Advisory Committee to the Director Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Lynn R. Goldman, MD, MS, MPH

Dean, Milken Institute School of Public Health
The George Washington University
Washington, DC

(Dr. Goldman is a member of the Ethical Considerations for Public Private Partnerships Workgroup)

A pediatrician and an epidemiologist, Dr. Goldman is Dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University School.  Formerly she was a Professor at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health Department of Environmental Health Sciences, where her areas of focus were children’s environmental health, public health practice, and chemical regulatory policy.  In 1993, Dr. Goldman was appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate to serve as Assistant Administrator (AA) for the US Environmental Protection Agency, where she directed the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) from 1993 through 1998.  As AA for OCSPP, she was responsible for the nation’s pesticide, toxic substances and pollution prevention laws.  Under her watch, EPA overhauled the nation’s pesticides laws to assure that children would be protected by pesticide regulations.  At EPA she was successful in promoting children’s health issues and furthering the international agenda for global chemical safety.

Prior to joining the EPA, from 1985 until 1993, Dr. Goldman served in several positions at the California Department of Public Health, most recently as chief of the Division of Environmental and Occupational Disease Control.  She has conducted public health investigations on pesticides, childhood lead poisoning and other environmental hazards.  She established the California Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program and co-founded the Children’s Environmental Health Network.

She has a BS in Conservation of Natural Resources, an MS in Health and Medical Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, an MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and an MD from the University of California, San Francisco.  She completed pediatric training at Children’s Hospital, Oakland, California and is board-certified in pediatrics.

She was elected a member of the Institute of Medicine in 2007.  She has received several awards including the Woodrow Wilson Award for Distinguished Government Service from the Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association (1999), Alumna of the Year from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health (2002), National Library of Medicine, Changing the Face of Women in Medicine (2003), election to the Delta Omega Honor Society (2007), the Children’s Environmental Health Network Child Health Advocate Award (2008), Maryland’s Top 100 Women, Maryland Daily Record (2009) and the Heinz Award for Global Change, (2010).

Dr. Goldman currently is vice chairman of the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, a member of the NAS Board on Environmental Sciences and Toxicology and a member of the NAS Report Review Committee.  She serves as a member of the US Food and Drug Administration Science Board.  She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Environmental Defense Fund.

LaQuandra S. Nesbitt, MD, MPH

Director, District of Columbia Department of Health
Washington, DC

(Dr. Nesbitt serves on the Health Disparities Subcommittee)

Dr. LaQuandra S. Nesbitt returns to the District of Columbia Department of Health (DOH) from the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness (LMPHW), where she was the Director and leading public health expert in Louisville, Kentucky.  Dr. Nesbitt received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, her medical degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine, and a Master of Public Health in Health Care Management and Policy from the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed an internship in family medicine at the University Hospitals of Cleveland/Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Nesbitt completed her family medicine residency in the University of Maryland’s Department of Family Medicine where she served as chief resident.

Dr. Nesbitt completed her fellowship training with the Commonwealth Fund Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy.

As health Director of LMPHW, Dr. Nesbitt committed to five strategic priorities for Louisville Metro: creating a culture of health and wellness in Metro Louisville; an expanded focus on social determinants of health and health equity; strengthening public-private partnerships; increased connection between public health and clinical medicine; and implementing an outcomes driven approach to program and policy development. During her tenure at LMPHW, the agency released the first Louisville Metro Health Equity Report; expanded the Mayor’s Healthy Hometown Movement to include tobacco prevention and control and chronic disease prevention and management; established the Mayor’s Healthy Hometown Leadership Team leading to the successful implementation of the city’s “health in all policies” approach; developed public-private partnerships to implement the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Community Transformation Grant program; and worked with all local healthcare systems to complete their community health needs assessments and community health improvement plans. Dr. Nesbitt also served as co-chair of the Mayor’s Violence Prevention Work Group.

Prior to her role in Louisville, Dr. Nesbitt served separate terms as Senior Deputy Director for the Community Health Administration and Senior Deputy Director for the Center for Policy, Planning, and Evaluation at DOH. Prior to joining DOH, she was Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and the Senior Coordinator for Health Disparities and Policy Research Initiatives in the Office of Policy & Planning at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Her responsibilities encompassed providing primary care services to patients in inner-city Baltimore including adolescent health services, preventive medicine services, and chronic disease management with an emphasis on hypertension and diabetes care. Her academic interests include racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes and health care services, workforce diversity, and improving access to care for the uninsured and underinsured through population health management, policy and health services research.

Lynne D. Richardson, MD, FACEP

Professor and Vice Chair of Emergency Medicine
Professor of Population Health Science and Policy
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
New York, NY

(Serves as Chair, Health Disparities Subcommittee and member of the Public Health – Health Care Collaboration Workgroup)

Dr. Lynne D. Richardson is Professor and Vice Chair of Emergency Medicine and Professor of Health Evidence and Policy at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. A native New Yorker, she holds Bachelor’s degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Life Sciences and Management; and the MD degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She completed her Emergency Medicine Residency at Jacobi Hospital/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and completed a research fellowship with the AAMC Health Services Research Institute.  Dr. Richardson is a nationally recognized Emergency Medicine health services researcher; her areas of interest are access and barriers to care, and improving effective utilization of health care resources.  She was the Principle Investigator for the New York City Site of the PAD Trial, an international, randomized, controlled trial of public access defibrillation; and is currently the Principal Investigator for the “Community VOICES” Study, an NIH-funded study of “Community Views on Informed Consent in Emergency Situations.”  Dr. Richardson serves on the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Health Public 2010 Task Force and the American College of Emergency Physicians Public Health Committee.  She is a member of the New York City Board of Health, the first emergency physician ever to serve in that Board’s one hundred and thirty-nine year history, and was recently nominated to serve on the Institute of Medicine Committee to Review the NIH Strategic Plan to Reduce and Ultimately Eliminate Health Disparities.

Wilma J. Wooten, MD, MPH

Public Health Officer, County of San Diego
Health and Human Services Agency, Public Health Services
San Diego, CA

Dr. Wooten serves on the Health Disparities Subcommittee)

Dr. Wilma J. Wooten is trained in Family Medicine and has a Master’s degree in Public Health. She received both professional degrees from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, followed by residency training at the Georgetown/Providence Hospital Family Practice Residency Program in Washington, DC.  In 1989, she completed Preventive Medicine Residency with emphasis in Sports Medicine in the joint San Diego State University (SDSU), Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH)/University of California San Diego (UCSD) program. After this one year training, Dr. Wooten practiced medicine as a faculty member in the UCSD Department of Family and Preventive Medicine from 1990 to 2001.  She remains a volunteer Associate Clinical Professor in the department and is an Adjunct Professor at SDSU/GSPH. She has been with the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency since 2001, initially as the Deputy Health Officer and now serving as the Public Health Officer since February 2007.  In her current role, she has oversight for almost 500 employees and a budget of over $100M, serving a county of 3.2 million residents.  She is an ardent supporter of public health and has a strong interest in health disparities.  Dr. Wooten is a Board member and past president (2011-13) of the California Conference of Local Health Officers (CCLHO) and Board member and current President (2013-15) of the Health Officers Association of California (HOAC).  She is also a past Board member (2009-2011) of the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO).  Dr. Wooten began her three-year term on the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) of Directors in January 2012.

Ali R. Rahimi, MD, MPH, FACC, LSSBB

Dr. Ali R. Rahimi, is a practicing cardiologist with the Southeast Permanente Medical Group and Kaiser Permanente Georgia. He received his Medical Doctorate from the Medical College of Georgia and a Master of Public Health, with a focus in Health Policy and Management, from Emory University. His Internal Medicine internship and residency were completed at Yale University followed by a Cardiovascular Medicine Fellowship at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School.

Upon joining TSPMG in 2010 he assisted in the development of a new division of Cardiovascular Medicine while soon thereafter beginning his role as the Physician Director for Cardiovascular Quality for the Georgia region. From 2011 to 2018, he provided direction and oversight for all cardiovascular related metrics, analytics and performance improvement programs. In 2013, he became the Course Founder and Director for Health Care Performance Improvement in the KP Georgia region. The program trains health plan and medical leaders in the science of performance improvement theory, analytic methods and operational excellence techniques. From 2015 to 2018 he concurrently served as the Physician Director for Performance Improvement. In this role he assisted in strategy development, implementation and oversight, in addition to providing consultation for clinical and non-clinical service lines across the region. In 2017, Dr. Rahimi was certified as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt expert by both the Juran and Kaiser Permanente Improvement Institutes. He has been a member of multiple health care quality, safety and service committees both locally and nationally.

Dr. Rahimi is currently an Adjunct Professor with the Emory University, Rollins School of Public Health, Department of Health Policy and Management. He also serves on the Medial Association of Georgia Foundation Board of Trustees and Medical Association of Atlanta Board of Directors. In October 2017, he was elected to the American Medical Association House of Delegates and serves that body in matters of national health policy and patient advocacy.