Colloquium in Healthcare Leadership: Thursday Evening Series

Howard P. Forman, MD, MBA, is a Professor of Diagnostic Radiology (and faculty director for Finance),  Public Health (Health Policy), Economics and Management. Professor Forman directs the Health Care management program in the Yale School of Public Health and teaches healthcare economics in the Yale College Economics Department. He is the faculty founder and director of the MD/MBA program as well as the faculty director of the healthcare focus area in the School of Management’s MBA for Executives program. He is the co-founder and special advisor to the Pozen-Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Health Equity Leadership program. He co-hosts the Health & Veritas podcast with Dr. Harlan Krumholz.

As a practicing emergency/trauma radiologist, he is actively involved in patient care and issues related to financial administration, healthcare compliance, and contracting. His research has been focused on improving imaging services delivery through better access to information. He has worked as a health policy fellow in the U.S. Senate, on Medicare legislation.

During the COVID Pandemic, Professor Forman has actively tracked outbreaks at local, national, and international levels; expounding on mitigation strategies and engaging to dispel misinformation through social and print media. He has been a frequent guest commentator and expert on national video and audio platforms.

Kate McEvoy became Executive Director of NAMD in January 2023. In this role, she will work with the Board of Directors to establish a post-pandemic vision for the association and to continue to support and elevate the interests, perspective, and voices of Medicaid Directors from every state and territory in United States as well as the millions of Americans served by the program.

At Kate’s former position, she led the Milbank Memorial Fund’s work in support of state executive branch staff and policymakers, and also guides its work on healthy aging. Prior to joining Milbank, she was the Director of Health Services for Connecticut’s Department of Social Services, where she oversaw delivery and payment reform for Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and long-term services and supports. During this time, she served as president and vice president of NAMD’s Board of Directors. Previous to her service as a Medicaid Director, she contributed to state health reform efforts in the Office of the State Comptroller, which oversees state employee benefits.

An elder law attorney by training, Kate’s early career was dedicated to working with and for older adults and people with disabilities at the Connecticut Association of Area Agencies on Aging. She also served as a past chair of the Elder Law Section of the Connecticut Bar Association and on the Steering Committee of the Reforming States Group. Kate holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Connecticut School of Law and a B.A. in English and Economics from Oberlin College.

Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD, is Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine where he is also the Co-director of the Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development (CVD) and Texas Children’s Hospital Endowed Chair of Tropical Pediatrics.  He is also University Professor at Baylor University, Fellow in Disease and Poverty at the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy,  Senior Fellow at the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at Texas A&M University, Faculty Fellow with the Hagler Institute for Advanced Studies at Texas A&M University, and Health Policy Scholar in the Baylor Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy.

Dr. Hotez is an internationally-recognized physician-scientist in neglected tropical diseases and vaccine development.  As co-director of the Texas Children’s CVD, he leads a team and product development partnership for developing new vaccines for hookworm infection, schistosomiasis, leishmaniasis,  Chagas disease, and SARS/MERS/SARS-2 coronavirus, diseases affecting hundreds of millions of children and adults worldwide, while championing access to vaccines globally and in the United States.  

In December 2021, Dr. Hotez led efforts at the Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development to develop a low-cost recombinant protein COVID vaccine for global health, resulting in emergency use authorization in India.

He obtained his undergraduate degree in molecular biophysics from Yale University in 1980 (phi beta kappa), followed by a Ph.D. degree in biochemistry from Rockefeller University in 1986, and an M.D. from Weil Cornell Medical College in 1987.  Dr. Hotez has authored more than 600 original papers and is the author of five single-author books, including Forgotten People, Forgotten Diseases (ASM Press); Blue Marble Health: An Innovative Plan to Fight Diseases of the Poor amid Wealth (Johns Hopkins University Press); Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism (Johns Hopkins University Press); and Preventing the Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti-science (Johns Hopkins University Press).

Dr. Hotez served previously as President of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and he is founding Editor-in-Chief of PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. In 2006 at the Clinton Global Initiative he co-founded the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases to provide access to essential medicines for hundreds of millions of people. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (Public Health Section) and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (Public Policy Section).  In 2014-16, he served in the Obama Administration as US Envoy, focusing on vaccine diplomacy initiatives between the US Government and countries in the Middle East and North Africa.  In 2018, he was appointed by the US State Department to serve on the Board of Governors for the US Israel Binational Science Foundation, and is frequently called upon frequently to testify before US Congress. He has served on infectious disease task forces for two consecutive Texas Governors.  For these efforts in 2017 he was named by FORTUNE Magazine as one of the 34 most influential people in health care, while in 2018 he received the Sustained Leadership Award from Research!America. In 2022 Hotez and his colleague Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for “their work to develop and distribute a low-cost COVID-19 vaccine to people of the world without patent limitation.”

Most recently as both a vaccine scientist and autism parent, he has led national efforts to defend vaccines and to serve as an ardent champion of vaccines going up against a growing national “antivax” threat. In 2019, he received the Award for Leadership in Advocacy for Vaccines from the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.  In 2021 he was recognized by scientific leadership awards from the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) and the AMA (American Medical Association), in addition to being recognized by the Anti-Defamation League with its annual Popkin Award for combating antisemitism, and in 2023 he received the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science ) Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility for his “scientific work in vaccine development and his work as a public voice promoting and defending vaccines.” Dr. Hotez appears frequently on television (including BBC, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC), radio, and in newspaper interviews (including the New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal).

Scott Berkowitz, MD, MBA, is chief population health officer and vice president of population health for Johns Hopkins Medicine. Appointed to this role in 2020, Dr. Berkowitz leads population health activities across the enterprise. He is an associate professor of cardiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with a secondary appointment in the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology.

Dr. Berkowitz first came to Johns Hopkins in 2003 as an intern, and joined the cardiology faculty in 2011. Since then, he has held positions throughout Johns Hopkins Medicine focused on leading health care delivery transformation efforts. He helped launch and oversee several major initiatives and programs to improve coordination of care and innovation in clinical care and population health.

Previously, Dr. Berkowitz was a senior medical director within the Office of Johns Hopkins Physicians. He was the program administrator and project director for the Johns Hopkins Community Health Partnership (J-CHiP), which led to improved outcomes for thousands of patients in East Baltimore. Since 2014, he has served as the executive director of Johns Hopkins Medicine Alliance for Patients.

A fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association, Dr. Berkowitz has served on expert committees for both related to population health. He has held positions in federal and state government, including as a fellow in the U.S. Senate Finance Committee during the passage of the Affordable Care Act; on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee; and as a senior health care policy development adviser to the governor of Illinois. In 2020, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan appointed him to represent The Johns Hopkins University on the Maryland State Board of Physicians.

Dr. Berkowitz received his bachelor’s degree in biology, master’s degree in business administration and medical degree from Yale University. He completed his residency and cardiology fellowship training as well as a geriatrics research fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Dhruv Khullar, MD, MPP, is a physician and assistant professor of health policy and economics at Weill Cornell Medical College. He is also a writer at The New Yorker, where he writes about medicine, health care, and politics. He serves as Director of the Physicians Foundation Center for the Study of Physician Practice and Leadership, and his research, which focuses on value-based care, health disparities, and medical innovation, has been published in JAMA and The New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Khullar earned his medical degree at the Yale School of Medicine and completed his medical training at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He also received a Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was a fellow at the Center for Public Leadership. He has been recognized by LinkedIn as among the Top 10 Healthcare Professionals Under 35, by the National Minority Quality Forum as a 40 Under 40 Leader in Health, and by FASPE with the 2019 Distinguished Fellow Award for Ethical Leadership.

Martin Mackay, PhD, is a Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Rallybio and has worked in pharmaceutical and biotech R&D for more than 30 years, holding leadership roles at companies including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Alexion. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Charles River Laboratories, and Novo Nordisk. He is also a Senior Advisor at New Leaf Ventures. Martin summarizes the three loves in his life as being family, work, and soccer, but not necessarily in that order.

Martin obtained a First-Class Honours Degree in microbiology from Heriot-Watt University and his Ph.D. in molecular genetics from the University of Edinburgh.

Kate Goodrich, MD, MHS, is Chief Medical Officer for Humana.  In this role, she provides executive clinical leadership for the insurance and Centerwell businesses, and has accountability for Physician engagement, Humana Healthcare Research, and the Health Equity and Bold Goal bodies of work. Prior to this role, Kate was the SVP for Clinical Analytics and Trend within the Clinical Solutions organization, where she was accountable for producing the business analytics and rapid learning approach for clinical programs designed to improve outcomes at lower cost.

Before coming to Humana, Kate was at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) where she was the Director of the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality (CCSQ) and CMS Chief Medical Officer (CMO).  This Center is responsible for 18 quality and value-based purchasing programs including the Quality Payment Program, quality improvement programs in all 50 states, development and enforcement of health and safety standards of all facility-based providers across the nation, and coverage decisions for treatments and services for Medicare. 

Prior to CMS, Kate was on the faculty at the George Washington University Medical Center (GWUMC) and served as division director for Hospital Medicine.  She continues to practice clinical medicine as a hospitalist and professor of medicine at the GWUMC. 

Nita Ahuja, MD, MBA, is the chair of the Department of Surgery at Yale School of Medicine and chief of surgery at Yale New Haven Hospital, effective February 1, 2018. Watch a video with Dr. Nita Ahuja>>

Dr. Ahuja obtained her medical education at the Duke University School of Medicine and her training in general surgery at Johns Hopkins. She completed a fellowship in surgical oncology at Johns Hopkins focused on hepatobiliary malignancies and joined the faculty in 2003.

Dr Ahuja's surgical specialization is in management of sarcomas and complex gastrointestinal cancers, including gastric, rectal, and pancreatic cancers. She has developed an international reputation for management of peritoneal cancer metastases with cytoreduction and heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy, which attracts patients from around the world. She is a strong advocate for working with various disciplines to deliver caring and cutting edge treatment to her patients and is honored as a top doctor by multiple organizations. Prior to coming to Yale as chair of surgery, she was the director of sarcoma program and gastric cancer program.

Dr. Ahuja is also a passionate advocate of clinician scientist and has run a laboratory focused on developing new knowledge to improve cancer outcomes. Her NIH funded laboratory has been focused on identifying new biomarkers for pancreas and colon cancers using liquid biopsies and stool DNA. She has also led over twenty national and international clinical trials on testing new therapies in gastrointestinal and breast cancers based on concepts identified in her laboratory.

She is a national and international surgical leader and surgeon scientist who serves on multiple editorial boards and in national leadership positions including as an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, member of the American Surgical Association, New England Surgical Society, Southern Surgical Association and on the Association of American Medical Colleges Council of Faculty and Academic Societies Administrative Board. She has published over 300 papers and book chapters contributing to both the surgical and basic science fields. Her many awards and honors include the William J. Reinhoff, Jr. Scholar Award, the American Surgical Association Fellowship, the Society of Surgical Oncology Clinical Investigator Award, and the Abell Foundation Award: Johns Hopkins Alliance for Science and Technology Development.

Margaret McGovern, MD, PhD, is deputy dean for clinical affairs and chief executive officer of Yale Medicine, the clinical practice of Yale School of Medicine. In that role, she leads a rapidly growing multispecialty medical practice with more than 1,600 full-time and part-time physicians.

Before joining Yale, Dr. McGovern was Knapp Professor of Pediatrics and dean for clinical affairs at Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, and vice president of Stony Brook Medicine Health System clinical programs and strategy. Prior to assuming those roles in 2018, she was chair of Pediatrics and physician-in-chief at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital. She led the development and planning of Stony Brook Children’s Hospital and significantly expanded its pediatric clinical research and education programs.

Dr. McGovern received her PhD in genetics from the Mount Sinai Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and her MD from Mount Sinai School of Medicine (now called Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai). She completed her residency in pediatrics and fellowships in clinical and molecular genetics at Mount Sinai Hospital before joining the faculty. At Icahn School of Medicine, she was vice chair of the Department of Genetics and Molecular Medicine and professor of human genetics, and of oncological sciences and obstetrics and gynecology.

She also was program director for the NIH-funded General Clinical Research Center and carried out CDC- and NIH-funded research focused primarily on the integration of molecular genetic diagnostic testing into clinical practice and inborn errors of metabolism. Dr. McGovern is considered a world authority on sphingolipidoses, a heterogeneous group of inherited disorders of lipid metabolism primarily affecting the central nervous system and chiefly occurring in the pediatric population.

Mary-Ann Etiebet, MD, MBA, has two decades of experience improving healthcare outcomes for underserved populations and transforming healthcare delivery at the frontlines. She serves as AVP for Health Equity at Merck and the Lead of Merck for Mothers*, Merck's $500M global health initiative to help create a world where no woman has to die giving life. Since 2011, Merck for Mothers programs and partnerships have resulted in healthy pregnancies and safe deliveries for over 20M women in over 60 countries.

Building on her experiences as a physician, innovator, funder and advocate across the public, private and global development sectors, Dr. Etiebet brings a diverse set of perspectives to advancing health equity. She joined Merck in 2016 from Premier Inc, where she advanced health equity through population health management and value-based care initiatives. Previously, she served as an HIV physician and health system administrator leading quality improvement and community & care delivery transformation initiatives in the NYC public sector, a global public health practitioner leading PEPFAR supported clinical programs, and as Assistant Professor, in the Division of Infectious Disease at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Dr. Etiebet holds an MD and MBA from Yale University. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell and fellowship in Infectious Diseases Hospital System at New York-Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center, becoming Board Certified in both Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases. She is a member of the Center for Global Development Board of Directors, the Board of Trustees of Vital Strategies, and the Advisory Committee for the Pozen-Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Health Equity Leadership at Yale University. She also serves as the private sector representative on the World Health Organization (WHO) hosted Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health Board and the Investors Group of the World Bank’s Global Financing Facility.

Laurie C. Zephyrin, MD, MPH, MBA, is senior vice president for Advancing Health Equity at the Commonwealth Fund. She has extensive experience leading the vision, design, and delivery of innovative health care models across national health systems. From 2009–2018, she was the first national director of the Reproductive Health Program at the Department of Veterans Affairs, spearheading the strategic vision and leading systems change through the implementation of evidence-based policies and programs to improve the health of women veterans nationwide. In 2016–2017, she served as acting assistant deputy under secretary for Health for Community Care, and later in 2017, as acting deputy under secretary for Health for Community Care.

While directing the VA’s Community Care program, a key component of VA’s high-performance network with an operating budget of over $13 billion, Zephyrin spearheaded efforts to implement legislation, develop internal governance structures, and address patient outcomes through systemwide optimization of care delivery. As part of the leadership team, she also represented VA before Congress and other internal and external stakeholders.

Zephyrin is a board-certified clinician. She is a clinical assistant professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at NYU Langone School of Medicine (2013–present) and was previously an assistant professor at Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons (2007–2012). She earned her M.D. from the New York University School of Medicine, M.B.A. and M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins University, and B.S. in Biomedical Sciences from the City College of New York. She completed her residency training at Harvard’s Integrated Residency Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Tom Scully, JD, is a General Partner with Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, a private equity firm in New York, which is the most active US PE investor in healthcare.

Mr. Scully was the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), from 2001 to 2004. CMS administers Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and is the largest agency in the U.S. Government, controlling more than $1.3 trillion for fiscal year 2016.

At CMS, Mr. Scully had an instrumental role in designing and passing Medicare reform and Medicare Part D legislation and in making the vast agency more open and accountable to the public. He initiated the first public reporting and disclosure for comparative quality among hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies and dialysis centers.

Before joining CMS, Tom served as president and CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals from 1995 to 2001. The FAH represents 1700 privately owned hospitals.

Mr. Scully was a partner in Washington, D.C., with Patton Boggs, LLP, 1993-95; deputy assistant to the President, 1992-93; Counselor to the Director and Associate Director of OMB, 1989-92. Tom worked on the Bush for President campaign in 1988; practiced law with Akin Gump from 1985-1988; and served with US Senator Slade Gorton (WA), 1980-1985.

Ingrid M. Nembhard, PhD, MS, is the Fishman Family President’s Distinguished Professor, Professor of Health Care Management, and Professor of Management (Organizational Behavior) at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on how characteristics of health care organizations, their leaders, and staff contribute to their ability to implement new practices, engage in continuous organizational learning, and ultimately improve quality of care. She uses qualitative and quantitative research methods to examine health care delivery from provider and patient perspectives, and to evaluate organizational performance. Her research has provided and continues to provide insights about how health care leaders manage change, the role of psychological safety in organizations, teamwork within and across organizations, strategies for improving patient experience, and organizational efforts to learn new clinical and operational practices. She brings her training in organizational behavior, organizational theory, and health services research to all of her projects.

Prior to joining the faculty at the The Wharton School, she was the Ira V. Hiscock Tenured Associate Professor at Yale School of Public Health, Associate Professor at Yale School of Management, and Associate Director of the Health Care Management Program at Yale. Dr. Nembhard received her Ph.D. in Health Policy and Management, with a concentration in Organizational Behavior from Harvard University through a joint program between Harvard Business School and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She received her M.S. in Health Policy and Management from Harvard University School of Public Health, and her B.A. in Ethics, Politics and Economics and in Psychology from Yale University.