Featured Speakers

Ned Calonge, MD, MPH
President and CEO | The Colorado Trust

Ned Calonge, MD, MPH, is the President and CEO of The Colorado Trust. He is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine at the Colorado School of Medicine, University of Colorado, Denver, and an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health. Nationally, he serves as Vice Chair of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Community Preventive Services Task Force. He chairs the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Health’s Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice and serves on the National Academies’ Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity.

In 2016, he participated on two National Academies’ committees, supporting the release of two major publications: Communities in Action, Pathways to Health Equity and An Evidence Framework for Genetic Testing, and in 2017 he co-chaired the Academies’ study committee on reproductive health services, releasing the report The Safety and Quality of Abortion Care in the United States. He is currently chairing the Academies study committee on evidence-based public health preparedness

Dr. Calonge is past Chair of the United States Preventive Services Task Force, past Chair of the CDC’s Evaluating Genomic Applications in Practice and Prevention Working Group, past Co-chair of the National Academy of Medicines Genomics in Public Health Action Collaborative, and ongoing consultant for and past member of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders in Newborns and Children. Dr. Calonge serves as a board member for Delta Dental of Colorado, board chair for Grantmakers in Health and board member for the Colorado Association of Funders.

Prior to coming to The Trust, Dr. Calonge was Chief Medical Officer of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Dr. Calonge also served as Chief of the Department of Preventive Medicine for the Colorado Permanente Medical Group, where he also practiced as a family physician for 10 years. He is a past President of the Colorado Medical Board, the state physician regulation board. Dr. Calonge received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from The Colorado College; his doctorate in medicine from the University of Colorado; and his master’s in public health from the University of Washington. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2011.

Patrice A. Harris, MD, MA
President | American Medical Association

Dr. Patrice Harris, a renowned child and adolescent psychiatrist from Atlanta, is the 174th president of the American Medical Association and the first African-American woman to hold this position.

As a private practicing physician, public health administrator and patient advocate, Dr. Harris has been an active leader in organized medicine for her entire career. She has served on the AMA’s Board of Trustees since 2011, including a term as chair. She has also served as chair of the AMA Opioid Task Force since its inception in 2014. Beyond the AMA, Dr. Harris has held positions of leadership with the American Psychiatric Association, the Georgia Psychiatric Physicians Association, the Medical Association of Georgia, and The Big Cities Health Coalition.

A distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Harris continues in private practice and currently consults with both public and private organizations on service delivery and emerging trends in healthcare. She is an adjunct assistant professor in the Emory Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and an adjunct clinical assistant professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Morehouse School of Medicine.

Dr. Harris is a West Virginia-native and she earned her MA in counseling psychology and MD at West Virginia University. It was during this time that her passion for helping children emerged, and she completed her psychiatry residency, and fellowships in child and adolescent psychiatry and forensic psychiatry at the Emory University School of Medicine.

Rear Admiral Erica G. Schwartz, M.D., J.D., M.P.H.A
Deputy Surgeon General | HHS Office of the Secretary

As Deputy Surgeon General, Rear Admiral (RADM) Erica G. Schwartz advises and supports the Surgeon General regarding operations of the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) Commissioned Corps and in communicating the best available scientific information to advance the health of the nation.

RADM Schwartz recently served as the Director of Health, Safety and Work-Life where she was responsible for the Coast Guard's health care system of 42 clinics and 150 sick bays, as well as the Coast Guard’s environmental health and safety program. RADM Schwartz oversaw the Coast Guard's child care programs and food services delivery programs, and the Coast Guard's Sexual Assault Prevention, Response and Recovery, Family Advocacy, Suicide Prevention, Substance Abuse Prevention, Transition Assistance, Personal Financial Management, Special Needs, Health Promotion and Ombudsman programs.

RADM Schwartz is trained and Board Certified in Preventive Medicine (Occupational Medicine). RADM Schwartz graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering from Brown University in 1994 and received her Doctor of Medicine degree from Brown University School of Medicine in 1998. In 2000, she completed her Master of Public Health (MPH) degree with a dual concentration in Health Services Administration and Occupational and Environmental Medicine from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS). In 2001, she completed the USUHS Occupational and Environmental Medicine residency program. RADM Schwartz also has a Juris Doctorate from the University of Maryland and is admitted to the District of Columbia Bar.

Preceding her transfer to the USPHS Commissioned Corps and Coast Guard in 2005, she served as a Navy Occupational Medicine physician. Her assignments included serving as the Chief of the Occupational Medicine Clinic and the Immunization Clinic and serving as the Preventive Medicine Department Head at the Naval Medical Clinic in Annapolis, MD. She also served as an Occupational Medicine physician and clinical epidemiologist at the Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center (formerly known as the Navy Environmental Health Center) in Portsmouth, VA.

RADM Schwartz served as the Chief of Health Services and the Coast Guard’s Preventive Medicine Chief in the Operational Medicine and Medical Readiness Division at Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, DC. She instituted the following critical interagency and intra-agency programs: Navy Safe Harbor, Disease Surveillance, Deployment Health, Adenovirus Vaccination, Serology Screening, Febrile Respiratory Illness and the Chemical, Biological and Radiologic Medical Countermeasures programs. As an expert in health care policy, she wrote the first-ever force health protection policies to include: the Pandemic Influenza Force Health Protection policy, the Anthrax and Smallpox Vaccination policies, the Quarantinable Communicable Disease policy, the Periodic Health Assessment policy, and the Human Immunodeficiency Virus policy. Additionally, she developed force health protection guidance for numerous contingency operations, to include Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, Operation Unified Response (2010 Haiti earthquake), the Deepwater Horizon Operation, and the most recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa. RADM Schwartz served as the Coast Guard’s principal expert on pandemic influenza – hand-picked as the medical consultant for the DHS Pandemic Influenza Principal Federal Official. She also deployed as the Medical Unit Leader for the Deepwater Horizon Unified Area Command. Rear Admiral Schwartz served as one of the Ebola Crisis Action Team leaders, responsible for ensuring Coast Guard personnel had clear and actionable force health protection guidance for this emerging and fatal disease threat.

RADM Schwartz’s awards and decorations include one Legion of Merit, two Meritorious Service Medals, Coast Guard and Navy Commendation Medals, and many other personal and unit awards. She was recognized by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs by being honored as one of the Military Health System Female Physicians of the Year.