Staff Biographies - Trust for America's Health

Lauren Ferguson

Lauren Ferguson is the Office Manager and Grants Administrator at TFAH. In this role, Ms. Ferguson manages the grant reporting, oversees office management and supports the staff in day-to-day details and projects. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, before coming to TFAH she interned for The Honorable Sue Myrick.

Hannah Graff

Hannah Graff is a Policy Development Associate at TFAH. Ms. Graff came to TFAH after serving as the Grant Coordinator for the Organic Health Response, a community based organization and AIDS micro-clinic in Lake Victoria, Kenya. Prior to this she served in several positions with the Health Policy program at the New America Foundation, where she led projects on faith and health care and social determinants of health. Ms. Graff has conducted research and written on perceptions of HIV/AIDS, biosocial determinants of health, indigenous tuberculosis policy, and community health. Ms. Graff holds an MPhil in Medical Anthropology from the University of Oxford (ISCA, Exeter College) and a BA in Anthropology, with honors, from The College of Wooster.

Richard Hamburg

Richard Hamburg is Deputy Director at TFAH. He oversees public policy initiatives, advocacy campaigns, and internal operations and has more than 25 years of experience as a leading health policy advocate. He has led TFAH's efforts to ensure disease prevention is a centerpiece of health reform, and has been instrumental in TFAH's work on obesity prevention, building national pandemic flu and public health emergency response capabilities, and increasing support for public health priorities and budgets. Prior to TFAH, Mr. Hamburg served in a number of roles with the American Heart Association (AHA), including as its national Director of Government Relations. At AHA, Mr. Hamburg managed the daily operations of an extensive federal legislative and regulatory program, represented AHA on health topics ranging from healthcare reform to tobacco control, directed targeted national advocacy campaigns, developed and coordinated a grassroots network of over 50,000 members, and supervised a team of government relations professionals. He was a recognized leader in public access to defibrillation advocacy. He is also a past Director of Government Affairs at AHA's New York City affiliate. A native New Yorker, Mr. Hamburg is a graduate of the State University of New York at Albany, from which he received a B.A. in Political Science and a Masters of Public Administration.

Karen Hendricks

Karen M. Hendricks, JD is the Director of Policy Development of Trust for America's Health. As a member of the senior management team, she is responsible for the development of TFAH's major new policy initiatives; this includes conceptualizing policy goals with the senior staff; overseeing related research projects; leading consensus-building with other partner organizations; and working with the public affairs staff to translate documents for the public. She also provides research and analytic support for the government relations staff.

For over 17 years, Ms. Hendricks was an Assistant Director in the Department of Federal Affairs for the American Academy of Pediatrics. In addition to those activities, she was responsible for the legislative activities for five pediatric academic research and adolescent medicine societies (Academic Pediatric Association, American Pediatric Society; Society for Pediatric Research, Association of Medical School Pediatric Department Chairs, and the Society for Adolescent Medicine). In May 2008, Ms. Hendricks was the recipient of the Thomas A. Hazinski Distinguished Service Award by the Society for Pediatric Research. Ms. Hendricks holds a Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law (1979) and an A.B. from Mount Holyoke College (1976).

Tiffany Henry

Tiffany Henry is Financial, Human Resources and Compliance Manager at TFAH. She is responsible for all income and expenses for the organization, budgeting, payroll and employee benefits. Ms. Henry comes to TFAH with extensive experience in compliance and financial management for non-profits and political committees.

Prior to joining TFAH, Henry served as Finance Director for the Women’s Information Network and Compliance Manager for Public Affairs Support Services, Inc. Her background also includes active involvement in Maryland state and local politics. Henry is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University with a B.A. in English and minor in Political Science

Elle Hogan

Elle Hogan is the Communications Manager at TFAH, where she oversees development and implementation of integrated communications strategies.

Prior to joining TFAH, Ms. Hogan worked in Ogilvy Public Relations’ Social Marketing practice on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation accounts. She also served as the Director of Public Relations for a non-profit in Charleston, South Carolina that provided free health, education, and emergency services to individuals in need.

Ms. Hogan received her BA from Saint Louis University. A graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, Ms. Hogan is currently completing her thesis on media portrayal of adoption and foster care issues. She will receive her Master’s degree in Health Communication in 2010.

Jeffrey Levi

Jeffrey Levi, PhD, is Executive Director of Trust for America's Health, where he leads the organization's advocacy efforts on behalf of a modernized public health system. Dr. Levi oversees TFAH's work on a range of public health policy issues, including its annual reports assessing the nation's public health preparedness, investment in public health infrastructure, and response to chronic diseases such as obesity. Dr. Levi is also a Professor at The George Washington University's Department of Health Policy, where his research has focused on HIV/AIDS, Medicaid, and integrating public health with the healthcare delivery system. He has also served as an associate editor of the American Journal of Public Health, and Deputy Director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy. Dr. Levi received a BA from Oberlin College, an MA from Cornell University, and a PhD from The George Washington University.

Dara Alpert Lieberman

Dara Alpert Lieberman is Government Relations Manager at Trust for America's Health. She works with the Director of Government Relations to advance TFAH's agenda with federal, state, and local governments. She previously served as a legislative representative for American Counseling Association. At TFAH Ms. Lieberman will be particularly concerned with prevention of infectious disease and ensuring that people affected by disasters have access to health services.

In recent years, Ms. Lieberman has been an advocate for health care access with the Children's Defense Fund and served as a staff member for the Senate Committee on Armed Services. In addition to working directly with policymakers, she has organized grassroots advocacy efforts at the national and state level.

She secured an MPP from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. She graduated magna cum laude with a BA in Public Policy Studies from Duke University.

Courtney Pastorfield

Courtney Pastorfield is the Policy Development Manager at TFAH. Her work focuses on how proposed health reform legislation could impact public health in the United States.

Prior to joining TFAH, Ms. Pastorfield developed and implemented global health promotion programs for Special Olympic athletes as part of the Healthy Athletes initiative, served as a staff member on the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Subcommittee on Children and Families under Chairman Senator Christopher Dodd, and worked in the Senate office of former Governor and TFAH Board President Lowell Weicker, Jr. Ms. Pastorfield is a public health nurse and co-founded the Cornell University Khao-I-Dang medical relief team, charged with serving Cambodian refugees that fled the Pol Pot regime to holding centers along the Thailand border, where she provided volunteer nursing care and coordinated partner medical teams in the U.S. for the program’s two year duration. She has a BA in Economics and Political Science, and a BSN from Cornell University.

Laura Segal

Laura Segal oversees public affairs, communications, and policy research for Trust for America's Health. She brings more than 15 years of strategic communications experience to TFAH. Prior to joining TFAH, Ms. Segal directed corporate communications for Health Venture Partners, Sigma Networks, and Charitableway. She worked for the Clinton/Gore Campaigns and Administration from 1992-2000 in a variety of capacities, including on the 1992 and 1996 campaigns, in the White House, in the Presidential Transition and Inaugural Offices, as a press secretary and speechwriter to the U.S. Secretary of Education, and for the 2000 Democratic National Convention. Ms. Segal also served as Executive Director of a new initiative for the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard to start a communications, events, and fundraising effort for the Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics, and Public Policy. She has also served as a contributing columnist and political analyst with United Press International. Ms. Segal began her career as an intern at CNN and in field production at C-SPAN television. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with Distinction in Communication from the University of Pennsylvania and received a M.A. from the Annenberg School for Communications.

Rebecca St. Laurent

Rebecca St. Laurent is a Health Policy Research Associate at TFAH. She assists with researching and writing about public health policies, including obesity prevention and infectious diseases. Before joining TFAH, Ms. St. Laurent worked at the Maine Audubon, where she contributed to a project to improve and standardize shoreland zoning ordinances in coastal Maine. Ms. St. Laurent holds a JD from the University of Maine School of Law, and a BA in Sociology from Emory University.

Annie Toro

Annie Toro is the Director of Government Relations at TFAH. Prior to coming to TFAH, Ms. Toro was the Associate Executive Director for Government Relations at the American Psychological Association (APA). At APA, she was responsible for developing, managing and coordinating the association's legislative and regulatory policy agenda, with issue areas including children, youth and families, ethnic and racial minorities, emergency preparedness and response, trauma and violence, HIV/AIDS, and obesity prevention.

Ms. Toro was also the Policy Liaison to the APA's Office on International Relations, where she provided feedback and recommendations on the United Nations NGO coalition comments. In this role, she worked closely with professionals around the world to advance critical policy and development efforts with a strong focus on improving health care.

Prior to joining APA, Ms. Toro was Senior Legislative Counsel to U.S. Representative Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL). In that role, she was responsible for monitoring, developing, and writing legislation, and providing legal counsel to Representative Gutierrez on a range of issues, including health care, human rights, foreign affairs, violence prevention, and housing issues. Ms. Toro also served as the Minority Staff Director at the House Financial Services Committee Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, where she led efforts impacting international monetary policy. She earned a Juris Doctor and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Syracuse University and a Master's in Public Health from the George Washington University.

Serena Vinter

Serena Vinter is a Senior Research Associate at TFAH. In this capacity she researches, analyzes, and writes about public health policies including public health emergency preparedness, H1N1 pandemic preparedness and response, obesity and chronic disease prevention, the human health effects of climate change, and public health financing. She has represented TFAH at various national conferences and has served on several advisory groups on issues ranging from obesity prevention laws to national biosurveillance activities. Before joining TFAH, Ms. Vinter worked at the Center for Communication Programs at Johns Hopkins University, where she helped develop a web-based resource to help program officers draft communication plans and design materials both in preparation for and in response to an avian and/or pandemic influenza outbreak. Prior to attending graduate school, she spent five years as a reporter for various media outlets including Voice of America and Dow Jones Newswires. Ms. Vinter holds an MHS from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a BA in Political Science from Davidson College.

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