Elise Plakke is an award-winning designer and marketing and branding executive. She has a passion for connecting consumers emotionally to brands through elevated product experience. Elise has launched product lines at LLBean, JJill, Rue La La, Home Depot, Crestline and Crew Kids. She established brand assets for Trek Bikes and directed photo shoots with Lance Armstrong, which dramatically increased market share. In addition, she has re-branded large integrated health systems and directed on-location and studio photography internationally. Ms. Plakke received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Northern Iowa and completed a summer residency at Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Jennice Hyden brings over 20 years of expertise in marketing, proposal management, and healthcare consulting, leveraging a unique combination of advanced training in proposal management, graphic design, and degrees in Health Sciences. Her strategic approach integrates marketing acumen with public health expertise, making her particularly adept at addressing the nuanced needs of complex projects. Shipley-trained and an active member of the Society for Marketing Professional Services, Jennice has a proven track record of crafting high-impact proposals that secure contracts in public health, behavioral health, and public-facing real estate sectors.

She excels in developing compelling narratives that resonate with clients, aligning proposals with their strategic objectives to drive measurable success. Throughout her career, Jennice has collaborated with architects, engineers, and contractors on transformative projects, including hospitals and medical office buildings. Adding a distinct dimension to her skill set, Jennice is also a licensed acupuncturist specializing in behavioral health. This unique perspective enables her to approach proposals holistically, crafting solutions that address the needs of vulnerable populations while ensuring operational and clinical excellence.

Morgan Chen, MPH, is a public health consultant and project manager with a deep commitment to community-centered, equity-driven solutions for mental and behavioral health. She has led large-scale funding initiatives to strengthen behavioral health systems, designed and executed high-impact policy events for youth mental health, and developed legislative advocacy strategies to advance mental health reform. Morgan began her public health career conducting research on the intersection of physical activity and cognitive health in children and older adults, bringing a multidisciplinary, systems-oriented perspective to her work. Her approach bridges research, policy, and community engagement to address complex public health challenges. Morgan holds a Master of Public Health from Boston University, with concentrations in Health Policy & Law and Mental Health & Substance Use.

Anna Isler, MPH(c), is a public health policy analyst with demonstrated experience in government relations and operations, data analysis, and stakeholder engagement. Anna has experience analyzing state-level health data, having developed quarterly reports on maternal and child health insurance enrollment and coordinated data integration between Virginia state agencies to establish new public health baselines. She brings expertise in convening diverse groups, having organized a statewide conference for over 75 representatives from Virginia’s Indigenous Tribes and higher education institutions to foster collaboration. Anna has also authored information memos and policy briefs used by agency staff for strategic decision-making and drafted updated agency guidance materials to improve usability. As an intern with Initium Health, she applied public health frameworks like MAPP to support client needs assessments and contributed to the development of strategic plans and new business proposals. Her background as a competitively selected Virginia Management Fellow and a certified Virginia Public Sector Leader (VPSL) provides a strong foundation in project management, strategic process, and addressing complex state-level challenges.

Andrew Lazarov is a public health professional specializing in infectious disease prevention, health education, and community-based nonprofit initiatives. At Initium Health, Andrew specializes in community needs assessments and public health research, data analysis, and community engagement efforts. Andrew brings experience supporting public health outreach programs aimed at reducing transmission of communicable diseases in underserved communities, and has worked with nonprofit organizations to develop culturally responsive health education campaigns, including experience in background research investigating cellular mechanisms of apoptosis in cancer cells and community health trends. Andrew is currently pursuing his Master of Public Health with a concentration in Epidemiology at the University of Memphis and holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology, concentrating in Microbiology, from East Tennessee State University.

Katherine Zellner, MPH, is a public health researcher bringing her wealth of experience in needs assessment and designing, implementing, and evaluating new initiatives in healthcare technology and public health. Katherine has conducted human-centered research with clinicians to identify design needs and implement new technology to improve quality of care in a level one trauma center. She has also conducted health needs assessments with community leaders and members to identify focus areas for improvement in community health initiatives. Katherine also brings project management experience including monitoring and reporting key performance indicators.

Aleiah Jasper is a Colorado native with a passion for all things social media. Growing up filming YouTube content and TikToks for fun, she never figured her personal hobbies would shape her career. Aleiah’s long-lived passion for social media has equipped her with immense knowledge on social media platforms. There’s a way to make your audience tick, and she wants to find it! Aleiah specializes in content creation, branding and design, and social strategy.

Kevin Mauclair Simon, MD, is an Assistant in Psychiatry at Boston Children’s Hospital, an Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and a current Commonwealth Fund Fellow in Minority Health Policy at Harvard University. Dr. Simon completed clinical fellowships in child & adolescent psychiatry and pediatric addiction medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School and completed general (adult) psychiatry residency at Grady Hospital / Atlanta VA Medical Center / Morehouse School of Medicine (Atlanta, GA). He graduated from SIU School of Medicine (Springfield, IL). Dr. Simon practices as a Child & Adolescent Addiction Psychiatrist serving patients & families who seek care through the Adolescent Substance Use & Addiction Program (ASAP) at Boston Children’s Hospital. In addition, Dr. Simon serves as the Medical Director of Wayside Youth & Family Support Network, one of Massachusetts’s most respected human service agencies, supporting more than 6,000 children, youth, and families annually through a variety of high-quality services, including family-based outreach, care coordination, residential treatment, and community programming. As a researcher, Dr. Simon is the recipient of the National Institute of Drug Abuse – American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Physician-Scientist Career Development “K award” for research efforts focused on the intersections of substance use, mental health, and justice involvement. 

David Stuckler is an experienced health consultant, bringing over a decade of experience of working with the World Health Organization, UNICEF, European Centre for Disease Control, among other institutions. He is currently a Professor at University of Bocconi in Milan and Jesus College, University of Cambridge.
David’s experience come primarily from leading large research teams. He has won over $10 million in grant funding from the Wellcome Trust, European Research Council, and Economic & Social Science Research Council. He is one of Web of Science Top 1% cited researchers and has written over 350 peer-reviewed scientific articles on global health in The Lancet, British Medical Journal and Nature in addition to other major journals. He is also an author of The Body Economic, published by Penguin Press and translated into over ten languages. His work has featured on covers of the New York Times and The Economist, among other venues. Foreign Policy named him one of the top 100 global thinkers of 2013.

Dr. Betancourt, Senior Vice President, Equity and Community Health at Massachusetts General Hospital is an internationally recognized expert in health care disparities and cross-cultural medicine, and the industry leader in improving the quality and value in the care of diverse, minority, and vulnerable populations. Joe advises health plans, health systems and government on approaches to eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health care. Joe has worked directly with 45 large national and regional health plans, 100 hospitals, and 30 community health centers across 33 states—providing strategic and operations support.He is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a practicing Internal Medicine physician. Joe was an Aspen Institute Health Innovator Fellow and has 50 peer-reviewed publications. He sits on the Board of Trinity Health, a large national health system and has served on several Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committees on this topic, including the one that produced the landmark report, Unequal Treatment. Dr. Betancourt received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Maryland, his medical degree from Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School, and completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. Following residency, he completed The Commonwealth Fund-Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy; and received his Master’s in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Thomas Felch, Principal & Senior Vice President LightBeam Health Solutions brings over 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry working alongside providers, payors, and patients, with a proven ability to motivate and lead teams through complex and rapidly changing environments. His experience as a health system executive affords our clients with an inside-out perspective on every engagement. Thomas is adept at promoting change and collaboration among network and operations leadership and practice-based and centralized teams to advance enterprise-wide initiatives. He has led major technology deployments and change management processes, as well as engagements focused on process improvement and practice standardization and gain greater visibility into clinical, operational, and financial work flows. Thomas is a frequent speaker on operational leadership, the shift from volume to value, and provider and consumer engagement strategy. 

Dr. Selna, Chief Executive Officer at Quartz Health Solutions is an accomplished senior healthcare executive with over 25 years of progressive leadership roles in top-ranked integrated delivery networks including Geisinger, Sutter Health, and Centura Health; multi-state provider-owned health plans; BCBS plans; and start-ups focusing on information security and artificial intelligence. Dr. Selna’s was a chief architect of Geisinger’s ProvenCare methodology. He developed Sutter Health’s Data Governance and Master Data Management programs, which deployed innovative ambulatory staffing/collaboration models using EHR data to develop AI-based outcome prediction models. He also designed Sutter Health’s Bay-Area Accountable Care platform, using first-of-its kind in-home remote monitoring. Dr. Selna is passionate about transforming care and reimbursement models through the use of data, analytics, informatics and objectives-driven strategies.