Reed V. Tuckson, M.D., FACP (Chair) is Managing Director at Tuckson Health Connections, LLC. Most recently, he served as Executive Vice President and Chief of Medical Affairs at UnitedHealth Group. Formerly, he served as: Senior Vice President for Professional Standards at the American Medical Association; President of the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science; Senior Vice President for Programs at the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation; and Commissioner of Public Health for the District of Columbia. Dr. Tuckson is an active member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, serving on, or chairing, several boards and committees. He is also active on the Advisory Committee to the Director of the National Institutes of Health and serves on the Boards of Cell Therapeutics, Inc., Howard University, and the American Telemedicine Association among others. He has past service on cabinet level advisory committees concerned with health reform, infant mortality, children’s health, violence, and radiation testing. Dr. Tuckson is a graduate of Howard University and Georgetown University School of Medicine. He completed Internal Medicine Residency and Fellowship Programs at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
Daniel P. Aldrich, Ph.D., M.A., is an Associate Professor of Political Science, University Faculty Scholar, and Director of Asian Studies at Purdue University. Dr. Aldrich recently completed a Fulbright research fellowship in the University of Tokyo’s Economics Department for 2012-2013 and served as an American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow at United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2011-2012. He has previously been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Tokyo’s Law Faculty in Japan, an Advanced Research Fellow at Harvard University’s Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, a Visiting Researcher at Centre Américain, Sciences Po in Paris, France, and a Visiting Professor at the Tata Institute for Disaster Management in Mumbai, India. He is a board member of the journals Asian Politics and Policy and Risk Hazards and Crisis in Public Policy and is a Mansfield U.S. Japan Network for the Future alumnus. He is the section organizer for the American Political Science Association’s Disasters and Crises Related Group. His research interests include post-disaster recovery, the siting of controversial facilities, the interaction between civil society and the state, and the socialization of women and men through experience. He has published more than 30 peer-reviewed articles, along with more than 60 book chapters, articles, book reviews, and op-eds for general audiences in five main areas: disaster recovery, controversial facility siting, countering violent extremism, fieldwork practices, and sex differences in political behav-
ior. Dr. Aldrich’s first book, Site Fights: Divisive Facilities and Civil Society in Japan and the West, was published by Cornell University Press in the spring of 2008. His second book, Building Resilience: Social Capital in Disaster Recovery, was published in the summer of 2012 by the University of Chicago Press. He earned a B.A. in Asian Studies and Japanese from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an M.A. in Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University.
Steven Blessing, M.A., is Chief of the Emergency Medical Services and Preparedness Section at the Delaware Division of Public Health. He worked in various positions within Delaware State Division of Public Health since 1994. Prior to becoming Section Chief, Mr. Blessing was the Delaware State Emergency Medical Services Director from 2002-2010, and before that he was the Delaware State Paramedic Administrator. Mr. Blessing is a Past President of the National Association of State Emergency Medical Services Officials (NASEMSO), and he is a member of numerous committees dealing with public health and preparedness. Mr. Blessing received his M.A. in Business from Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Delaware.
Lynn Britton, M.B.A., is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Mercy Health (Mercy), a position he assumed in January 2009, after serving as Senior Vice President since 2004. Mr. Britton has been with Mercy for more than 20 years, serving as Vice President for Mercy’s supply chain operating division, Resource Optimization and Innovation (ROI), from 2000 to 2004. Following his service to ROI, he led Mercy in the design and implementation of the comprehensive electronic health record across medical practices for 1,900 integrated physicians and 30 hospitals. Mr. Britton holds an M.A. in business from Oklahoma City University and a B.A. in Accounting from Abilene Christian University.
Harry L. Brown, Ph.D., is Senior Vice President of Community Planning and Initiatives at United Way of Central Alabama, where he has worked since 1983. In this role, he is responsible for strategic planning, grants management, and development of community-based programs in financial literacy, transportation, community development, and other areas. Previously, he was Director of the Social Work Program at Talledega College and, before that, Senior Planner in the Jefferson County, Alabama, Office of Senior Citizens Activities. His work in disaster recovery has encompassed the Birmingham EF-5 tornado in 1998, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the Alabama EF-5 and EF-4 tornadoes of 2011 and 2012. Dr. Brown was the chair of the Long Term Recovery Committee for these three disasters. He received his Ph.D. in Social Work from Tulane University.
Terry L. Cline, Ph.D., is the Commissioner of Health for Oklahoma, a position he has held since June 2009. In February 2011, he was appointed to serve concurrently as Oklahoma’s Cabinet Secretary of Health and Human Services. Prior to his role in Oklahoma, Dr. Cline completed a post as Health Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, where he advised the U.S. Ambassador, the Iraqi Minister of Health, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on health-related challenges in Iraq. Dr. Cline served in this capacity under the Administrations of both President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama. Previously, Dr. Cline served as Administrator for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration from 2006-2008. From 2001-2006, he served as Oklahoma’s Commissioner of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. Dr. Cline has also served as a local provider through an earlier post as the Clinical Director of the Cambridge Youth Guidance Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and as a Staff Psychologist at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. In addition, his professional history includes a 6-year appointment as a Clinical Instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Chairman of the governing board for a Harvard teaching hospital in Cambridge. Dr. Cline attended the University of Oklahoma where he earned a B.A. in Psychology. He received both an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Oklahoma State University.
Lawrence Deyton, M.D., M.S.P.H., is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at George Washington University’s (GWU’s) School of Medicine and Health Sciences and a Professor of Health Policy at GWU’s School of Public Health and Health Services. He previously served as the Director of the Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Dr. Deyton was appointed as the FDA’s first director of the CTP shortly after the passage of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in 2009. Prior to joining the FDA, Dr. Deyton was the Chief Public Health and Environmental Hazards Officer for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), where he oversaw VA’s public health programs, including emergency preparedness and response of VA’s health system. Dr. Deyton served for 11 years in leadership positions in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, 6 years in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and as a legislative aide with the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Health and the Environment in the 1970s. Dr. Deyton was a founder of the Whitman Walker Clinic, now a community-based AIDS service organization in Washington, DC, in 1978. He earned his M.D. from GWU, his M.S.P.H. at the Harvard School of Public Health, and completed his undergraduate work at the University of Kansas. In 2011, Dr. Deyton was a finalist for the prestigious Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal for his outstanding contributions to the health, safety, and well-being of Americans.
Alisa Diggs, M.P.H., PA-c, serves as the Clinical Advisor for Cities Readiness Initiative activities in Maricopa County, Arizona, the fourth most populous county in the United States, and he is the former Maricopa County Department of Public Health Program Manager for the Office of Preparedness and Response. Ms. Diggs led in the design and implementation of the Medical Coordination Center, a regional, Medical Multi-Agency Coordination Center, and envisioned and initiated planning for regional Alternate Care System (ACS) to address medical surge capacity during disasters. Ms. Diggs is the primary liaison between the department and Emergency Management, Homeland Security, Law Enforcement, Fire and Emergency Medical Service agencies across the jurisdiction, and she coordinates activities between the department and the regions’ health care delivery (hospitals, clinics, urgent care centers, surgical centers) agencies. Prior to the public health preparedness assignment Ms. Diggs developed a vector-borne and zoonotic disease program within the Office of Epidemiology, including disease-specific protocols and procedures and recruitment/training of a team of investigators and analysts. Before committing to a career in public health, Ms. Diggs practiced as a physician assistant in internal medicine, family practice and emergency room/urgent care services in nonprofit, for-profit, and government environments. As an undergraduate, Ms. Diggs gained hands-on experience working in a clinical laboratory and as an Emergency Medical Technician. Ms. Diggs has co-authored several papers and posters and presented on a variety of topics such as vector-borne diseases, infectious disease outbreaks, medical countermeasure deployment, and the development of a Medical Coordination Center for disaster response. Ms. Diggs is currently detailed to the National Counterterrorism Center in the National Capitol Region. Her assignment on the Joint Counterterrorism Assessment Team involves engagement with key federal agencies to develop mechanisms to enhance the sharing of intelligence with state, local, tribal, and private-sector partners within the Healthcare and Public Health Sector. Ms. Diggs received her M.A. in Public Health at the University of Arizona and completed her B.S. in Physician Assistant Studies at the City College of New York.
Dennis Dura began his career in the emergency management field in 1981 as a volunteer coordinator in his home township’s emergency management program. He turned this experience and training into a consulting career working on off-site emergency plans for nuclear power plants and the jurisdictions around the nation. In 1988, Mr. Dura joined the American Red Cross and became a volunteer Disaster Consultant in New Jersey. This volunteer work lead to paid positions in the organization as Manager of Disaster Services in St. Louis, Director of Disaster Preparedness in Chicago, and Disaster Preparedness Specialist in New Jersey. In 1997, after years in the nongovernmental organization side of the field, he joined the New Jersey State Police, Office of Emergency Management (NJOEM). Mr. Dura progressed through the ranks in NJOEM and served in numerous positions, such as Operations Officer and Hurricane Preparedness
Officer. Much of his work at NJOEM specialized in human services issues such as mass care, individual assistance, and volunteer and donations management. As part of state government’s response to the 9/11 attack, he served on a specialized inter-governmental team to establish the Family Assistance Center at Liberty State Park. In 2003 he joined the New Jersey Department of Human Services. His focus was on human service emergency management issues such as developing the Department’s Community Emergency Response Team, Business/Continuity of Operations planning and preparedness and a concentration on Mass Care/Emergency Assistance and Individual Assistance. In 2007 Mr. Dura left state government and accepted a position with the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the national association for amateur radio as their first Emergency Preparedness & Response Manager to improve amateur radio capabilities in disaster responses. In 2010, Mr. Dura returned to the American Red Cross in Washington, DC, as a Liaison Officer to FEMA Headquarters. In March 2012, Mr. Dura came back to New Jersey and the Department of Human Services, Office of Emergency Management as an Assistant Director. In October 2012, when Superstorm Sandy struck New Jersey, Mr. Dura took a lead in Mass Care operations until activities at the State EOC subsided. His work transitioned to the FEMA-State Joint Field Office to close out mass care and transition to a lead role in Individual Assistance. In February, his assignment for Sandy at the Joint Field Office was heading up the Task Force on the close out of the Temporary Housing Assistance (TSA) program. Mr. Dura is also engaged with several emergency management consulting firms across the United States applying the mass care/human services emergency management expertise to all levels of government. Mr. Dura holds a B.S. in Criminal Justice from The College of New Jersey. He is a Certified Business Resilience Manager and is a member of numerous professional emergency management organizations. He has conducted numerous assessments of emergency management programs around the United States as an Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP) Assessor. He holds an FCC Extra Class Amateur Radio License.
J. Barry Hokanson, AICP, is Principal at PLN Associates in Illinois. Mr. Hokanson has more than 45 years of urban planning experience with agencies in California, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and Texas, with responsibility for environmental and development regulations, building codes, transportation planning, strategic planning, community development, stormwater and flood plain management, decision-support technology, facilities management systems, emergency response planning, and post-disaster recovery planning in both urban and suburban areas. He has managed large staff groups in city and county governments, including extensive interaction with elected and appointed officials. Prior to work as a subcontractor in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) long-term community recovery program for Louisiana, Texas, Tennessee, and New York (2005 to 2013), Mr. Hokanson held executive and consulting positions in regions such as Chicago, Dallas, and Kansas City. He is active in professional organizations and is a member of the American Planning Association, American Institute of Certified Planners, Natural Hazard Mitigation Association, and Urban and Regional Information Systems Association. He holds an M.A. in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Iowa.
David E. Jacobs, Ph.D., M.S., is the Director of Research at the National Center for Healthy Housing in the United States. He previously worked at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as Director of the Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control, where he was responsible for policy development, grants management, enforcement, public education and training, and research. He also was responsible for helping to plan part of the Department’s Continuity of Operations Plan. He wrote the first federal interagency strategy on childhood lead poisoning prevention in the United States. He also conceived and won congressional support for the U.S. Healthy Homes initiative in 1999. He has testified before Congress and other legislative bodies on many occasions and has numerous scientific peer-reviewed publications on building science, health outcomes of green healthy housing construction and rehabilitation, childhood lead poisoning prevention, and other topics. He was responsible for commissioning an Institute of Medicine report on ethical considerations in housing intervention research. Dr. Jacobs is currently an
Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Faculty Associate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Agnes Leshner, M.A., has been the Director of Montgomery County Maryland’s Child Welfare Services for more than 25 years. Her staff provides a large variety of services to children and families, including investigations of reported child abuse and neglect, family preservation, kinship care, foster care, adoption, and foster home finding. Many of the cases require immediate attention, court involvement, and coordination with community resources. Previously, Ms. Leshner served as the Director of Research, Development and Training for the Montgomery County Department of Social Services. Before coming to the County, Ms. Leshner spent many years as the Director of a Partial Hospitalization program for severely mentally ill adults at Geisinger Mental Health Center in central Pennsylvania. She received a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Windsor, Canada, and an M.A. in Psychology from Bucknell University. Ms. Leshner is a trained family therapist through the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic. Throughout her tenure in Montgomery County, Ms. Leshner has focused on developing partnerships with other agencies and service providers. She has been recognized formally through awards from agencies concerned with housing, mental health services, and child protection, and from a variety of community commissions and task forces.
Robert S. Ogilvie, Ph.D., is the Director of SPUR Oakland. Previously, he served as the Vice President for Strategic Engagement at ChangeLab Solutions. Over the past 20 years he has worked extensively in community development and planning to help improve low- and middle-income neighborhoods. Prior to joining ChangeLab Solutions, he served as a faculty member in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley; as a consultant to city and county governments, nonprofit organizations, and neighborhood activists; and as Director of Volunteers at the Partnership for the Homeless in New York City. He is the author of Voluntarism, Community Life, and the American Ethic (Indiana University Press, 2004), co-author of Opening School Grounds to the Community After Hours: A Toolkit on Joint Use, and editor of Community Development Approaches to Improving Public Health (Routledge, 2012). Dr. Igilvie co-leads the California Convergence Joint Use Policy Task Force and is a member of the Editorial Board of Community Development: Journal of the Community Development Society. He is also a member of the National Advisory Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Public Health Law Research Program, and he serves on the steering committee of the Strategic Alliance for Healthy Food and Activity Environments. Dr. Ogilvie is a member of the American Planning Association, the American Public Health Association, the California Redevelopment Association, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, and the Urban Land Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University.
Richard Reed, M.S.W., is Senior Vice President, Disaster Cycle Services at the American Red Cross. In this role, he leads the development and execution of programs that help Americans prevent, prepare for, and respond to disasters nationwide. He led a comprehensive organizational assessment of all American Red Cross preparedness, response, and recovery programs which resulted in revamped processes to improve service delivery in disasters small and large. Prior to taking the role at Red Cross, Mr. Reed was at the White House, serving as Deputy Assistant to the President for Homeland Security. He led the development of national policy related to resilience, transborder security, and community partnerships. With an experienced team of more than 30 senior professionals, Mr. Reed covered a broad and deep homeland security portfolio that includes all-hazards preparedness, individual and community partnerships and resilience, critical infrastructure protection and resilience, domestic incident management, continuity of government, national exercises, transportation security (aviation, maritime, and ground), piracy, information sharing, border security, and immigration. His prior White House tenure included service as Special Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Director for Continuity (2006-2009) and Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Resilience Policy (2009-2012). Mr. Reed’s federal service exceeds 20 years, with positions in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, and the General Services Administration. He is known for his adept leadership of the U.S. government interagency through disasters and emergencies of all types, including the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, Haiti earthquake (during which he was deployed), the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Fukushima earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear emergency, and countless domestic natural disasters, including hurricanes, tornados, and flooding. In addition, he has been instrumental in the development of national policy on a range of matters, including continuity of government, national preparedness, critical infrastructure security and resilience, national security and emergency preparedness communications, medical countermeasures following a biological attack, cyber security, border security, and immigration. Mr. Reed has bachelor’s degrees from Indiana University and Purdue University, and an M.A. in Social Work from Indiana University.
Richard Serino has spent more than 40 years in public service. During this time he provided extensive leadership on emergency management and emergency medical and homeland security at local, state, federal, and international levels. Mr. Serino is currently a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Harvard School of Public Health, National Preparedness Leadership Initiative. Mr. Serino was appointed by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate as the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s eighth Deputy Administrator in October 2009 and served until 2014. In this role, he also served as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the agency with more than a $25 billion budget. Prior to his appointment as Deputy Administrator, he spent 36 years at Boston EMS where he rose through the ranks to become Chief. He also served as the Assistant Director of the Boston Public Health Commission. Mr. Serino responded to over 60 national disasters while at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and during Hurricane Sandy, he was the lead federal area commander for New York and New Jersey. Mr. Serino was also on scene at the Boston Marathon bombings as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security senior official. A sampling of federally declared disasters Mr. Serino responded to include flooding in Colorado, Georgia, North Dakota, and New England; the wildfires in Colorado and Texas; tornadoes in Alabama, Georgia, Joplin, Missouri, and Mississippi; tsunami destruction in the American Samoa; and hurricane stricken areas from Hurricanes Isaac, Irene, and Earl. Mr. Serino briefed the President of the United States on a number of disasters and briefed and traveled with Vice President Biden to a number of affected communities to survey the destruction. Mr. Serino refocused FEMA to establish “Whole Community” as a foundational concept for how business is done at FEMA and across the emergency management team. He expanded relationships with new and existing partners spanning the public, private, nonprofit, and faith based communities. Mr. Serino helped develop FEMA’s number 1 priority for the next 4 years—to “Be Survivor Centric in Mission and Program Delivery.” FEMA will reorient its activities and improve its programs to be survivor centric, ensuring that FEMA supports the delivery of services are focused on easing the experience of survivors—as individuals, neighborhoods, and communities. These two strategic initiatives helped reorient the culture of emergency management. In putting survivors of a disaster first, Mr. Serino remodeled what response looks like by making survivors the key part of a centralized and integrated response. As the Agency’s COO, Mr. Serino fundamentally changed how FEMA operates. He created administrative improvements that were focused on emphasizing financial accountability, created FEMA Stat, which improved the use of analytics to drive decisions, advanced the workforce training and engagement, and fostered a culture of innovation. Under Mr. Serino’s leadership, FEMA started initiatives such as FEMA Corps and the FEMA Think Tank, created a new Disaster Workforce, and led Workplace Transformation. Mr. Serino instituted a culture of innovation that led to the development of several successful changes and programs, including the National Think Tank. The Think Tank is a transparent way for citizens to speak directly to government leadership and offer their input and ideas. The monthly calls portion of the Think Tank have not just trended globally on Twitter, but have also given the “Whole of Community” a voice directly to leadership. Additionally, Mr. Serino created and developed FEMA Corps, which has launched an innovative partnership to establish a FEMA-devoted unit of 1,600 service corps members within AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) solely devoted to disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. His leadership took FEMA Corps from idea to implementation in nine months. FEMA Corps is a presidentially recognized model
program of national service that provides 18- to 24-year-olds with an opportunity to serve their country during disasters. When the program is at full operational capability, and in an average disaster year, there will be an expected savings of approximately $60 million in 1 year. During his tenure at Boston EMS he transformed it to one of the best and nationally recognized EMS systems in the country. He bolstered the city’s response plans for major emergencies, including chemical, biological, and radiological attacks. He also led citywide planning for H1N1 influenza. Mr. Serino served as an Incident Commander for more than 35 mass casualty incidents and for all of Boston’s major planned events, including the Boston Marathon, Boston’s Fourth of July celebration, First Night, and the 2004 Democratic National Convention, a national special security event. Mr. Serino has received more than 35 local, national, and international awards for heroism, public service, and innovation; including Harvard University National Public Leadership Institute’s “Leader of the Year”; nationally recognized as an Innovator in EMS with the “Innovators in EMS Award” and Boston’s highest Public Service award, “Henry L. Shattuck Public Service Award.” Mr. Serino published more than 10 articles, including “Emergency Medical Consequence Planning and Management for National Special Security Events After September 11: Boston: 2004,” Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, August 2008, and “In a Moment’s Notice: Surge Capacity for Terrorist Bombings,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, April 2007. Mr. Serino attended Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government Senior Executives in State and Local Government program in 2000, completed the Kennedy School’s National Preparedness Leadership Initiative in 2005, and graduated from the Executive Leadership Program, Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the Naval Postgraduate School.
Ciro Ugarte, M.D., a Peruvian national, began his professional career working in general practice in the highlands of Cusco, Peru. In 1987, Dr. Ugarte was appointed as Director of Norms, Regional Director, and later as Deputy Director General at the National Institute of Occupational Health in Peru. In late 1988, he was appointed as Executive Director and Director General of the Ministry of Health of Peru, a position he held until 1999. During this period he also served as: Permanent Member of the National Committee of the Peruvian Red Cross Society; Official Representative of the Peruvian Government to the International Committee of the Red Cross; consultant for Latin America of the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA/USAID); Professor at the School of Medicine of the National University of San Marcos and at the National School of Public Health of Peru; member of the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination Team (UNDAC), and President of the Peruvian Society of Emergency Medicine. Dr. Ugarte started working for the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) as a consultant in Honduras, where he coordinated the United Nations Interagency Team for Disaster Reduction. In 2000 he was appointed as Sub-regional Advisor for South America in Ecuador and in 2002 as Regional Advisor based in Washington, DC. In 2014 he was appointed as Director of the Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Relief Department of PAHO/WHO. Dr. Ugarte has extensive experience in emergency preparedness and disaster relief. He coordinated the implementation of public health measures and provision of health care and recovery at national and international levels in cases of earthquakes, severe floods, volcanic eruptions, landslides, hazardous materials incidents, armed conflicts, terrorist attacks, taking of hostages, epidemics, pandemics, and others. He is the author of numerous publications and articles on vulnerability reduction in health facilities, hospital disaster planning, outbreaks and epidemics preparedness and response, health impact of earthquakes, damage and needs assessment, national contingency planning, safe hospitals, and others.
Linda Usdin, Dr.P.H., is the President of swamplily llc. In this capacity, she has helped match the strategic interests of philanthropic organizations with the needs and capacity of local nonprofits and governmental agencies in diverse areas, such as homelessness, early child care, leadership development, and transparency and accountability in governance. In the past 6 years, she has worked with the Ford, the Open Society, the Conrad N. Hilton, the Louisiana Disaster Recovery, and the Greater New Orleans foundations. During the past 15 years, Dr. Usdin has worked for local and national foundations as a program development
and evaluation consultant. In addition, she has taught courses on building community engagement in public health efforts for the South Central Public Health Leadership Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and has facilitated strategic planning processes for groups such as the City of New Orleans, National Network of Public Health Institutes, and Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. She currently holds a position as Adjunct Faculty at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Dr. Usdin graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Psychology from Duke University, has an M.A. in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Dr.PH. from the international health department at Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.