Board Of Trustees

Douglas Kamerow, M.D. (chair) is chief scientist for health, social and economics research at Research Triangle Institute. He is the former director of the Center for Practice and Technology Assessment at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, where he developed and led a multi-program national initiative to improve health care quality through the development and implementation of evidence-based tools and research. He conceived and supervised creation of the Evidence-Based Practice Centers program and the National Guideline Clearinghouse. In 2001, he joined RTI, where he leads research on health-related behaviors, preventive medicine, evidence-based care and improving the quality of health care. Previously, Dr. Kamerow spent 20 years in the U.S. Public Health Service, initiating and leading key federal research, health policy, public health and clinical programs. A family physician, he is a graduate of University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and holds a Master of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University. He did his undergraduate work in government at Harvard College.

Maulik S. Joshi, Dr.P.H. (treasurer) is president and CEO of the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement. NRHI's mission is to accelerate the improvement of the value (quality and cost) of health care delivery in the United States by building and strengthening regional, multi-stakeholder coalitions and influencing national policy for regional coalitions. Dr. Joshi was most recently senior advisor at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and previously the president and CEO of the Delmarva Foundation. Prior to the Delmarva Foundation, he was vice president for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, co-founder and executive vice president for DoctorQuality, senior director of quality for the University of Pennsylvania Health System, and executive vice president for the HMO Group. Dr. Joshi has a Doctor of Public Health and a Masters in Health Services Administration from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Lafayette College. He is co-editor of "The Healthcare Quality Book: Vision, Strategy and Tools," a graduate level textbook.

Carol Cronin has more than 20 years experience working on health care and aging issues, with a particular interest in consumer health information and Medicare. Since 2000, she has worked as a consultant and advisor to a number of non-profit organizations, foundations and government agencies. These include the California Endowment, AARP, the Delmarva Foundation, the federal Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, the Atlantic Philanthropies, the Markle Foundation, the National Health Council, the Health Insurance Reform Project at the George Washington University, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the California Healthcare Foundation. Previously, she was first director of the Center for Beneficiary Services at the Health Care Financing Administration. Prior to HCFA, she was senior vice president for Health Pages, a New York City-based consumer health information Web site primarily made available through large employers. Ms. Cronin holds an A.B. degree from Smith College and two Masters degrees in Social Work and Gerontology from the University of Southern California.

Chris Gibbons, M.D., M.P.H., is the associate director of the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute and the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Community Health. Dr. Gibbons holds faculty appointments at the Johns Hopkins Schools of Medicine and Public Health. His interests focus on demonstrating the value of uniting information and communications technologies with culturally appropriate clinical and behavioral interventions to improve health outcomes and reduce disparities in chronic disease among African-American populations. He has been named a Health Disparities Scholar by the National Institutes of Health/National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities. Dr. Gibbons received his training in Preventive Medicine, General Surgery, cancer epigenetics research and a Master of Public Health degree all from Johns Hopkins University. He received his medical degree from the University of Alabama School of Medicine.

Gail Hunt is president and CEO of the National Alliance for Caregiving, a nonprofit coalition of more than 40 national groups, which conducts national research, outreach and public awareness programs to support family caregivers of older and disabled people. Until 1996, Ms. Hunt was president of Gibson-Hunt Associates, a Washington management consulting firm specializing in aging issues. In 1993, working with the American Occupational Therapy Association, she developed an award-winning video and training package for Alzheimer’s caregivers, “A Part of Daily Life,” that described how to structure the home environment to support family life with a person with Alzheimer’s. She also was a senior manager at KPMG Peat Marwick in Washington. Her work on eldercare has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Working Woman, American Demographics, the New York Times, Parade magazine, CNN, MSNBC and other media. Ms. Hunt attended Vassar College and graduated from Columbia University with a degree in English. She also attended the International Graduate Institute at Oxford University in England.

CFAH Staff

Jessie C. Gruman, Ph.D., president, was founding executive director of the Center for the Advancement of Health, a Washington-based policy institute devoted to the translation of health research into effective policy and practice. The Center works specifically to ensure that evidence on social, behavioral and economic factors is applied to the prevention, management and treatment of disease. Dr. Gruman has worked on this same set of concerns in the private sector (AT&T), the public sector (National Institutes of Health) and the voluntary health sector (American Cancer Society). She received her undergraduate degree from Vassar College and her Ph.D. from Columbia University. She serves on the National Advisory Council for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and on the Board of Directors of the National Health Council. More information about Dr. Gruman.

Dorothy Jeffress, M.B.A., M.S.W., M.A., executive director, joined the Center in March 2008. Prior positions include vice president, Center for Information Therapy, 2005-2008, where she assisted with the IxAction Alliance membership program, the annual Ix Conference and finance/administration for the IxCenter; and as the assistant vice president of Value Based Purchasing for the National Business Coalition on Health (NBCH) from 2003 to 2005, where she directed the eValue8 Request for Information (RFI) program. She also worked with NCQA from 1999 to 2002 where she was the director of constituent relations and a senior health care analyst in HEDIS performance measure development. She has also worked for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health as the director of a CDC/state-funded women's health promotion and chronic disease prevention program. She has managed a TPA for self-funded employee benefit programs and also been a benefit manager for a mid-sized employer. Dorothy has an M.B.A. from Clemson University and an M.S.W. in clinical social work and an M.A. in theology from Boston College.

Marie Briones-Jones (mbjones@cfah.org), deputy program director, for Kellogg Health Scholars Program (multidisciplinary-disparities track), W.K. Kellogg Doctoral Health Policy Research Fellowships and H. Jack Geiger Congressional Health Policy Fellowship. Before joining the Center, she was a senior program associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies’ Health Policy Institute. Previously, Ms. Briones-Jones was with AcademyHealth, and was a a co-principal investigator for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation grant “Racial/Ethnic Diversity in Health Services Research: Pockets of Progress but a Long Way to Go.” A graduate of the University of Toronto, Ms. Briones-Jones also holds an M.S.H.S.A. degree from the George Washington University.

Taunya English (tenglish@cfah.org), associate editor of the Health Behavior News Service, reports on health news and emerging science for the Health Behavior News Service. She has worked as a reporter for the Contra Costa Times in Northern California and completed health-reporting internships for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and The Oregonian. She is a freelance reporter for WYPR, the NPR-affiliate station in Baltimore. A graduate of the University of Virginia, Ms. English also holds an M.S. from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Lisa Esposito (lesposito@cfah.org), editor of the Health Behavior News Service, has a dual background as a health journalist and clinician. Before coming to the Health Behavior News Service, she worked at several media outlets, including Gannett Information Services and the Knight Ridder Tribune business wire. A graduate of the University of Maryland, she is a registered nurse who served as a research coordinator at the National Institutes of Health. She has written about HIV/AIDS, diabetes, obesity, nursing profession issues, rape forensics and emergency room care.

Margaret Holmes-Rovner, Ph.D. (mholmes-rovner@cfah.org), visiting professor, is Professor of Health Services Research in the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences at Michigan State University. Dr. Holmes-Rovner has contributed substantially to establishing the field of patient-provider shared decision-making in health care. She was the first woman elected President of the Society for Medical Decision Making, and has served in many other roles in the Society, receiving the Eugene Saenger Award for Distinguished Service in 1999. Dr. Holmes-Rovner received her PhD in curriculum and sociology at the University of Wisconsin in 1980. She has served as Chief of the Division of Health Services Research in the MSU Department of Medicine, and is Professor in the Colleges of Nursing and Human Medicine.

Jim Jaffe (jjaffe@cfah.org), vice president, public affairs, is responsible for promoting communication among the Center’s various constituencies ranging from the research community, to the media to the general public. Trained as a journalist, he spent nearly two decades as a Capitol Hill staffer working on tax, fiscal and health policy issues

Barbara Kivimae Krimgold (bkrimgold@cfah.org), senior project director, is responsible for initiatives at the Center focused on improving health and reducing health inequalities through research, research training, policy and community action. Before joining the Center, she was deputy director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research and director of the Picker/Commonwealth Scholars in Patient-Centered Care programs. She also was a senior budget officer at the Office of Management and Budget and a health expert at the Senate Aging Committee. A graduate of Harvard University, she has co-authored and co-edited several books and journal articles on socioeconomic status and health.

Brandon Moore (bmoore@cfah.org), IT and communications manager, serves as the Center's webmaster, IT administrator and graphic designer. He has a background in Web development and public affairs. Before coming to the Center, he was webmaster/external relations at the U.S. Trade and Development Agency. Prior to that, Brandon was an intern in the Offices of Organizational Development, Training, and Rail and Bus Training at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. He majored in psychology at North Carolina Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount, NC.

David Torresen (dtorresen@cfah.org), vice president, finance and operations, is responsible for bookkeeping, human resources administration, and general office management at the Center. He also serves as assistant to President Jessie Gruman and as coordinator for Center-sponsored conferences. Before joining the Center, he worked as classified advertising manager, administrator and operations manager for the Washington Blade newspaper.