overall health and wellbeing of all Baltimore city residents. Dr. Dzirasa’s special interests include obesity management and prevention, trauma-informed care in children and adolescents, and expanded use of technology to improve health outcomes.

Prior to joining the Health Department, Dr. Dzirasa worked at Fearless Solutions (Fearless), a Baltimore-based digital services firm that builds custom software solutions for local and federal government clients. In her role at Fearless as Health Innovation Officer, Dr. Dzirasa was responsible for managing the Healthcare IT portfolio for the company and provided clinical subject matter expertise to HIT projects. Dr. Dzirasa also has close clinical ties to the Baltimore community, having trained at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in pediatrics and having worked as medical director for school- based health and quality at Baltimore Medical System from 2013-2016.

In addition to holding a BS from University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in biological sciences, Dr. Dzirasa graduated from Meharry Medical College, summa cum laude, in 2007. She lives in downtown Baltimore with her husband and son.

Dan Gottlieb, MPA, Clinical Informaticist and Software Consultant, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School

Dan Gottlieb, MPA, is a clinical informaticist and software consultant working with the Harvard Medical School Department of Biomedical Informatics, the Boston Children’s Hospital Computational Health Informatics Program, and other organizations to create healthcare standards and open source tools that empower patients, care providers, and researchers.

William Gregg, MD, MPH, Chief Clinical Transformation Officer & Vice President, Clinical Informatics, HCA

William (Bill) Gregg, MD, MS, MPH, joined HCA Healthcare in 2014 as Chief Clinical Transformation Officer and Vice President, Clinical Informatics. In addition to his medical degree, Dr. Gregg holds an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He earned his master’s degrees in Clinical Informatics and Public Health at Vanderbilt University and was a VA Quality Scholars Fellow. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Clinical Informatics. Prior to joining HCA, Dr. Gregg served as an Assistant Professor of Informatics and Medicine at Vanderbilt University and was the Director of Population Health Informatics. He helped develop successful clinical programs and led software development in population health and clinical decision support. As a part of HCA’s Clinical Operations Group, Dr. Gregg is responsible for programs in Health Information Exchange/Interoperability and Enterprise Clinical Decision Support. His primary focus is on system level integration of technology, interoperability, and processes to support transformation of clinical  care in our rapidly changing healthcare landscape.

Gillian Haney, MPH, Director of Office of Integrated Surveillance and Informatics Services, Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences, Massachusetts Department of Public Health

Gillian has been an epidemiologist with the Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health for 20 years, and is currently the Director of  the Office of Integrated Surveillance and Informatics Services. In this capacity, she implemented and oversees the state’s integrated infectious disease surveillance and case management system “MAVEN”, electronic laboratory and health record reporting, syndromic surveillance, and other aspects of infectious disease reporting and surveillance. Ms. Haney is also the chair of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) Surveillance Practice and Implementation Subcommittee that covers topic areas such as surveillance methods, data standards, electronic health records, and the Reportable Conditions Knowledge Management System (RCKMS).

Jennifer Layden, MD, PhD, Deputy Commissioner and Chief Medical Officer at Chicago Department of Public Health

Dr. Jen Layden serves as the Deputy Commissioner and Chief Medical Officer for the Chicago Department of Public Health. Prior to joining CDPH, she served as the State Epidemiologist and Chief Medical Officer for the Illinois Department of Public Health from 2016-2020. Additionally, she currently holds a faculty appointment at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Department of Medicine. Prior to joining public health practice, she was on faculty at Loyola University Chicago, in both the Departments of Public Health and Medicine from 2011-2016.

Currently, she leads the COVID-19 response for CDPH, and is integrally involved in efforts to enhance data integration from health systems and public health to optimize COVID disease surveillance. She has led numerous prior public health responses, including the 2019 EVALI outbreak while at IDPH. She has served on CSTE and other national task forces during large public health responses and has presented at national and international conferences. Dr. Layden has published extensively, with over 70 peer reviewed publications, including scientific work produced while in public health practice and in academia.

Dr. Layden earned her BS from the University of Notre Dame, and her MD and PhD in Public Health from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Layden is clinically trained in internal medicine and infectious diseases.

Kathryn Marchesini, JD, Chief Privacy Officer, ONC

Kathryn Marchesini serves as the chief privacy officer (CPO) at ONC where she advises the national coordinator on matters related to health information privacy, security, and data stewardship, especially as these issues impact IT development and implementation. Ms. Marchesini works closely with other HHS divisions and federal agencies to assure a coordinated, nationwide approach to maintaining the privacy and security of electronic health information.

Prior to serving as CPO, Ms. Marchesini served as a senior advisor at ONC where she advised stakeholders about the privacy and security implications surrounding electronic health information, technology, and healthcare. She worked with OCR, National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other federal agencies, to provide strategic direction and substantive expertise at the intersection of privacy and cybersecurity law, technology, and health research. In her seven years at HHS, Ms. Marchesini also served as deputy director for privacy, where she led ONC’s privacy team and helped with federal, state, and international policy guidance and education initiatives addressing emerging health IT privacy, data protection, and security-related issues. In 2014, she served as acting CPO.

Before joining HHS, Ms. Marchesini was a strategy and technology consultant at two international management consulting firms. She led IT modernization and business transformation efforts to help organizations bridge the gap between business requirements, technology, and law. Ms. Marchesini also worked in state government and at a multinational clinical research organization.

Ms. Marchesini earned her JD from the University of North Carolina School of Law, where she  was executive editor of the North Carolina Journal of Law and Technology (JOLT). She earned a professional certificate in strategic decision and risk management in healthcare from Stanford University and BS in international economics and finance with a management information systems minor from Catholic University. Ms. Marchesini also maintains a Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certificate.

Josh Mandel, MD, Chief Architect, Microsoft Healthcare

Josh C. Mandel, MD, is a physician and software developer working to fuel an ecosystem of health apps with access to clinical and research data. As Chief Architect for Microsoft Healthcare, Chief Architect for SMART Health IT, and Lecturer at the Harvard Medical School Department of Biomedical Informatics, Josh works closely with the standards development community to lay groundwork for frictionless data access, authorization, analytics, and app integration. He led development of the SMART specification and launched the Clinical Decision Support Hooks project. As a member of the national Health IT Standards Committee, Josh showed a special interest in tools and interfaces that support software developers who are new to the health domain.

Ken Mandl, MD, MPH, Director, Computational Health Informatics Program (CHIP); Donald A.B. Lindberg Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School (Co-Moderator)

Dr. Kenneth Mandl directs the Computational Health Informatics Program at Boston Children’s Hospital and is the Donald A.B. Lindberg Professor of Pediatrics and Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. He is trained as a pediatrician and pediatric emergency physician. His work at the intersection of population and individual health has had a unique, sustained influence on the developing field of biomedical informatics. Mandl’s Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers was for pioneering real time biosurveillance, tracking infections and detecting outbreaks with diverse data. He has long advocated for patient participation in producing and accessing data and was a pioneer of the first personal health systems, using crowdsourced knowledge from online patient networks, and advancing participatory medicine and engagement in clinical trials.

Cognizant of the limitations of extant electronic health record systems, Mandl developed a widely- adopted, highly influential approach (SMART)—substitutable apps that run universally on health IT systems. SMART lets innovators reach market scale and patients and doctors access an “app store for health.” Through the 21st Century Cures Act, SMART is now regulated as the standard interface by which patients, providers, and apps access data from electronic health records. He applies   open source inventions to lead EHR research networks. He is a leader of the Genomics Research and Innovation Network across three leading children’s hospitals. He directs the Boston Children’s Hospital Precision Link Biobank for Health Discovery.

Dr. Mandl was on the Advisory Committee to two Directors of the CDC. He has been elected to membership in the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the American College of Medical Informatics, the Society for Pediatric Research, and the American Pediatric Society.

Deven McGraw, JD, MPH, LLM, Chief Regulatory Officer, Ciitizen

Deven McGraw is Chief Regulatory Officer for Ciitizen, a consumer health technology start-up. Previously she directed US health privacy and security as Deputy Director, Health Information Privacy at the HHS Office for Civil Rights and Chief Privacy Officer (Acting) of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. Widely recognized for her expertise in health privacy, she directed the Health Privacy Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology for six years and led the privacy and security policy work for the HITECH Health IT Policy Committee. She also served as the Chief Operating Officer of the National Partnership for Women and Families. She advised health industry clients on HIPAA compliance and data governance while a partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP. Deven graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center and has a MPH from Johns Hopkins University.

Elisabeth Myers, MBA, Deputy Director, Office of Policy, ONC

Elisabeth Myers has worked on health IT policy at HHS since 2012, working on CMS quality programs, the CMS eHealth Initiative, and the EHR Incentive Programs before moving to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. Prior to her work at HHS, Elisabeth worked on healthcare initiatives in the non-profit and private sector, and at the state level in the Governor’s Office of Health Care Reform in Pennsylvania. In her role at ONC, Elisabeth is helping to lead the team implementing the 21st Century Cures Act that addresses a wide range of health IT provisions, from interoperable standards development to health IT for specialty settings and sites of service including pediatric  care. Elisabeth also leads ONC policy efforts related to the health IT provisions within the Support for Patients and Families Act that was signed into law in December of 2018 to drive policy initiatives in support of OUD prevention and treatment.

Steven Posnack, MS, MHS, Deputy National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, ONC

Steven Posnack serves as the Deputy National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. In  this role, he advises the national coordinator, leads the execution of ONC’s mission, and represents ONC’s interests at national and international levels. In conjunction with the national coordinator, Steve oversees ONC’s federal coordination, regulatory policy, public-private initiatives, and the overall implementation of statutory authorities and requirements, such as those from the 21st Century Cures Act and HITECH Act.

Chesley Richards, MD, MPH, FACP, Deputy Director for Public Health Science and Surveillance, CDC

Chesley Richards, MD, MPH, FACP, is the Deputy Director for Public Health Science and Surveillance at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In this position, he is responsible for strengthening CDC’s scientific foundation by working across the Office of Science, the Office of Laboratory Science and Safety, the Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services, and the National Center for Health Statistics. A primary focus of his role is to advance an agency-wide public health data strategy and serve as an advisor to the CDC Director.

Prior to this position, Dr. Richards served as CDC Deputy Director for Public Health Scientific Services and Director of the Office of Public Health Scientific Services, where he oversaw a broad range of epidemiology, public health surveillance, laboratory services, and health statistics initiatives aimed at improving population health. During his tenure, he developed and implemented CDC’s Surveillance Strategy to improve the agency’s public health data surveillance capabilities from 2014-2018.

Dr. Richards works at the intersection of public health, healthcare, and health IT. He began his public health career as a CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer in the Hospital Infections Program. Since then, he has held a range of positions, serving as the Director of the Immunization Services Division; the Director of the Office of Prevention through Healthcare; and as the Deputy Director for the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, where he led the expansion of the National Healthcare Safety Network—the nation’s most widely used healthcare-associated infection tracking  system.

Dr. Richards earned his MD from the Medical University of South Carolina, and his MPH in Health Policy and Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is board certified  in Internal Medicine (Medical College of Georgia), Geriatric Medicine (Emory University), and General Preventive Medicine and Public Health (UNC Chapel Hill). He completed the Cancer Control Education Fellowship at UNC Lineberger Cancer Center and the Program on Clinical Effectiveness at Harvard School of Public Health.

Don Rucker, MD, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, ONC

Dr. Don Rucker is the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the US Department of Health and Human Services, where he leads the formulation of the federal health IT strategy and coordinates federal health IT policies, standards, programs, and investments.

Dr. Rucker has three decades of clinical and informatics experience. He started his informatics  career at Datamedic Corporation, where he co-developed the world’s first Microsoft Windows-based electronic medical record. He then spent over a decade serving as Chief Medical Officer at Siemens Healthcare USA.

Dr. Rucker has also practiced emergency medicine for a variety of organizations including at Kaiser in California; at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Presbyterian and Pennsylvania Hospitals; and, most recently, at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center.

Dr. Rucker is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, with board certifications in Emergency Medicine, Internal Medicine and Clinical Informatics. He holds an MS in Medical Computer Science and an MBA, both from Stanford.