Who:

Dr. Liburd has decades of experience in community health, health disparities, and social determinants of health.

She provides agency leadership, direction, and accountability for CDC’s policies and programs to ensure they are optimally effective in improving minority health and achieving health equity. Dr. Liburd also serves as the agency lead in coordinating CDC engagement with HHS, other federal agencies, national organizations, and the public on issues of health equity.

Dr. Liburd has held a variety of leadership positions at CDC since joining the agency in 1987. Most recently, she served as the Chief of the Community Health and Equity Branch in the Division of Adult and Community Health in the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion where she directed a broad range of public health programs, including REACH U.S., one of CDC’s flagship health disparities initiatives.

Dr. Liburd has published extensively on community-based public health approaches to chronic disease prevention and control, the influence of culture and gender on health beliefs and behaviors, and the elimination of health disparities.

Dr. Liburd holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, a master of public health in health education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a master of arts in cultural anthropology and a doctor of philosophy degree in medical anthropology from Emory University.

Sarah Strunk is Director of Active Living By Design and the Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities National Program Office, part of the North Carolina Institute for Public Health at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She has been with ALBD since its inception, first serving as Deputy Director from 2002-2005. In this role, Strunk focuses on organizational development, strategic planning, business development, program development and the management of external partnerships.

She also serves on a variety of local and national boards and advisory committees, including the Alliance for Biking and Walking, Communities Creating Healthy Environments, and Girls on the Run of the Triangle.

Previously, Strunk was Director of External Affairs at the UNC Gillings School of Public Health. She also served as Director of Corporate Planning at BlueCross and BlueShield of North Carolina, and in strategic and business planning roles at Duke University Medical Center and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

Strunk earned a Master of Healthcare Administration from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1991 and a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy from Duke University in 1987.

Outside of the office, she enjoys running, cooking and doing volunteer work.

Tyler Norris is a social entrepreneur, and a trusted advisor to philanthropies, health systems, governments, and collaborative partnerships working to improve the health of people and places. His three decades of service in the public, private and non-profit sectors have included work with over 350 communities and with scores of organizations in the US and around the world. Currently he serves as a Senior Advisor to Kaiser Permanente and Ascension Health, Head Coach for the YMCA of the USA’s healthy community programs, and as a Senior Fellow of the Public Health Institute. He serves as convener of Advancing the Movement and www.communitycommons.org. He is a parent of two teens, an avid mountain biker, backcountry skier and pilot.

Clement (Clem) Bezold is Chairman and Senior Futurist of the Institute for Alternative Futures. Bezold established IAF in 1977 and in 1982 started IAF’s for-profit subsidiary, Alternative Futures Associates, to assist corporations in their strategic planning using futures methods. He has been a major developer of foresight techniques, applying futures research and strategic planning methods in both the public and private sectors. As a consultant, Dr. Bezold has applied futures approaches, particularly scenarios and vision development, in his work with many Fortune 500 companies along with major organizations, including the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, the Rockefeller Foundation, AARP, the American Cancer Society, and the American Medical Association.

Bezold has published numerous books and reports on the future of government, the courts and healthcare. He is a consulting editor of the Journal of Futures Studies and is on the editorial or advisory boards of Technology Forecasting and Social Change, foresight, and World Future Review. Bezold received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Florida. He has been assistant director of the Center for Governmental Responsibility at the University of Florida Law School and a Visiting Scholar at the Brookings Institution.

Vanessa Briggs, MBA, RD, LDN is the Executive Director of the Health Promotion Council of Southeastern Pennsylvania (HPC), a regional public health non-profit organization focused on serving low income diverse communities to address health disparities. She joined HPC in 2001, after working 15 years in the for-profit healthcare industry. She is responsible for the overall organizational strategic direction. She is instrumental in growing HPC’s childhood and adult obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease, programs and services. Ms Briggs has strong administrative skills and a passion for public health that brings a unique lens to the public health landscape. As such she recognizes that in order to effectively change health behaviors, a multi-prong approach must be taken and supported with solid business practices in order to eliminate health disparities.

A MBA, Health Administration graduate of Eastern University and a Registered Dietitian & Licensed Dietetic-Nutritionist, Ms. Briggs’ serves on the several national, regional and local executive committees, boards and consortiums.

Dr. Rebecca Bunnell is the Acting Division Director for CDC’s Division of Community Health. In this capacity, Dr. Bunnell oversees CDC’s community health programs, including Healthy Communities, REACH, Communities Putting Prevention to Work, and the Community Transformation Grants.

CDC’s community health portfolio is focused on preventing chronic disease by producing sustainable health outcomes through the implementation of policy, environmental, programmatic and infrastructure change. The Division of Community Health works closely with other Divisions and partners on key public health issues with a special emphasis on obesity and tobacco prevention. Dr. Bunnell leads Division staff and program efforts to adhere to three core principles in their work: maximize health impact, achieve health equity, and expand the evidence base. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Bunnell served as the Program Director for the Communities Putting Prevention to Work Initiative and oversaw the management of 50 cooperative agreements with local and state health departments as well as numerous contracts for technical assistance, training, media and communications and evaluation.

Dr. Bunnell has worked for CDC for 15 years, including state, Atlanta, and international-based positions. From 2006-2009, Dr. Bunnell was the CDC-Global AIDS Program Director in Kenya, overseeing over 200 staff and a $200 million annual budget of CDC-funded prevention, care and treatment programs. With CDC, Dr. Bunnell has also served as the Behavioral Branch Chief and Associate Director of Science for CDC-Uganda, a federally assigned CDC epidemiologist for the California Department of Health, a Health Services Researcher in the Health Services Research and Evaluation Branch (DSTD) in Atlanta, and as an EIS officer with the Epidemiology and Surveillance Branch in DSTDP/NCHHSTP.

Before joining CDC, Dr. Bunnell worked as a technical advisor for community-based public health organizations, a state literacy training coordinator for the State of Massachusetts, a teacher for Boston City Schools, and a Peace Corps Volunteer in Honduras.

Throughout her career, Dr. Bunnell has worked across the continuum of research, policy and program to identify, implement and disseminate evidence-based approaches. Dr. Bunnell’s public health work has also included epidemiologic, surveillance, behavioral, and economic studies, and she is an author of over 75 peer-reviewed scientific publications. She earned her doctorate degree from the Harvard School of Public Health, her master’s degree in adult education from UMASS/Amherst, and her undergraduate degree from Yale University.

Linda Jo Doctor is a program officer at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan. In this role, she helps develop programming priorities, reviews and recommends proposals for funding, manages and monitors a portfolio of active grants, and designs and implements national grant initiatives, place-based work and multi-year projects.

As a member of the Food, Health & Well-Being team, her work focuses on the impact of environmental conditions on health equity. She co-leads the Food & Community Program, an initiative designed to transform food systems and the physical environments in places where children live, learn and play. In Michigan, Ms. Doctor co-leads the foundation’s placed-based work in Detroit and beyond, promoting educated, healthy and income secure children statewide.

Previously, Ms. Doctor was deputy director for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Allies Against Asthma Program housed at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She also directed the Division of Prevention at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, where she provided leadership for statewide health promotion and prevention programs and interagency initiatives. She has worked in substance abuse prevention including managing a national training and technical assistance system supported by the federal Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.

Ms. Doctor received her master’s of public health degree from Boston University School of Public Health. She received her bachelor of science in social work from the University of Cincinnati, College of Community Services.

She has had leadership roles in several professional associations including the Prevention Network and the Association of State and Territorial Health Promotion Directors, and is a member of the American Public Health Association, and the Society of Public Health Education.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, established in 1930, supports children, families and communities as they strengthen and create conditions that propel vulnerable children to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society. Grants are concentrated in the United States, southern Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Tracy Fox, President of Food, Nutrition & Policy Consultants, LLC has over 25 years of experience working in the federal government and the private sector, and has extensive experience in federal nutrition policy. Her clients include or have included the US Department of Agriculture, Centers for Disease Prevention and Control and the National Cancer Institute, non-profit organizations like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation where she works on Federal policy issues, Action for Healthy Kids, Feeding America, Produce for Better Health Foundation, the National Food Service Management Institute and public relations firms, where she provides advice and consultation on policy and nutrition initiatives. Areas of expertise include child nutrition and school health, federal, state, and local nutrition policy, advocacy and government relations. She has served on numerous boards and committees including the Institute of Medicine front of pack, school foods and local actions to prevent childhood obesity committees. She is Past-President of the Society for Nutrition Education and is a retired Commander in the US Navy.

Lark Galloway-Gilliam is Executive Director of Community Health Councils, a Los Angeles-based health promotion, advocacy and policy organization dedicated to building healthy communities and the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities. Lark is an advocate for health and human rights, health equity, public accountability and quality healthcare for under-resourced communities.

Ms. Galloway-Gilliam has over twenty-five years of progressive responsibility in the field of non-profit management and public administration. She received her undergraduate education at UCLA and a Masters in Public Administration at USC. She is the chair of the National REACH Coalition and serves on a number of non-profit boards. She has dedicated her life to social justice.

Genoveva is the Regional Program Coordinator for the Central California Regional Obesity Prevention Program (CCROPP). CCROPP addresses environmental and policy level factors that contribute to the escalating incidence of obesity in the Central California counties of Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Merced, San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Tulare. Genoveva is a board member for the Latino Coalition for a Health California, a board member of the California Food Policy Advocates, a steering committee member for California Convergence and an advisory board member for various organizations Genoveva Islas was born in Fresno, California and grew up in small rural communities of the San Joaquin Valley, her parents were farm workers. She is the first in her family to attend and graduate from college. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Science with an emphasis in Community Health from California State University Fresno and received a Masters in Public Health degree in Health Education and Promotion from Loma Linda University.

Shiriki Kumanyika, PhD, MPH, is Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology and the Department of Pediatrics (Nutrition Section) at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Kumanyika’s research focuses on identifying strategies for reducing health disparities in obesity and other diet-related chronic diseases. She is founder and chair of the African American Collaborative Obesity Research Network (AACORN; www.aacorn.org), a national network devoted to improving the quality, quantity and effective translation of research related to food, physical activity, and weight issues in African American communities. Dr. Kumanyika chairs the Institute of Medicine Committee on Childhood Obesity Prevention and is also co-chair of the London based International Obesity Task Force.

Kerri R. Peterson graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in Biology. She moved to Omaha and worked at Methodist Health System as a corporate recruiter. Earning her Masters Degree in Health Promotion with an emphasis in Human Resource Management, in 1996 Kerri began working for Live Well Omaha, a 47 member healthy community movement. Kerri has been responsible for guiding LWO’s role as a catalyst organization to make Omaha one of the healthiest cities in the United States. A Health Forum’s Creating a Healthier Communities Fellow, Kerri graduated from Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Omaha and Non-Profit Executive Leadership Institute

As Senior Director for Organizational and Community Change at YMCA of the USA, Terrence Roche has the responsibility for overseeing several national initiatives that are leading the fight against chronic illness and for healthier communities. In partnership with the Centers for Disease Control, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and other foundations, he and his team accomplish this by guiding hundreds of Ys and their communities in adopting proven sustainable strategies that nurture the potential of kids, improve the nation’s health and wellbeing, and foster a sense of social responsibility. Terrence earned a Master’s of Science in Learning and Organizational Change from Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy and holds a BS in Management from the A.B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University.

As the first president and CEO of LiveWell Colorado, Ms. Stewart is responsible for building a non-profit organization committed to reducing obesity in Colorado through the promotion of healthy eating and active living efforts. In this role, she leads the execution of LiveWell Colorado’s strategic initiatives to advance policy, environmental and lifestyles changes aimed at increasing access to healthy opportunities for all Coloradoans.

Ms. Stewart currently serves on the board of directors for the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts and the executive committee of the Aurora Economic Development Council. In the past, Ms. Stewart served on the National Association of Children’s Hospitals council on child advocacy, as well as the board of directors for the Denver Metro Chamber Foundation, the Aurora Chamber, the Colorado Association of Nonprofit Organizations, the Donor Awareness Council and Colorado Bright Beginnings. She has received numerous gubernatorial appointments including the Advisory Committee on Covering All Children in Colorado, the Children’s Trust Fund, the Committee to Promote Adoption and the Tobacco Settlement Task Force and was invited to participate in a national effort to revamp pediatric residency programs with the American Board of Pediatrics Residency Review & Redesign Committee. Additionally, Ms. Stewart has served on numerous volunteer committees for various nonprofits, such as the Downtown Denver Partnership Awards Jury and several fundraising committees.

Ms. Stewart’s past experience includes a long tenure as Vice President of External Affairs for The Children’s Hospital in Denver as well as a partner in a Colorado public affairs/lobbying firm.

Ms. Stewart holds a B.S. in Journalism from the University of Kansas and a J.D. from the University of Denver. She is licensed to practice law in Colorado and is accredited by the Public Relations Society of America.