Barry Levy, MD, MPH, "How COVID-19 Has Exposed Society's Failures to Protect Public Health"

Barry Levy is a physician and epidemiologist who has worked in public health for more than 40 years. He is a graduate of Tufts College, Cornell Medical College, and the Harvard School of Public Health. He completed residencies in internal medicine and preventive medicine. Dr. Levy has served as a medical epidemiologist with the CDC, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and a director of international programs and projects. For many years, he has been an Adjunct Professor of Public Health at Tufts University School of Medicine. He has written more than 200 papers and book chapters and has edited 20 books on occupational and environmental health, climate change, social injustice, and the impacts of war and terrorism on public health.  He has served as president of the American Public Health Association and received its Sedgwick Memorial Medal.

Elizabeth Krupinski, PhD, "The Future of Telemedicine in Public Health"

Dr. Krupinski is Professor and Vice-Chair for Research at Emory University in the Department of Radiology & Imaging Sciences and subject matter expert for the Emory Telehealth Program. She received her BA from Cornell, MA from Montclair State and PhD from Temple, all in Experimental Psychology. Her interests are in medical image perception, observer performance, decision making, and human factors. She is Associate Director of Evaluation for the Arizona Telemedicine Program and co-Director of the Southwest Telehealth Resource Center. She is Past President of ATA, Past Chair of Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine, Past Chair of the SPIE Medical Imaging Conference, and President of the Medical Image Perception Society. She is Co-Editor of the Journal of Telemedicine & Telecare and on the Editorial Board of the Telemedicine & E-Health Journal.

Mestisa C. Gass, PsyD, "Embracing Aloha: Opportunities for Community Engagement and Resilience"

Mestisa C. Gass is the new Program Director for Mental Health America of Hawai‘i (MHAH). She graduated with a Master’s and Doctorate degree, in Clinical Psychology. Her education and experience has been focused on diverse populations including inpatient acute adolescent care, community mental health, and military mental health. Her training and work has emphasized diversity and trauma-focused care. She is a certified trainer for the MHAH’s Youth Suicide and Bullying Prevention Training for Trainers (T4T) curriculum and Mental Health First Aid for Adults and Youth. She is a member of the Mental Health Task Force, the Statewide and Oahu Suicide Prevention Task Forces, and a board member for the Waipahu Aloha Clubhouse. She has been working in Hawaii since 2006, being originally from a small, farming community in the Appalachian Mountains. She is passionate about bringing education, support, and resources to rural communities, like those in which she spent her childhood.

Michelle Doty Cabrera, "Establishing New Norms: Addressing Behavioral Health Needs Post-Pandemic"

Michelle Doty Cabrera joined County Behavioral Health Directors Association as Executive Director in May 2019. Ms. Cabrera has a wealth of experience on state budget and policy as an advocate and staff for the California legislature. Prior to joining CBHDA she served as the Healthcare Director for the California State Council of the Services Employees International Union (SEIU California), where she advocated on behalf of healthcare workers and consumers, including SEIU California’s county behavioral health workforce. She served as a Senior Consultant for the Assembly Human Services Committee, where she specialized in child welfare issues and staffed legislation which extended foster care in California to age 21. Ms. Cabrera also served as a Program Officer for the California Healthcare Foundation, working as a liaison on state health policy in Sacramento. Ms. Cabrera serves as a member on the National Quality Forum’s Standing Committee on Disparities and on the Board of Directors of the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network.

Patricia Haynes, PhD, CBSM, "Sleep and social rhythms: important health considerations after involuntary job loss”

Dr. Haynes is an associate professor in the Department of Health Promotion Sciences at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and behavioral sleep medicine specialist with an expertise in cognitive behavioral therapies for PTSD, depression, and insomnia. Her research examining sleep and stress has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, and the American Sleep Medicine Foundation. She has authored multiple publications in the area of traumatic stress, and she has substantial experience training mental health providers in the areas of sleep and stress recovery. Currently, she has a well-established partnership with the Tucson Fire Department, where she provides services to fire service members and assists in the establishment of behavioral health policies and programs designed to foster firefighter mental health and stress resiliency.

Renae Badruzzaman, MPH, "Addressing systemic racism: A place-based approach to building healthy communities"

Renae Badruzzaman is Program Manager at Build Healthy Places Network where she operationalizes and implements the Network’s place-based strategy. Renae brings a decade of experience working in multidisciplinary and cross-sector collaborations to advance health equity, inclusion and justice for people of color and communities with low-income. Prior to joining the Network, Renae served as the Program Manager for Health Equity Investments at the Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative. She played a key role in the strategic development and policy advocacy of an anchor mission strategy for local public health departments. While in Chicago, Renae directed a center that promoted a socially just and self-determined system of long-term services and supports, and managed a federally-funded leadership program focused on children with special health care needs. She received an MPH from the University of Illinois at Chicago in Community Health Sciences and BA in Psychology.

Melissa Jones, MPA, "COVID-19 Response and Rolling Recovery: Centering Those Most Impacted & a Social Determinants of Health Informed Response"

Melissa Jones is the Executive Director of the Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative (BARHII). She is passionate about creating the conditions that increase quality of life and makes life more fair for more people. Her work focuses on the intersection of social determinants of health, social inequity, and well-being. Her experience includes work in municipal government and non-profits, in the Bay Area’s large and small cities. Melissa is an active community member in Oakland and also serves on the Association of Bay Area Government’s Regional Planning Committee, which advises on regional planning issues. Before joining BARHII, Melissa served as Senior Program Officer at Boston Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC), where she launched and ran Boston LISC’s Resilient Communities Resilient Families (RCRF) Initiative. Melissa has additional experience funding and implementing programs focused on community economic development, family financial stability, education, and civic empowerment.  Specifically, she has served in youth empowerment organizations, as Program Specialist for the City of Alameda, and as Program Analyst for the City of Oakland’s Oakland Fund for Children and Youth. Early in her career, she served as Director of Professional Development for Partners in School Innovation where she trained staff to support school reform efforts in San Francisco Unified, San Jose Unified, and Oak Grove Unified school districts.

Katherine Schaff, DrPH, MPH, "Keeping equity at the forefront: How local health departments can help create the new normal"

Dr. Katherine Schaff works to help build the organizational and communications capacity of local health departments, government agencies, and community-based organizations working towards racial and health equity. Prior to joining Berkeley Media Studies Group, she spent 11 years at the Alameda County Public Health Department working towards racial, social, and health equity through policy change, community partnerships, and building institutional and staff capacity within the health department and the county. Before moving to the Bay area, Katherine supported local health departments at the National Association of County and City Health Officials in Washington, DC. She received her Masters of Public Health and Doctor of Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley. Her doctoral research focused on how local health departments addressed and communicated about the foreclosure crisis as a driver of health inequities.

G. Robert "Bobby" Watts, MPH, MS, CPH, "Protecting the Health of People Experiencing Homelessness in the COVID Pandemic"

Bobby Watts is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, which supports the 300 federally-supported Health Care for the Homeless programs and 90 Medical Respite providers with training, technical assistance, sharing of best practices, research, publications, and an active policy and advocacy program working to eliminate homelessness. A nationally recognized advocate and leader in meeting the health needs of people without homes, Bobby has 30 years of experience in administration, direct service, and implementation of homeless health services, beginning as a live-in counselor at the NYC Rescue Mission. He spent most of his career prior to joining the Council at Care for the Homeless, which operates clinics, shelters, and conducts policy analysis and advocacy in NYC, beginning as an intern, and serving as the Executive Director for twelve years. He has served on numerous boards and government-appointed task forces and councils. He is a graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health from which he holds a Master’s in Public Health in health administration and a Master’s of Science in epidemiology.  He also earned a Certificate of Theological Studies from Alliance Theological Seminary in Nyack, NY.

Ananya Roy, PhD, MCP, "Addressing the Conjoined Crisis of COVID-19 and Homelessness: Towards Racial and Housing Justice"

Ananya Roy is Professor of Urban Planning, Social Welfare, and Geography and The Meyer and Renee Luskin Chair in Inequality and Democracy at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is inaugural Director of the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA, which advances research and scholarship concerned with displacement and dispossession in Los Angeles and elsewhere in the world. Working in alliance with social movements, the Institute seeks to build power and abolish structures of inequality. Ananya’s work has a determined focus on poverty and inequality with special emphasis on housing insecurity and urban displacement. Her most recent book is Encountering Poverty: Thinking and Acting in an Unequal World (University of California Press, 2016), which was accompanied by the #GlobalPOV video series. Currently, she leads a National Science Foundation Research Coordination Network on Housing Justice in Unequal Cities.