Ralph Alvarado, MD, FACP, joined Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s cabinet in January 2023 as the 15^th Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Health. Alvarado has spent nearly a decade in public service, and in 2014, he was the first Hispanic member elected to the Kentucky General Assembly. Dr. Alvarado has been a practicing physician for the past 29 years, working in various clinical settings, as a hospitalist, in primary care, and at skilled nursing facilities. Dr. Alvarado was chief and medical staff president at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, and was elected to the hospital’s board. Dr. Alvarado earned his Doctorate in Medicine degree from Loma Linda University in California and completed his Internal Medicine and Pediatrics medical residency at the University of Kentucky.

Tobi Adeyeye Amosun, MD, FAAP is the Deputy Commissioner for Population Health at the Tennessee Department of Health.  She previously served as Assistant Commissioner for the Division of Family Health and Wellness. In her current role, she oversees the offices and divisions of Family Health and Wellness, Health Disparities Elimination, Population Health Assessment, Primary Prevention, Vital Records/Statistics, and the State Chief Medical Examiner.  Prior to her state tenure, she served as medical director for one of the largest pediatric practices in Tennessee. She is interested in advancing data to action, workforce development, and investigating social determinants of health and their impact on the care of priority populations. Amosun graduated from Vanderbilt University as a Chancellor’s Scholar. She completed medical school at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine as a recipient of the Richard King Mellon Foundation Award and her pediatrics residency at the Children’s Hospital Pittsburgh. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a board member of numerous professional societies.

Bekah Bischoff, BS is the National Program Manager for Momma’s Voices.  MoMMA’s (Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Advocates) Voices is the first-ever maternal health patient advocacy coalition established in 2018, to amplify the voices of those who have experienced pregnancy and childbirth complications or loss – especially those who have been historically marginalized – ensuring they are equipped and activated as partners with providers and researchers to improve maternal health outcomes. 

In Bekah’s role at Momma’s Voices she works with patient family partners with lived experience along with healthcare providers, hospitals, medical facilities, and other quality improvement partners to provide training on lived experience integration into quality improvement. She enjoys using her years of professional experience in education to implement change through the MoMMA’s Voices Lived Experience Integration™ framework.

Ann Borders, MD, MSc, MPH is the Ian Bernard Horowitz Chair of Obstetrics, Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, NorthShore University HealthSystem and Clinical Professor, University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine. Dr. Borders is a Maternal Fetal Medicine physician at NorthShore University HealthSystem Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Evanston Hospital. She is the Executive Director and Obstetric Lead for the Illinois Perinatal Quality Collaborative, a collaborative of over 100 birthing hospitals focused on improving outcomes for mothers and newborns. She is an NIH-funded researcher addressing inequities in pregnancy outcomes. She serves on the Illinois Department of Public Health Maternal Mortality Review Committee and the State Quality Council as well as an OB Co-Chair for the National Network of Perinatal Quality Collaboratives Executive Committee.

Steffany Cavallo, MPH is the Director of the Sexually Transmitted Infections Program at the Tennessee Department of Health. Ms. Cavallo has worked as an epidemiologist for 15 years in a variety of infectious disease areas, including healthcare associated infections, enteric diseases, and STIs. Ms. Cavallo has worked in two other states at both the local and state level. After receiving her MPH in Epidemiology, she completed a CDC/CSTE Applied Epidemiology Fellowship at the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services.   

Walter Dehority, MD is a Professor of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.  He graduated from Medical School at the University of California, followed by post-graduate training at Johns Hopkins Hospital, The University of New Mexico, The University of California, San Diego and the University of London.  He has served as an institutional PI for multiple national and NIH funded studies, worked as an IRB chair and served nationally in multiple research and educational ventures.  He has written numerous textbook chapters, including for ‘The Red Book’, and published research in ‘JAMA’, ‘Pediatrics’ and ‘Clinical Infectious Diseases’, among others. Most germane to this topic, he recently served as faculty at the University of New Mexico, which has the highest rates of syphilis in the United States and where he helped care for neonates afflicted by HSV and syphilis. 

Karen Florio, DO is a board certified maternal fetal medicine specialist who specializes in hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and heart disease. She graduated from New York Institute of Technology – New York College of Osteopathic Medicine, Brooklyn Methodist Hospital of Cornell in NYC, and completed her MFM training at Magee Women’s Hospital, University of Pittsburg Medical Center. She worked for Saint Luke’s Hospital, University of Missouri – Kansas City where she helped develop a heart disease in pregnancy program that has now cared for over 2000 women. Now at the University of Missouri, she has started another cardiac clinic and serves as the Department of OB GYN’s Vice Chair for Patient Safety and Quality. She is the lead investigator on the national, multisite HOPE study looking at outcomes for women with heart disease in pregnancy.  Dr. Florio is the recent past chair of the Missouri Pregnancy Associated Mortality Board (MMRC), as well as the maternal section chair for the Missouri Perinatal Quality Collaborative.

Arun Gupta, MD  is a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, in Neonatal and Development Medicine at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford where he is also the Director of the  Neonatal Hospitalist Program, Division of Neonatology and the Associate Director of the Packard Intermediate Care Nursery, Division of Neonatology. Dr. Gupta graduated from Duke University, Vanderbilt University, and Stanford University.  He serves as Co-Chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Section on Hospital Medicine (SOHM) Neonatal Hospitalist Subcommittee, is a member and SOHM Liaison, NRP Steering Committee and is on the Executive Board for the AAP SOHM Neonatal Hospitalist subcommittee.

Scott Guthrie, MD is a professor of pediatrics at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in the Division of Neonatology. He is chair of pediatrics at the Jackson-Madison County General Hospital and primarily works at the Vanderbilt Regional Affiliated NICU located there. Dr. Guthrie recently served as the Infant Medical Director of the Tennessee Initiative for Perinatal Quality Care and is currently overseeing the Tennessee’s Tiniest Babies project. He is a US State Department Fulbright Scholar Specialist and has had the opportunities to teach and work internationally in Azerbaijan, Jordan, Ethiopia, Colombia, Tanzania, and India.  In addition, he is currently an investigator for clinical trials involving minimally invasive ways to deliver surfactant, neonatal ventilation, and probiotics for the prevention of necrotizing enterocolitis.

Elizabeth Harvey, PhD, MPH is the Tennessee Assistant Commissioner of Health and Director of the Division of Family Health and Wellness at the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH). In this position, she leads TDH efforts in maternal and child health, chronic disease prevention, health promotion and supplemental nutrition. TDH’s Family Health and Wellness Division delivers and promotes public health services such as adolescent pregnancy prevention, breastfeeding support, breast and cervical cancer screening, diabetes prevention, early childhood programs, violence and injury prevention, newborn screening, tobacco prevention, and the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program. These programs serve all 95 counties of the state through a network of local and regional health departments. Prior to this role, Dr. Harvey served as a senior field assignee in the Division of Reproductive Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Harvey received her PhD in Population, Family, and Reproductive Health from Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health and her Master of Public Health in Maternal and Child Health from the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Kristy Christopher-Holloway, EdD, LPC, LCMHC, NCC, BC-TMH, CPCS, ACS, PHM-C is a counselor educator as well as the founder and director of New Vision Counseling Center, LLC, and of New Vision Consulting and Training, LLC, both located in Georgia.  She is a Licensed Professional Counselor (GA), a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor (UT), a National Certified Counselor, a Board Certified Tele-mental Health Provider, a counselor supervisor, and is certified in Perinatal Mental Health.  Dr. Christopher-Holloway is the current Co-Chair for the American Counseling Association of Georgia as well as the 2023-2026 Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development Southern Region Representative. Additionally, she is a faculty trainer and subject matter expect for Postpartum Support Interntional. Dr. Christopher-Holloway works with racial and ethnic minoritized women experiencing infertility trauma, birth trauma, reproductive loss, and issues related to perinatal mental health. Dr. Christopher-Holloway is a national and international speaker with a focus on topics such as African Americans and mental health, the psycho-emotional impact of infertility in African American women, perinatal mood disorders, the strong Black woman syndrome, generational trauma, and cultural competence/humility.  She has received numerous honors, including the Breakthrough Award for Outstanding Research awarded by the National Board of Certified Counselors, in recognition of her work related to mental health and infertility.

 Jonathan Klein, MD is a Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics at the University of Iowa, where he was also the NICU Medical Director until 2023.  Dr. Klein graduated from Johns Hopkins University, the Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Children’s Medical Center Dallas, and the New England Medical Center, Boston Floating Hospital, Tufts University. He has cared for infants born at 22 weeks gestation at Iowa since 2008 and has lectured nationally and internationally on the management of periviable infants born before 24 weeks gestation since 2015. Dr. Klein has worked with High Frequency Ventilation since 1987 including the Hummingbird and has published, used, and lectured on High Frequency Ventilation including the Infant Star High Frequency Ventilator, the SensorMedics High Frequency Oscillator, the Bunnell Jet High Frequency Ventilator, the Draeger Volume Guaranteed High Frequency Ventilator and Noninvasive HFV. He has extensive experience and publications on the use of First Intention High Frequency Ventilation primarily High Frequency Jet Ventilation for extremely premature infants.

Julie Ware, MD, MPH, FAAP, FABM, IBCLC is a pediatrician who specializes in Breastfeeding Medicine. Dr. Ware graduated from the University of Texas, Baylor College of Medicine, and received an MPH degree at the University of Memphis. She is also an International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC).  Dr. Ware has served on the Executive Committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Breastfeeding and on the Board of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, and is currently President-Elect. Dr. Ware is on the leadership team of the Southwest Ohio Breastfeeding Coalition and one of the Ohio AAP Chapter Breastfeeding Coordinators.  She is co-founder of the successful All Moms Empowered to Nurse (AMEN) Peer-to-Peer Breastfeeding Support group serving African American moms in Cincinnati.

Victor Yung-Tao Wu, MD, MPH, is the Chief Medical Officer for TennCare ensuring quality and effective medical, pharmacy, and dental service delivery to members. He also leads TennCare’s opioid epidemic strategy, social determinants of health, and practice transformation initiatives. Before joining TennCare, Dr. Wu worked at Evolent Health, supporting value-based population healthcare delivery. In 2013, he served as a White House Fellow to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Dr. Wu completed his Internal Medicine Residency at Emory University and practices clinically as a Veteran’s Affairs Health System internist.