Our people

Michael Green is Chief Executive Officer at the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) which he founded in 1996. CEH is a leading advocate for comprehensive chemical policy, and uses both a carrot and stick to change corporate behavior in order to protect people from illnesses related to pollution in our air, water, products and food.  CEH has been hired by both corporations and government agencies to design policies that will protect the public from exposure to toxic chemicals.

Prior to founding CEH, Michael designed a solid waste management plan for the Tibetan refugee community in Dharamsala, India, and cared for the sick at Mother Teresa’s mission in Calcutta. He is a recipient of The California Wellness Foundation’s Leadership Award, and has also been awarded the prestigious Compassion in Action Award for his work protecting children from lead by the Dalai Lama Foundation.

Michael Green has worked in government in Washington DC at both the US Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management and the US EPA. He has an MPP in Public Policy and an MS in Natural Resources, both from the University of Michigan. He reports directly to his two direct supervisors:  Dylan Green, born in 2007 and Juliette Green, born in 2008.

Dr. Devra Davis is founder and President of Environmental Health Trust, a scientific think tank that publishes research and educates policymakers and the public on environmental health hazards. She is currently Visiting Professor of Medicine at The Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel, and Ondokuz Mayis University Medical School, Samsun, Turkey. Davis was Founding Director, Center for Environmental Oncology and the  University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and founding director of the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology of the U.S. National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences.

Davis was Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Health in the Department of Health and Human Services and appointed to the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board by President Clinton.  She served on the Board of Scientific Counselors of the U.S. National Toxicology Program  and various advisory committees to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She was part of the team of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 with the Honorable Al Gore as she was lead author on research assessing climate mitigation policies.

She has also authored more than 200 peer reviewed publications in books and journals ranging from the Lancet and Journal of the American Medical Association. Her three popular books include When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle Against Pollution,  Disconnect:The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation, What the Industry Is Doing to Hide It, and How to Protect Your Family and the Secret History of the War on Cancer.

Davis testified in the 2009 Senate hearings on cell phone radiation (CSPAN link), has published numerous studies on the health effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation, and organized numerous national and international scientific conferences on the issue. EHT’s scientific publications were submitted to the FCC record and EHT submitted thousands of pages of evidence to the FCC in the years leading up to the court’s decision

For more than three decades, Alison Carlson has worked to turn cutting-edge knowledge—of our biology and our environment—into clear results for the public good. She started in 1979 as a visiting biologist intern at the US Food and Drug Administration. Now, as founder and chair of Forsythia Foundation, she focuses on the intersection between health and the environment.

Alison has always been committed to the accurate translation of scientific understanding into real-world policy. During 20 years as a tennis coach, sports promoter, and sports commentator, she tackled sex discrimination as a leading advocate for reform of gender-based athlete eligibility requirements mandated by the International Olympic Committee and affiliated sports federations. As a co-founder of the International Work Group on Sex/Gender Verification Policy in Sports, she researched and wrote extensively on the topic, educated athlete and physician groups, and coordinated a lobbying effort among international sports governing bodies. These efforts contributed to the adoption of scientifically, medically, and ethically defensible standards and practices.

Alison also co-hosted, reported for, and contributed to National Public Radio’s first all-sports program, Only A Game, “a thinking person’s look at sports and sports issues,” which she helped originate. She subsequently served as an administrator and creative resource for MBA candidates enrolled in the social entrepreneurship and public service program during a four-year tenure as assistant director at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

But it was her five years as an infertility patient—and her growing awareness that society was ignoring toxic chemical risks to health and fertility—that drove Alison to shift her work to that public health issue.

In 2003, she was appointed senior fellow for Commonweal Institute’s Collaborative on Health and the Environment, where she founded and led the Fertility/Pregnancy Compromise Work Group, bringing together scientists, doctors, advocates, and policy experts concerned about the effect of contaminants on reproductive health. The group organized a landmark multidiscipline expert workshop to review the scientific literature, which resulted in the publication of the acclaimed “Vallombrosa Consensus Statement on Environmental Contaminants and Human Fertility Compromise,” a science summary identifying critical research gaps. This effort inspired the launch of the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

In concert with the OB/GYN department chair at UCSF, Alison conceived and co-directed the 2007 Summit on Environmental Challenges to Reproductive Health and Fertility, convening 400 experts from around the world to define new high-priority research agendas. That same year, she co-founded Passport Foundation, where she developed and chaired grant programs supporting environmental health research, advocacy, and policy reform.

To advance these initiatives to protect health, Alison launched Forsythia Foundation in 2010. The foundation funds leading actors who drive demand for safer materials and deploys investment capital in strategies that scale green chemistry innovation and commercialization—all of which Alison terms “the definition of a value investment proposition.”

Alison is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University, where she holds a BA with distinction in human biology.

Gay Browne is a Personal Environmental Health Advisor, Author, and Founder of Greenopia: a comprehensive city guide of sustainable businesses to help consumers eat, shop, and live green.

Greenopia was launched in 2005 as a print series for Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York and rapidly expanded nationwide through Greenopia.com. Greenopia.com and its accompanying mobile app will re-launch in First Quarter 2020.

Prior to her work with Greenopia, Gay enjoyed a successful 15-year career in advertising and public relations. Gay is a contributing editor to The Huffington Post and Thrive Global. She served on boards and is involved with multiple environmental and humanitarian non-profits and is working on her first book. She has a deep personal commitment to personal environmental health and helping people lead toxic-free lives.

In her spare time, Gay enjoys hiking, yoga, meditation, art restoration, and her three children.

Jazmine works at the intersection of social and environmental justice. Her mission is to bring more knowledge, clarity, and harmony to the world and does this by working with various organizations that center this at their core.  She’s a Program Manager at the J.E.D.I Collaborative and is a consultant at LIFT Economy where she co-leads and co-developed a global tree growing campaign centering frontline communities. Jazmine also helps people think systemically and embrace design science to bring forth regenerative solutions for society & the earth’s ecosystems at the Buckminster Fuller Institute. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jazmine-cable/ 

Clare Dubois is the founder and CEO of TreeSisters.org, a global women’s movement spanning multiple  countries, that has collectively funded the planting of over 15 million trees. TreeSisters is a social change movement and a tropical reforestation organization working towards normalizing cultural reciprocity with nature. The aim of both Clare and TreeSisters is to make it as normal to give back to nature as it currently is to take nature for granted, while supporting humanity in its transition  from a consumer species to a restorer species. Before founding TreeSisters, Clare worked internationally for over two decades, coaching business leaders and facilitating group behavior change processes in multiple sectors. Known for her direct, catalytic energy, her inspirational speaking and her holistic approach to collective transformation, Clare is a walking invitation to anyone ready to step up and step in on behalf of the planet.

Karen Holl has studied how to restore both tropical and temperate forests for nearly three decades. She oversees a long-term tropical forest restoration study in southern Costa Rica and has worked with students and collaborators on forest restoration in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Panama, and the United States. She advises numerous land management and conservation organizations in California and internationally with the aim of improving the success of ecological restoration efforts. She is the author of Primer of Ecological Restoration published in 2020 by Island Press and was the 2017 co-winner of the Theodore Sperry Award for innovative restoration research from the Society for Ecological Restoration.

Dr. Sattler is a founding and active member of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, an international organization that is helping to integrate environmental health, including climate change, into nursing education, practice, research, and policy/advocacy.

While at the University of Maryland, where she was on faculty for 25 years, she directed the Maryland Hospitals for Healthy Environments, a 10-year statewide initiative that helped hospitals develop sustainable policies and practices to achieve the triple bottom line of employee health, patient health, and ecological health.  She also helped to bring local, sustainable, healthy foods to Maryland’s hospitals. She has been an advisor to the US EPA’s Office of Child Health Protection and the National Library of Medicine for informational needs of health professionals on environmental health.
Dr. Sattler helped to found Health Care Without Harm, a national organization focused on greening the health care sector. She is the author of Environmental Health and Nursing, and many peer-reviewed articles.    Dr. Sattler is a Registered Nurse with an MPH and DrPH from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.  She is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing.

Dr. Sattler is a Professor at the University of San Francisco (USF) and an international leader in environmental health and nursing. She is a founding and current Board member of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (www.enviRN.org), an international organization that is helping to integrate environmental health, including climate change, into nursing education, practice, research, and policy/advocacy.  She has helped to integrate environmental health as a core content area into the population DNP program.

While at the University of Maryland, where she was on faculty for 25 years, she directed the Maryland Hospitals for Healthy Environments, a 10-year statewide initiative that helped hospitals develop sustainable policies and practices to achieve the triple bottom line of employee health, patient health, and ecological health.  Supported by grants from the US Department of Agriculture she also helped to bring local, sustainable, healthy foods to Maryland’s hospitals.  She has been an advisor to the US EPA’s Office of Child Health Protection and the National Library of Medicine for informational needs of health professionals on environmental health.

Dr. Sattler has been the Principle Investigator on a host of grants from NIEHS, HUD, and the EPA.   She helped to found Health Care Without Harm, a national organization focused on greening the health care sector. She is the author of Environmental Health and Nursing, and many peer-reviewed articles.   Dr. Sattler is a Registered Nurse with an MPH and DrPH from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.  She is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing.

Born in the state of New Mexico, James grew up with a passion to help indigenous communities across the country. As a first generation college graduate with an Agricultural Business degree from Colorado State University, James strives towards educating others about the importance of higher education and self-identity. James joined Trees, Water, & People as the National Program Coordinator and will work closely with communities across the country on developing a plan to move their communities towards a renewable and cleaner world. As a proud indigenous community member, he understands and experienced first hand the hardships that affect indigenous communities across the country. Following his passion and spiritual education from his community elders, his vision is to educate and empower the warriors of tomorrow, all while respecting and honoring our ancestral roots.

Tracey Osborne is Associate Professor at the University of California, Merced. Her research focuses on the social and political economic dimensions of climate change mitigation in tropical forests and the role of Indigenous Peoples, the politics of climate finance, global environmental governance, and climate equity and justice. She has worked on these issues globally with extensive field experience in Mexico and the Amazon.

She also leads the Climate Alliance Mapping Project, a collaborative effort between academics, environmental non-governmental organizations, and Indigenous organizations working for a socially-just response to climate change through research, maps and digital stories. The mapping project is an initiative of the Public Political Ecology Lab, which Tracey founded and directs to support engaged scholarship by communicating environmental research to broader publics. She received her PhD from the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley.

Gerardo consults throughout Mexico and Latin America on regenerative land use planning. For the last 5 years, he has been a member of the Wixarika Research Center, a non-profit that works to preserve the culture and the natural heritage of the Wixarika (Huichol) people in Mexico through regenerative development and permaculture. He Co-founded Plantum land planning and management firm, the international Apios Institute non-profit and his innovative ‘Mexquitl’ mesquite value-adding brand he is enabling more and more producers and people to become part of the regenerative agriculture future.

Dr. Valerie Small (Apsáalooke) is the National Director of Tribal Programs. As a ‘First Generation” student to graduate with a college degree in her family, Valerie completed her PhD in BioAgricultural Sciences & Pest Management-Weed Sciences Division from Colorado State University. Her interdisciplinary research was conducted on the homelands of the Crow Tribe of Indians focused on trees, water and the Crow People, and incorporated western science within a traditional knowledges framework. This research was essentially a vulnerability assessment of the culturally significant riparian species, Plains Cottonwood that is quickly being replaced by the invasive species Russian olive, along the Little Bighorn and Bighorn River watersheds within the exterior boundaries of the Crow Indian reservation. This research was also recently published in the recently released 4th National Climate Assessment.

Val is dedicated to improving access and availability to harvest culturally significant plant/animals species within Tribal lands for future generations to use as food sources (decolonizing the diet), and plant species utilized in the practice of sacred ceremonies.

Eric Toensmeier is the award-winning author of Paradise Lot and Perennial Vegetables, and the co-author of Edible Forest Gardens as well as a senior fellow and contributor for Drawdown. He is an appointed lecturer at Yale University, and an international trainer, presenting in English and Spanish in the US, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, and the Caribbean. Eric has studied permaculture and useful plants of the world for over two decades. He managed an urban farm project for five years, ran a seed company, and co-developed a farm business training curriculum that is now used in eight US states and three Canadian provinces. Eric’s most recent book is the Carbon Farming: a Global Toolkit for Stabilizing the Climate with Tree Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices which was backed by supporters through a Kickstarter campaign.

Amrita is a member of EFM’s management team. In this role, she shapes the company’s growth and impact investment strategies managing new product development, fund structuring and investor recruitment. Additionally, as a member of the investment committee, she contributes to property sourcing, transaction structuring, conservation finance, and carbon project development. She cultivated a passion for financing the growth of environmental business while working for Piper Jaffray’s cleantech banking group. Her love for forests began during a stint in Indonesia where she helped develop a carbon project on 200,000 hectares of pristine tropical peat forest. Amrita is a Fellow of the Erb Institute and graduated from the University of Michigan with an MBA and an MS in Natural Resources.

Pamela H. Wall, PhD, RN, PMHNP-BC, FAANP is a psychiatric nurse practitioner, a 20 year veteran of the United States Navy, and a clinical expert in traumatic brain injury (TBI), post-traumatic stress disorder and caregiver fatigue and resiliency. Her program of research is focused on sleep disorders in the military, especially in those with traumatic brain injury. Wall has been a member of a congressionally-appointed panel that developed the curriculum for DoD/VA caregivers of patients with traumatic brain injury and has authored and co-authored several publications that focus on mental health disorders and TBI in the military. She is currently serving as a Mental Health Consultant and International Health Coordinator for the United States Peace Corps and is a Consulting Associate at Duke School of Nursing where she was formally an Assistant Professor.  Pam has served in positions such as the United States Navy Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing Specialty Leader to the Nurse Corps Chief and Surgeon General, lead faculty for the Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner Program and the Academic Co Director for the Duke/Durham VA Psychiatric NP Residency Program, and Program Director at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences.

Donald Jonas was an Honorary Trustee of the Horace Mann School and a former member of numerous boards, including Cancer Care, Inc.; the American Jewish Congress; the Guggenheim Museum Business Board; and the KIPP Academy Charter School in the Bronx, New York.

Mr. Jonas was Founder and Chairman of the Barbara Lynn retail stores and its successor company, Belscott Retailers. He was a co-founder of the Lechters Housewares retail chain, serving as its chairman from 1973 until he retired in 2001, and was a board member of the apparel retail chain Dress Barn.

Mr. Jonas was born in New York City, attended the Horace Mann School and subsequently served in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Frontier Nursing University. Mr. Jonas and his wife Barbara have two children, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Barbara Jonas was a member of the Columbia Presbyterian Health Sciences Advisory Council, and was previously Vice Chairman of the Community Services Board of the New York City Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Alcoholism Services. From 1983 to 2005, Ms. Jonas was a Member of the Institutional Review Board of New York University Medical Center. In 1992, she established the Barbara Jonas Centers for the Study and Treatment of Children at Risk at the Departments of Psychiatry at New York University and Columbia Presbyterian Medical Centers.

Ms. Jonas is a Trustee Emeritus of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and is a current member of the Guggenheim’s Art and Museum Committee. She is also a former board member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Foundation.

Ms. Jonas graduated from the High School of Performing Arts and Sarah Lawrence College, earned her MSW from Yeshiva University, and was a practicing psychotherapist. She was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Frontier Nursing University.

Dr. Jeannie Blaustein has spent her professional career as a therapist, pastoral counselor, and community leader, supporting people in the work of having difficult conversations about love, loss, and conflict. Over the last 15 years, her work has gravitated toward the field of end of life, and in particular, the work of advanced care planning, perhaps the most difficult conversation we must each have with our loved ones, yet by far one of the most important.

Jeannie is deeply committed to improving End of Life care and practices in this country. She is the founding board chair of Reimagine End of LIfe, a non-profit organization that aims to transform people’s individual and collective experiences of death, dying, and living. Reimagine hosts community-driven festivals that bring creativity, connection, and essential conversation to cities around the world designed to help break down taboos around death and dying.

She has served as a volunteer at Beth Israel Hospital, Zicklin Residential Hospice in Riverdale, NY, and as a hospice visitor in people’s homes. Jeannie completed the Art of Dying Institute’s End of Life doula course (to accompany the dying), and currently sits on the Steering Committee of “What Matters: Caring Conversations About End of Life, of which she is a certified What Matters/Respecting Choices Facilitator, Instructor and Supervisor. She has completed one year of Clinical Pastoral Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and worked as a chaplain on the Geriatric and Palliative Care service at Mt. Sinai Hospital in NYC.

A strong believer in the power of art to transform thinking and attitudes, Jeannie is an Executive Producer of Defining Hope, a film by noted photographer Carolyn Jones, highlighting the critical role that nurses play in hospice care. Jeannie and her husband Peter Bokor are also Executive Producers of Wrestling Jerusalem The Film, by Aaron Davidman, a remarkable one-man show which depicts the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through empathy-driven portrayals of 17 different individual stakeholders in the situation.

Board service experience includes The Morton K. and Jane Blaustein Foundation (President) which works to advance racial, environmental and immigrant/refugee justice, the Berman Bioethics Institute of Johns Hopkins University and Congregation B’nai Jeshurun (President, then Chair), LitWorld, and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.

A graduate of Brown University (A.B. History) and NYU University (M.A. History), Jeannie is a licensed clinical psychologist (City University of NY) and holds a Doctor of Ministry degree in pastoral care and counseling (Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion).

Jeannie lives in NYC with her husband Peter Bokor, and happily welcomes home their two adult daughters (Sophie, Carleton College, 2018 & Livia, Yale University, 2020).

John Jonas is the Founder and CEO of The Jonas Group, a leading retained executive search firm that specializes in retail and wholesale fashion, and is the number-one search firm for the footwear industry.

A prominent and active member of the Advisory Board of Jonas Philanthropies since its inception, John has been a key player in the growth and development of the organization over the last 10 years. In addition, John is actively involved on the Board of Directors of Hands In For Youth / Vacamas Programs for Youth, a non-profit camp for children from inner city areas throughout the Greater New York and New Jersey areas.

John is the son of Barbara and Donald Jonas. He received his BA from Brown University, and is a passionate art collector and tennis player.

In her tenure at the National League for Nursing (NLN), Beverly Malone has led a redefinition of the League’s mission to reflect its core values of caring, diversity, integrity and excellence, as well as its ongoing focus on advancing the health of the nation and the global community.

Dr. Malone has been ranked amongst the 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare by Modern Healthcare magazine; in 2016 she claimed 39th place in the field of leading policy-makers, activists, health care professionals and corporate figures in the health care, insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Additional recognition in 2016 included the Florence Nightingale Award, induction into the Home Care & Hospice Hall of Fame, an honorary doctorate from Georgetown University, and induction into the Nursing Hall of Fame at Tuskegee University in Alabama.

Dr. Malone’s distinguished career has mixed policy, education, administration and clinical practice. She has worked as a surgical staff nurse, clinical nurse specialist, director of nursing and assistant administrator of nursing. During the 1980s, she was dean of the School of Nursing at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. In 1996, she was elected to two terms as president of the American Nurses Association, representing 180,000 nurses in the U.S. In 2000 she became Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, following four years of service on President Bill Clinton’s Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Healthcare Industry.

From June 2001 to January 2007, Dr. Malone was general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, the United Kingdom’s largest professional union of nurses. Between 2002 and 2006, she served as a member of various organizations including the U.K. delegation to the World Health Assembly, the Commonwealth Nurses Federation, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England. During that time, Dr. Malone was also vice chair of the Brussels-based European Federation of Nurses Association.

Dr. Malone was elected to the Institute of Medicine and is on the board of the Kaiser Family Foundation. She served on the Institute of Medicine’s Forum on the Future of Nursing Education, contributing to the IOM’s groundbreaking report, “The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health,” and on the Advisory Committee on Minority Health, a federal panel established to advise the secretary of health and human services.

With more than 30 years experience as a professional nurse, public health practitioner and health advocate, Dr. Phyllis Meadows advises, develops and guides the programming efforts of The Kresge Foundation’s health team, including supporting the design of strategic investments within health, and the organization’s diverse programming areas. Dr. Meadows is actively involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of several national public health initiatives to build local health leadership and community partnerships to address the health inequities experienced by vulnerable populations across the country.

Dr. Meadows consults and provides technical assistance in health and program design for non-profit health and human services agencies across the country. Her professional career includes over 20 years of experience in the philanthropic sector, developing international, national and community-based approaches to improve health systems and services. Dr. Meadows’s work has involved the design, implementation and evaluation of several national initiatives on health, leadership, clinic operations, youth programming, early-childhood and population health. She has also served as a program director and advisor to foundations including the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The Skillman Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In addition to the Jonas Philanthropies, Dr. Meadows currently serves on the Board of The Greenwall Foundation.

Earlier in her career, Dr. Meadows served the University of Michigan School of Public Health as its Associate Dean for Public Health Practice, and Clinical Professor in the Department of Health Management and Policy. In this role, she was responsible for developing a comprehensive strategy for the School to improve the public health workforce and the effectiveness of local governmental health agencies and community health services. As a faculty member of the Department of Health Management and Policy, Dr. Meadows developed and taught courses in public health administration, leadership, public health policy and population health. She has spent a number of years working in public workforce development, including the design and coordination of model training methods and content for health professionals and practitioners, focusing on strategies and competencies to address health disparities and eliminate health inequities.

Dr. Meadows also served as the Director of Public Health and Health Officer for the City of Detroit. In this role, she provided leadership for a large urban health department, and executive level oversight for numerous health and human services programs. She continues to work closely with local health departments and the department leadership in Michigan, across the United States and several international locations. Dr. Meadows lends her expertise in nursing, public health and philanthropy through her numerous appointments to local, state and national Boards and Advisory Committees. These include the Michigan Public Health Institute Board of Directors, Michigan Peer Review Organization, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Partners in Nursing Initiative, the RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows National Advisory Committee and Jonas Philanthropies.

Dr. Meadows also serves on the Review Board for the American Journal of Nursing, and the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Review. Additionally, she is actively involved as a member for the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s Roundtable on Population Health Improvement.

Throughout her career, Dr. Meadows has received numerous awards for excellence in public health practice, public health innovation, nursing and community service.

Dr. Herbert Pardes, after serving from January 2000 through September 2011 as President and Chief Executive Officer of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and the New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System, became Executive Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Under his leadership, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital has risen to be to one of the highest-ranked hospitals and comprehensive health care institutions in the United States.

Dr. Pardes has been an outspoken proponent for academic medicine, medical research, children’s health education, mental health, access to care, humanism and empathy in care delivery, information technology, and medicine.

He has chaired three different departments of psychiatry at Downstate Medical Center, the University of Colorado and Columbia University. He served from 1989 to 2000 as the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Vice President for Health Sciences. A noted psychiatrist, he served as Director of the National Institute of Mental Health and the United States Assistant Surgeon General during the Carter and Reagan Administrations. He was also President of the American Psychiatric Association.

Dr. Pardes is a member of the Institute of Medicine and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has received the United States Army Commendation Medal in addition to the Sarnat International Prize for leadership in the field of mental health. In 2014 he was given the first Pardes Humanitarian Award in mental health sponsored in part by leaders of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF).

Dr. Pardes has served on various commissions related to health policy appointed by Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton, including the Presidential Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Healthcare Industry, and the Commission on Systemic Interoperability. He serves on the NYeC Board Executive Committee for Information Technology, and is Vice Chairman of the New York Genome Center. Dr. Pardes is also former Chairman of the Greater New York Hospital Association, the Hospital Association of New York (on whose Board he continues to sit), the Association of American Medical Colleges and the New York Association of Medical Schools.

Dr. Pardes has served on many for profit and not-for-profit boards. He is Chair of the Scientific Council of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation and serves on the UCLA Advisory Council as well as on the Board of Autism Speaks and as Chair of the Science Review Committee.

Lendri Purcell uses her skills as a children’s rights advocate, a community organizer and a seasoned funder to drive the work of the Jonas Program for Children’s Environmental Health.

In response to learning through a routine blood test that her baby had an elevated lead level, Ms. Purcell embarked on a quest to find the source of that exposure. In the process, she uncovered numerous common toxic chemicals in her own home — and in the lives of all American children. Ms. Purcell has spent the last six years immersing herself in the latest academic research addressing the damaging physiological ramifications of in-utero and early childhood exposures to toxic chemicals. She has discovered that, as a result of the abundance of toxics they come into contact with daily through food, water air, toys etc., the physical and cognitive health of children in this country and their learning potential is suffering greatly.

Ms. Purcell began formally advocating for children while participating in the renowned teacher training and leadership program, Teach for America. While teaching children with special learning and emotional challenges in an under-resourced school, she earned a Masters’ in Learning and Instruction and advanced certifications in educational therapy and childhood trauma. In addition to teaching, Ms. Purcell created enrichment programs to address obstacles to student learning outside of the classroom, including an outdoor education program.

Ms. Purcell’s desire to impact more children led her to work as a case manager, community schools’ coordinator, community organizer and a foundation program officer for Price Charities. While working in those capacities, she also spearheaded the Jonas Youth Development Initiative. In over 10 years, the program disbursed close to three million dollars through almost 100 grants — supporting mentoring, school-to-career training programs and mental health support for well over eight-thousand highly at-risk San Francisco East Bay youth. This grant-making program was especially unique in that Lendri created a youth advisory board reflective of the community to help recommend grants.

In addition to funding many innovative, award-winning programs that got their start with Jonas seed funding, Ms. Purcell spearheaded initiatives to increase investments in East Bay youth and to strengthen the youth development community by increasing collaboration and coordination. She founded the Oakland Youth-Friendly Business Awards, a model program that has been replicated outside the East Bay to promote business engagement in the youth development sector. She also founded the East Bay Youth Ally Alliance, an active program that coordinates and enhances youth development efforts through trainings, coaching, special events and social media tools.

Adam Purcell is Founder and CEO of Esoteric Distribution and PPC Print and Design. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a major in Political Science.

Louis W. Sullivan, MD, is chairman of the board of the National Health Museum in Atlanta, Georgia, and is chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Sullivan Alliance to Transform America’s Health Professions. He served as chair of the President’s Commission on Historically Black Colleges and Universities from 2002-2009, and was co-chair of the President’s Commission on HIV and AIDS from 2001-2006.

As secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) from 1989 to 1993, Dr. Sullivan released Healthy People 2000 (a blueprint for health promotion and disease prevention), waged a vigorous campaign against tobacco use, urged increased seat belt use in vehicles, and improved FDA food labels.

In 1975 Dr. Sullivan was the founding dean and president of the Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM), and went on to serve for more than two decades. He is now President Emeritus.

A native of Atlanta, Dr. Sullivan graduated magna cum laude from Morehouse College and earned his medical degree, cum laude, from Boston University School of Medicine. His postgraduate training included an internship and residency in internal medicine at New York Hospital – Cornell Medical Center (1958-60), a clinical fellowship in pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital (1960-61), and a research fellowship in hematology at the Thorndike Memorial Laboratory of Harvard Medical School, Boston City Hospital (1961-63). Dr. Sullivan is certified in internal medicine and hematology.

He has served on the faculties of Harvard Medical School, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and Boston University School of Medicine.

He is the author (with Marybeth Gasman) of The Morehouse Mystique: Becoming a Doctor at the Nation’s Newest African American Medical School, published in 2012 by the Johns Hopkins University Press, and his autobiography Breaking Ground: My Life in Medicine (with David Chanoff), published in 2014 by the University of Georgia Press.

Adam Usdan has been in the investment advisory industry for over 18 years, founding Trellus Partners 1994, and has been investing in Real Estate for over 30 years. Mr. Usdan began his investment career in 1987 at Odyssey Partners, where he was responsible for managing long/short U.S. equity (small to mid-cap) pools of capital. He holds an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, with majors in Finance, Marketing, and Accounting (1987), and a BA in English from Wesleyan University (1983). He is an owner of Winter Hill Farm in Freeport, Maine, and serves on the Board of Griffin Mining, a zinc and gold producer. He is a Trustee of Wesleyan University and a former Trustee of the Dalton School. He currently serves on Jewish Board for Children and Family Services, as well as Jonas Nursing and Veterans Healthcare.

Richard Zall, Esq. is chair of the Health Care Department at the international law firm Proskauer. His practice is focused on corporate and regulatory representation of a wide array of health care services and technology clients, as well as private equity firms and lenders to the health care industry.

Over the past decade, Mr. Zall has been an active participant in the healthcare industry. He is a frequent speaker at health industry events and writes about health care trends and developments. Mr. Zall launched and heads the firm’s Health Care Industry Group, a collaboration of practices providing health care industry clients the representation they need across all legal disciplines. He has also directed two health industry studies for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, one on the condition of the U.S. health care safety net, and the other on Federal and State Consumer Protection Regulation of the Managed Care Industry.

Since late 2003, Mr. Zall has served as Counsel to the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), an affiliate of the Clinton Foundation. In this capacity, he has represented CHAI in numerous matters including the negotiation of agreements with pharmaceutical and medical device companies to provide low-cost medicine and testing kits to developing countries. Richard also serves as Secretary of the Board of Directors of, CHAI, and a Trustee of CHAI-United Kingdom.

Richard is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, and Chairman of the Leadership Council of the New York City Primary Care Development Corporation (PCDC) of which he is a co-founder. Richard is a graduate of Brown University and the New York University School of Law.