Ana V. Diez Roux
University of Michigan School of Public Health
Ana V. Diez Roux is professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health at the University of Michigan. Her research interests are in the areas of social epidemiology, neighborhood health effects, cardiovascular disease epidemiology, air pollution and cardiovascular risk, multilevel analysis, race and ethnic disparities, and systems approaches in population health. Some of the projects she is involved with include neighborhoods and cardiovascular risk in multiethnic populations, social and geographic predictors of heterogeneity in cardiovascular risk in African Americans, stress and cardiovascular disease and urban health and social patterning of health in Latin America. Dr. Diez Roux is affiliated with the American Public Health Association and the Society for Epidemiologic Research. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), is currently a member of the IOM Committee on Public Health Priorities to Reduce and Control Hypertension, and served as a member of the National Research Council Planning Committee for Workshop on the Public Health Effects of Food Deserts. Dr. Diez Roux earned a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health and an M.D. from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Carlos Dora
World Health Organization
Carlos Dora is coordinator of a global program on health impact assessment within the Public Health and the Environment Department of the World Health Organization (WHO). He leads a unit on interventions for healthy environments, which is focused on improving the health consequences of policies in different sectors of the economy. Prior to that role, Dr. Dora developed a program on the environmental health implications of transport policies and worked on policy frameworks for environmental health, including the Strategic Environmental Assessment Protocol and Environment and Health Performance Reviews, and on risk assessment, including ones on the Chernobyl disaster and depleted uranium. He also served as a senior policy analyst at the office of the WHO director general. Dr. Dora earned a Ph.D. from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Jonathan E. Fielding
Los Angeles County, California
Jonathan E. Fielding is the director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health and the county health officer and is responsible for all public health functions, including surveillance and control of both communicable and noncommunicable diseases and health protection, including emergency preparedness, for the County’s 10 million residents. He is also a commissioner of the Los Angeles First 5 Commission, which grants over $100 million per year to improve the health and development of children 0-5. Dr. Fielding chairs the U.S. Community Preventive Services Task Force and was a founding member of the U.S. Clinical Preventive Services Task Force. He also chairs the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives for 2020 and was appointed to the California Department of Public Health Advisory Board. Dr. Fielding is a professor in the Schools of Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and has authored over 175 peer-reviewed publications, editorials, and book chapters on public health, health policy, health economics, emergency preparedness, and evidence-based public health practice issues. He has been the principal investigator on grants to develop health impact assessment methods and to use these in assessing the health effects of existing or proposed policies in other sectors. He is editor of the Annual Review of Public Health and chairman of Partnership for Prevention. He also serves on the Board of the American Legacy Foundation and is an elected member in the Institute of Medicine. He formerly served as Massachusetts Commissioner of Public Health and Vice President of Johnson & Johnson. Dr. Fielding has received numerous awards, including the Sedgwick Memorial Medal from the American Public Health Association, the Distinguished Alumni Achievement award from the Harvard School of Public Health, and the UCLA Medal, which is the University’s highest honor. He received his M.D. and MPH from Harvard University and an MBA in finance from the Wharton School of Business.
Joshua S. Graff Zivin
University of California, San Diego
is an associate professor of economics in the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and Research Director for International Environmental and Health Studies at the Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation, and from 2004 to 2005, he served as Senior Economist for Health and the Environment for the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Prior to joining the faculty at UCSD, Dr. Graff Zivin was an associate professor of economics in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Dr. Graff Zivin’s research spans three fields of economics–health, the environment, and international development–and focuses on how uncertainty and heterogeneity affect both individual and societal decision-making. He is currently engaged in three large and distinct projects. The first makes use of primary data collected over the past several years to examine the economic impacts of the AIDS crisis in Africa. The second relies on a unique, matched dataset to understand the role of institutions, social networks, and financial incentives in the production of new scientific knowledge within the life sciences. The third examines behavioral responses to poor air quality and its implications for the economic costs of climate change. Dr. Graff Zivin earned his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley.
Jonathan I. Levy
Boston University School of Public Health
Jonathan I. Levy is the Mark and Catherine Winkler Associate Professor of Environmental Health and Risk Assessment in the Departments of Environmental Health and Health Policy and Management at Harvard University. Dr. Levy's research centers on developing models to quantitatively assess the environmental and health impacts of air pollution, from local to national scales, with a focus on urban environments and variability in exposures and risks. His work involves the evaluation of exposure using a combination of atmospheric dispersion modeling, predictive statistical models, and field measurements. Health risks are quantified through epidemiologic investigations, interpretation of past epidemiologic studies, and supporting physiologic and toxicologic evidence. Dr. Levy was the recipient of the Walter A. Rosenblith New Investigator Award from the Health Effects Institute in 2005, and he previously served as a member of the National Research Council Committee on Improving Risk Analysis Approaches Used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Committee on the Effects of Changes in New Source Review Programs for Stationary Sources of Air Pollutants. He earned a Sc.D. in environmental science and risk management from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Julia B. Quint
California Department of Public Health [Retired]
Julia B. Quint is a research scientist, retired as chief of the Hazard Evaluation System and Information Service in the Occupational Health Branch of the California Department of Public Health. She was involved in identifying and evaluating reproductive toxicants, carcinogens, and other workplace chemical hazards and in developing research projects and other strategies to protect workers, communities, and the environment from the hazards of toxic chemicals. Dr. Quint is currently a member of the California Environmental Contaminant Biomonitoring Program Scientific Guidance Panel and the California Environmental Protection Agency Green Ribbon Science Panel. She is also a member of the National Research Council Committee on Tetrachloroethylene. Dr. Quint received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Southern California.
Samina Raja
University at Buffalo State University of New York
Samina Raja is associate professor of urban and regional planning and adjunct associate professor of health behavior at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. Her research focuses on planning and design for healthy communities, sustainable food systems, and the fiscal dimensions of planning. Her research on healthy communities examines the influence of the food and built environments on obesity and physical activity. Her interests in fiscal dimensions of planning pertain to the methods planners use for measuring the fiscal impacts of land development. Dr. Raja’s service to the community and the planning profession is linked to her research interests. She is an active member of the Food Interest Group of the national American Planning Association and serves on the Board of Directors of the Community Food Security Coalition. Dr. Raja earned a Ph.D. in urban and regional planning from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Amy Jo Schulz
University of Michigan
Amy J. Schulz is associate professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education and associate director of the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health at the University of Michigan, School of Public Health, and associate research professor in the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Dr. Schulz has a longstanding commitment and research record focused on the contributions of social factors to racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in health. Her current research focuses on community-based participatory approaches to understanding social inequalities as they influence health disparities with a particular focus on the health of urban residents. Since 2000, her work has focused on understanding social determinants of, and evaluating the impacts of interventions to reduce, obesity and cardiovascular disease in Detroit. She is principal investigator for the Lean & Green in Motown Project, which addresses associations between social and physical environments and risk factors associated with obesity and the Community Approaches to Cardiovascular Health intervention research project to improve cardiovascular health. She previously served as co-principal investigator for the Promoting Healthy Eating in Detroit project. In addition to directing a number of major studies of chronic conditions in multiethnic populations, she is a leader in the field of community-based participatory approaches to research and intervention design and is widely sought after as a speaker and trainer in this area. She has been a consistent contributor to the published literature on racial and ethnic disparities in health, on contributions of social factors to health disparities, and on the active engagement of representatives from communities disproportionately affected by health risks in researching and developing interventions to improve health. Dr. Schulz received her Ph.D. in sociology and her MPH in health behavior and health education from the University of Michigan.
Aaron A. Wernham
Pew Charitable Trusts
Aaron A. Wernham is director for the health impact project at Pew Charitable Trusts. This project involves the creation of a new national center to promote the use of health impact assessments (HIA) and support the growth of the field in the United States. Dr. Wernham is a nationally recognized HIA expert who has led these assessments at the state and federal level and conducted HIA trainings for, collaborated with, and advised numerous health and environmental regulatory agencies on integrating HIA into their programs. Prior to Pew, Dr. Wernham was a senior policy analyst with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, where he led the first successful efforts in the United States to formally integrate HIA into the federal environmental impact statement process. He also directed a collaborative state-tribal-federal working group on HIA and, with the assistance of this group, wrote HIA guidance for federal and state environmental regulatory and permitting efforts. Dr. Wernham received his M.D. from the University of California, San Francisco.