Coalition Members: Join us to celebrate this year's collective efforts toward a reimagined, better-connected health system - and shape what comes next.
The Coalition's first-ever Annual Convening will showcase the power of cross-sector collaboration, recognize standout achievements, and launch the next phase of our work together, building on the impact of the 2025 Inaugural Challenge. Come to network, meet new partners, and hear from leaders across the health sector—public health and health care experts, payer organizations, community-based partners, our 2025 Catalyst Award recipients, and the National Press Club Journalism Institute (NPCJI) Public Health Reporting fellows—and leave with actionable insights to advance health care–public health collaboration.
*Note: Due to capacity limitations, we are asking organizations to limit attendance to one representative. Please ensure your availability before registering. Email convenings@publicgoodprojects.org if you would like to request an additional representative from your organization be added to our wait list or if you're unable to attend after you've registered.
Dave A. Chokshi — a practicing physician and public health leader — serves as Chair of the Common Health Coalition and is Sternberg Family Professor of Leadership at the City College of New York. Dr. Chokshi previously served as the 43rd Health Commissioner of New York City. From 2020-2022, he led the City’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including its historic campaign to vaccinate over 6 million New Yorkers. Earlier, he was the inaugural Chief Population Health Officer at NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H), the largest public healthcare system in the nation, where he also served as CEO of the H+H Accountable Care Organization.
Dr. Chokshi has practiced primary care internal medicine at Bellevue Hospital since 2014. He has held successive senior leadership roles that span the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.
A Rhodes Scholar and White House Fellow, he is nationally recognized as a transformational leader, a clinical innovator, a policy expert, and an advocate for a stronger and more equitable health system.
Chelsea Cipriano, MPH, serves as Managing Director of the Common Health Coalition, a not-for-profit organization created to help ensure the U.S. health system is prepared to confront the next crisis.
The seasoned public health practitioner leads the work with chair Dave A. Chokshi, M.D., MSc., and a group of health leaders across the country with the common goal of better health for all. The Coalition is working to improve partnerships between healthcare and public health organizations so the health system can better handle the threats of both today and tomorrow.
Prior to this role, Chelsea served as Executive Director of Government Affairs and Deputy Public Information Officer (for the COVID-19, mpox responses) for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Chelsea also served within the New York City Mayor’s Office – first as a Health Policy Advisor and then as Deputy Chief of Staff for the Office of Management and Budget. She has held additional roles in public health at multiple levels of government focused on policy, emergency response, and partnerships, including with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Chelsea began her career at the intersection of health care and public health in the back of an ambulance as an Emergency Medical Technician, and earned her Master of Public Health and Bachelor of Arts degrees from Tulane University.
Charlene Wong, MD MSHP is a physician and health policy leader who served as the Senior Advisor for Health Strategy to the CDC Director, where she led the agency’s collaborative approach to advancing priorities in supporting young families, mental health and overdose, and readiness and response. Previously, she was the inaugural Assistant Secretary for Children and Families and the Chief Health Policy Officer for COVID-19 in the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
Dr. Wong is on faculty at Duke University and launched the North Carolina Integrated Care for Kids (NC InCK) as Executive Director in 2020, an innovative model serving ~100,000 Medicaid-insured children in central North Carolina by integrating services across health care, educational, and social sectors (e.g., schools, housing, food, early care and education, child welfare). She is a primary care pediatrician, specializing in adolescent and young adult medicine.
Dr. Wong's research and policy training includes fellowships at the CDC and in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program. She received her undergraduate degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Morehead-Cain scholar and completed her medical and research training at Emory University, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, University of Washington, Seattle Children’s Hospital, University of Pennsylvania, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She enjoys spending time outdoors with her husband and two daughters.
Rotimi Kukoyi is a Truman Scholar, Morehead-Cain Scholar, and Senior Class President at UNC–Chapel Hill, where he studies health policy and management. He led the university’s first campus-wide initiative to provide free STI testing and treatment for students. Passionate about health systems reform, Rotimi has shaped Medicaid policy with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and advanced primary care innovation in Nigeria with the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
His writing appears in Health Affairs, The Milbank Quarterly, USA Today, Ms. Magazine, Teen Vogue, Truthout, and other major outlets. Rotimi served as a content creator fellow for gubernatorial and presidential campaigns, reaching his 45,000 social media followers. Rotimi is also Co-Director of the National Youth Public Health Innovation Coalition at Project Unity and founder of MeritScholarships.org, a platform expanding access to higher education.
A lifelong trivia enthusiast, Rotimi is also one of the youngest Jeopardy! champions in show history, having competed under both Alex Trebek and Ken Jennings. After graduation, he plans to become a physician-policymaker focused on equitable health financing and care delivery innovation.
Bryan O. Buckley, DrPH, MPH, MBA, ACC, is a leader focused on health equity and system-oriented approaches. As the Head of Public Health at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, Dr. Buckley spearheads the strategy for advancing and achieving better health outcomes for the people and communities in Maryland, the District of Columbia, and the Northern Virginia regions. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, mentoring graduate students in community partnerships and change management. With over 15 years of experience, Dr. Buckley is a dedicated public health practitioner who blends frontline experience with educational insights, leading transformational initiatives in organizational development, process improvement, health delivery system redesign, performance improvement, and change management.
Dr. Buckley's academic credentials include a Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, focusing on management, strategy, and organizational change. Additionally, he earned an Executive MBA from the Quantic School of Business and Technology, a BS in Microbiology, and an MPH with a concentration in Infectious Diseases and Administration from Michigan State University. As a certified ICF coach, Dr. Buckley is deeply involved in public health leadership, serving as an Executive Board Member at the American Public Health Association and on the National Board of Creating Healthier Communities. Locally, he contributes as a Board Member of the American Heart Association’s Greater Washington Region and Food & Friends, showcasing his commitment to community health and well-being.
Dr. Rishi Manchanda is CEO at HealthBegins, a national mission-driven strategy and implementation firm that helps Medicaid-serving managed care plans, health systems, and social sector clients to exceed health care equity and social needs performance requirements, and achieve long-term impact for people and communities harmed by societal practices. Dr. Manchanda's areas of expertise include building and scaling value-based care models for historically marginalized populations, embedding and advancing equity in clinics and communities, and designing and leading national and regional policy initiatives to improve population health.
Dr. Manchanda served as the founding director of social medicine for a network of community health centers in south central Los Angeles, as the first lead physician for homeless veterans at the Greater Los Angeles VA, and as the chief medical officer for a multi-billion-dollar employer with a large rural agricultural workforce. In his 2013 book - The Upstream Doctors - and TED Talk, he introduced “Upstreamists”, a new model of healthcare professionals and leaders who improve outcomes by addressing the social and structural drivers of health equity - patients’ social needs, community-level social determinants of health, and structural determinants of health equity including structural racism. Based in Los Angeles, Dr. Manchanda serves as a board member and advisor for several national nonprofits, companies, and initiatives that promote health equity, economic opportunity, and participatory democracy.
Dr. Mandy Cohen was the 20th Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and is currently a national advisor at Manatt Health. Dr. Cohen is lauded for her masterful leadership in times of crisis, her skillful executive management of large, complex health organizations and her strategic and authentic communication with the public. Prior to leading the CDC, Dr. Cohen was Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services where she led the state through the COVID crisis and transformation of the North Carolina Medicaid program. She was also Chief Operating Officer and Chief of Staff at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services during the Obama Administration.
Dr. Cohen was included on the TIMES 100 Health list as a Titan in Health, awarded Tar Heel of the Year by the News and Observer and named one of the Top 25 Women Leaders in Healthcare by Modern Healthcare. Dr. Cohen received her medical degree from the Yale School of Medicine; master’s in public health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; and trained in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. She resides in Raleigh, North Carolina, with her husband, Sam and two daughters, ages 11 and 13.
Brinda Adhikari is an award-winning executive producer, showrunner and journalist with over 20 years of experience under her belt. She was most recently the executive producer of “The Problem with Jon Stewart,” and before that, she worked at ABC and CBS news for nearly 20 years. She is committed to impact-driven storytelling. She is currently the co-creator and co-host of the podcast called “Why Should I Trust You?” which looks at the breakdown in trust for science, medicine, public health and institutions writ large and what if anything we can do to rebuild it. It hit #18 on the news and commentary charts this year.
Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian is the Chief Medical Executive for the State of Michigan.
She is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases, and she is a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the American College of Physicians.
Dr. Bagdasarian completed medical school at Wayne State University; internal medicine residency and infectious diseases fellowship at the University of Michigan; and she received a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree, from the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She serves as adjunct faculty at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
Dr Bagdasarian is a member of Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s Cabinet. She chairs Michigan’s Public Health Advisory Council, Childhood Lead Elimination Commission, Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, and Opioid Task Force.
Melissa Harvey is the Assistant Vice President for Enterprise Emergency Operations for HCA Healthcare, the nation’s largest health system, comprised of 185 hospitals and 2,000+ sites of care in 20 states and the United Kingdom. She is responsible for advancing healthcare system preparedness across the organization and developing next-generation response capabilities to ensure a more resilient healthcare enterprise.
Previously, Melissa served as the Director of Strategic Projects at the Global Center for Health Security at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) and Nebraska Medicine, where she developed public-private partnerships to advance the nation’s health security. She has more than a decade of federal healthcare experience, most recently at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where she served as the Director of Health Systems. In this role, Melissa oversaw the Department's emergency care, electronic health records, and health security portfolios. During the COVID-19 response, she was detailed to the FEMA-HHS Healthcare Resilience Task Force, where she led the Hospital Team.
Melissa also served as a member of the COVID Crisis Group, which aimed to pave the way for a potential National COVID Commission, preserve the lessons learned during the crisis, and recommend solutions to safeguard the nation from future threats. The Group published its report, Lessons from the COVID War: An Investigative Report in March 2023.
Until 2019, Melissa served as the Director of National Healthcare Preparedness Programs in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where she developed and advanced the implementation of policies, capabilities, and performance metrics that aimed to improve the nation’s overall healthcare emergency readiness. Melissa led ASPR’s domestic healthcare system response to Ebola, including developing a regional and tiered infectious disease strategy for the nation’s healthcare facilities. She also concurrently served as the ASPR Chief of Staff, facilitating the Office’s policy and legislative priorities and its $1.5 billion budget.
Previously, Melissa served at the Central Intelligence Agency, and was the Manager of Emergency Management for Northwell Health in New York. At Northwell, she was responsible for all-hazards planning and response for New York State’s largest healthcare system. Melissa has clinical experience as an RN and an EMT. She attended Harvard University (MSPH), Boston College (BA), and George Mason University (BSN).
Dr. J. Nadine Gracia is the President and CEO of Trust for America’s Health (TFAH), a nonprofit, nonpartisan public health policy, research and advocacy organization that promotes optimal health for every person and community. Dr. Gracia is a national health equity leader with extensive leadership experience in federal government, the nonprofit sector, academia, and professional associations. As President and CEO, she leads TFAH’s work to advance sound public health policy, advance health equity, address the social determinants of health, and make health promotion and disease prevention a national priority.
Prior to joining TFAH, Dr. Gracia served in the Obama Administration as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Minority Health and Director of the Office of Minority Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In that capacity, she directed departmental policies and programs to end health disparities and advance health equity, and provided executive leadership on administration priorities including the Affordable Care Act and My Brother’s Keeper. Previously, she served as Chief Medical Officer in the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, where her portfolio included adolescent health, emergency preparedness, environmental health and climate change, global health, and the White House Council on Women and Girls. Prior to that role, she was appointed as a White House Fellow at HHS and worked in the Office of the First Lady on the development of the Let’s Move! initiative to solve childhood obesity.
Dr. Béchara Choucair is the executive vice president and chief health officer for Kaiser Permanente, one of America’s leading integrated health systems with more than 12.5 million members. His work includes the creation of the nation’s largest social health network to meet the housing, food and transportation needs of Kaiser Permanente’s members. He also manages the organization’s community health portfolio, including $3.4 billion dedicated to supporting medical financial assistance and charitable care as well as grants and community health initiatives.
From January through November 2021, Dr. Choucair served as the White House national COVID-19 vaccinations coordinator. In that role he focused on coordinating the timely, safe, and equitable administration of COVID-19 vaccinations for the U.S. population. During his tenure, more than 450 million doses of the vaccine were administered nationwide. He returned to Kaiser Permanente in December 2021. Dr. Choucair served as Chicago’s Public Health Commissioner from 2009 to 2014.
Among other accolades, Dr. Choucair has been named by Modern Healthcare as one of the 50 Most Influential Health Executives in the U.S., one of the Most Influential People in Healthcare, and as one of the Top 25 Innovators in Healthcare. A family physician by training, he completed his Family Practice Residency at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He holds an MD from the American University of Beirut and a master’s degree in health care management from the University of Texas at Dallas.
Brady Dunklee, MPH, focuses his work where communities meet systems for better health and care. He serves as Sr. Manager for Health Equity Strategy at the Care New England health system's Office of Community & Social Impact. As principal consultant for commonflower, he supports organizations working with community health workers, including as co-lead for Catalyst Awardee the Rhode Island Alliance for CHW Employers. He is one of the instructors for Rhode Island College's CHW Core Competency training. Brady has more than 20 years of experience in community and education work, in Rhode Island and Nicaragua. He will begin chaplaincy training at Upaya Zen Center in 2026.
Ted Alcorn is an independent journalist who reports on health and justice for numerous publications, including The New York Times. An adjunct at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service, he was previously the founding research director of Everytown for Gun Safety and a policy analyst in the New York City mayor’s office. He earned graduate degrees at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and their School for Advanced International Studies, and lived in Beijing, China, as a Henry Luce scholar. His 2022 series “Blind Drunk,” about New Mexico’s crisis of alcohol deaths, won awards from the Association of Healthcare Journalists and the Institute for Nonprofit News.
Anand Shah, MD, MS, is senior vice president of community and
social health at Kaiser Permanente. In this role, he oversees
strategic initiatives and operations across Kaiser Permanente’s
annual $3+ billion community health portfolio. He is responsible
for developing and implementing key strategies to improve
health outcomes and reduce health disparities by addressing
community and social factors that impact the health of Kaiser
Permanente members and millions of others in communities
Kaiser Permanente serves.
An emergency physician by training, Dr. Shah understands first-
hand how community factors and social circumstances can impact health. He joined Kaiser Permanente in 2019 to develop the organization’s enterprise social health strategy, which today includes the Kaiser Permanente Community Support Hub®, a national support center dedicated to helping members meet
their basic needs, and the Kaiser Permanente Food Is Medicine Center of Excellence. He also oversees Kaiser Permanente’s Population Health Management Initiative and data and evaluation efforts.
Prior to joining Kaiser Permanente, Dr. Shah was the chief product and clinical officer at Pieces Technologies, a company that uses AI to provide integrated monitoring, prediction and organizational learning services and software for hospitals, health systems and community-based organizations.
He held academic appointments at the University of Texas Southwestern, University of Pennsylvania,
and Brown University.
He received his undergraduate education in neuroscience and behavioral biology from Emory University, and his medical degree at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He completed his residency and chief residency in emergency medicine at Brown University and was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also earned a master’s degree in health
policy research.
MacKenzie (Kenzie) Isaac is a Rhodes Scholar and final-year PhD candidate at the University of Oxford, where she’s studying binge eating treatment pathways for Black adolescents. As the resident Health Equity Hygienist for the global science communication collective Those Nerdy Girls, Kenzie is a firm believer in using storytelling to imbue evidence with empathy and accountability and to bridge the information-to-action pipeline. When at home in Indianapolis, she serves as the Curriculum Designer for Nyla Nova STEMversity, a Black-owned health and science "edutainment" nonprofit that brings lessons ranging from "traditional" bench science to experimental design, bioethics, and health justice to youth-serving institutions with limited funding for STEM enrichment. When she grows up, Kenzie will continue teaching kids about upstream public health through immersive, multimedia learning experiences and launch a youth-run Citizen Science Lab.
Nikayla Boyd, Ed.D., is the inaugural Executive Director of the Tennessee Community Health Worker Association (TNCHWA). Bringing over a decade of experience in managing and developing CHW and community programs, she leads teams of CHWs across the state. Under her leadership, TNCHWA is advancing initiatives for CHW certification and program accreditation. Nikayla is an active member of the National Association of Community Health Workers and the Southeast Community Health Worker Network, and she serves on the advisory board for Tu Salud, a promotora program at Latino Memphis.
Dr. Katelyn Jetelina is an epidemiologist and scientific communicator. Dr. Jetelina is the founder and CEO of Your Local Epidemiologist - a public health newsletter that “translates” ever-evolving science to the public, reaching over 500 million views in over 133 countries. In addition, she is the co-founder of Healthier Together, an adjunct professor at Yale School of Public Health, and former Senior Advisor to the White House and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Jetelina has received numerous national awards, including recently being named a TIME100 Most Influential Person in Health. She has her Masters of Public Health and PhD in epidemiology and biostatistics from the University of Texas Health Science Center and an honorary doctorate from SUNY.
