Christine began her massage therapy career as a solo practitioner, and over the years, she grew her medical-based practice into an independent wellness center that is home to several practitioners. In her practice, Christine focuses on managing health conditions, rehabilitation, oncology massage therapy and serves as an end-of-life doula.

Christine has her Board Certification in Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork along with specialty certificates in sports massage and oncology massage. She also teaches and is an NCBTMB Approved Continuing Education Provider.

Daniel Blaney-Koen, J.D., is a senior legislative attorney with the American Medical Association Advocacy Resource Center (ARC). Koen has held several roles at the AMA, including serving as a public information officer, policy analyst and speechwriter.

Currently, his focus is on state legislation and policy, including the nation’s opioid epidemic, treatment and prevention, health care costs, and private payers and market reforms. Prior to joining the AMA in 1999, Koen earned his Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from Colorado State University, his Bachelor's Degree from the University of Arizona, and his law degree from the Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

Wendy A. Coduti, Ph.D is a Regional Director for Health, Productivity, Analytics and Consulting (HPAC) at Prudential Financial, Inc. Wendy works with employers in maximizing productivity and minimizing absence through the development of absence and disability management programs. Wendy has a master’s degree in Labor Relations/Human Resource Management and a doctorate in Rehabilitation Counseling Education.

Prior to joining Prudential in the fall of 2022, Wendy was an associate professor at Penn State University where her teaching and research revolved around absence management, mental health in the workplace and aging workers. Before entering academia, Wendy spent the first half of her career managing leaves of absence for employers, working in human resource benefits, and owning her own private vocational rehabilitation consulting practice.

David Elton, D.C. is co-founder of Arete Healthcare, and CEO of Arete Networks. The thesis of Arete Healthcare is that independent evidence-based high-value outpatient practices serving patients and local communities are essential to a well-functioning healthcare system.  Dave brings a unique perspective to this space after more than 25 years at UnitedHealth Group and Optum leading musculoskeletal (MSK) research & development and launching MSK and type 2 diabetes clinical practices. He also led capitation management, value measurement, clinical operations, clinical/coverage policy development, and legal/regulatory compliance for Optum MSK and Behavioral Health businesses.

Dave has seen first-hand how clinical practices have been fragmented, isolated, and underserved by technology.  In his role with Arete Healthcare, he is committed to supporting practices to achieve their full potential through modern technology, enterprise-level administrative support, better integration with the delivery system, and participation in value-based contracts. .

Tracy Gaudet, M.D. is a leader in the development of Whole Health through decades of radically re-envisioning and implementing new approaches to address health outcomes and costs.  She most recently served as the founding Executive Director of the Whole Health Institute.  Prior to this position, Dr. Gaudet was the Executive Director of the Veterans Health Administration’s National Office of Patient Centered Care and Cultural Transformation. This Office led VHA’s transformation to Whole Health, an approach to healthcare that empowers and equips people to take charge of their health and live their most meaningful life. Under her leadership, VA health care delivery has been re-envisioned and is being implemented nationally.

Dr. Gaudet, a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist, was featured in the PBS nationally acclaimed special entitled “The New Medicine,” and named by Shape magazine as one of the eleven women who shape the world. Dr. Gaudet has been recognized as one of the “Top 25 Women in Healthcare” by Modern Healthcare and featured as a Game Changer in Fortune Magazine.  .

Denise Giambalvo is the Alliance’s Director of Purchaser Strategies. In this role she leads collaborative initiatives to reduce low-value care in Washington state, membership development and education for the purchaser members. Previously, Denise was Vice President at Midwest Business Group on Health (MBGH), where she managed the coordination and marketing of monthly educational programs, social media, newsletters, and employer benchmarking surveys. In addition, Denise led various sponsor and grant-funded projects including the National Employer Initiative on Specialty Drugs.

Prior to MBGH, Denise served as Executive Director for the Employers’ Health Coalition (EHC) in Fort Smith, AR, where she was directly involved in contract negotiations for the PBM, Employers’ Choice Rx. Committed to carrying out the Coalition’s mission to “enhance the general health of the community,” Denise oversaw EHC’s launch of the National Diabetes Prevention Program and negotiated a discounted group rate for employer-sponsored financial well-being programs.

Denise has led team collaborations with stakeholders on research and pilot programs including limited-fill, site-of-service, mental and behavioral health, and data analysis. Educational activities she has organized have focused on population health management, value-based benefit design, pain management, and analytics.

Denise received her Master’s degree in Human Resource Management in 2012.

Dawn Gibson is a former youth and young adult Lay Chaplain turned writer, health advocate, and family caregiver for dementia, skin cancer, and end of life.

Diagnosed with Spondyloarthritis in 2002, Dawn entered health advocacy in 2011 and founded the acclaimed weekly Twitter chat group, Spoonie Chat, in 2013. Spoonie Chat is an inclusive support space for patients and a bridge between the traditional disability movement and folks with less visible disabilities like arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic pain, and mental illness.

Throughout its decade-long run, Spoonie Chat has become a community touchstone uniting patients across diagnosis groups, raising awareness, and driving conversations with students, clinicians, researchers, and journalists.

Over the years, Dawn’s work has grown to encompass many diagnosis groups spanning the chronic illness, disability and neuro-diverse communities, and others experiencing life altering differences. In particular, Dawn has focused on the disparities in care and discrimination faced by people of color in the chronic illness community. She was featured in Eric Boodman's Murrow Award Winning STAT News piece, “How medicine erased Black women from a ‘white man’s disease’.”

Dawn looks forward to growing patient centered advocacy, engaging the community to tell their stories on their own terms, to participate in narrative medicine, and leveraging cultural transformation to eliminate stigmas around chronic pain and all disabilities.

Dawn is the Secretary of the National Pain Advocacy Center and the Chair of the Community Leadership Council. She lives in Michigan with her family and a cadre of hand raised butterflies.

Christine Goertz, D.C., Ph.D. is a Professor in Musculoskeletal Research at the Duke Clinical Research Institute and Director of System Development and Coordination for Spine Health in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Duke University. She is also the Chief Executive Officer of the Spine Institute for Quality and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, College of Public Health at the University of Iowa.

Dr. Goertz’s 25-year research career has focused on working with multi-disciplinary teams to design and implement clinical and health services research studies designed to increase knowledge regarding the effectiveness and cost of complementary and integrative healthcare delivery. She has received nearly $32M in federal funding and has authored or co-authored nearly 100 peer-reviewed papers. Dr. Goertz currently serves on the Board of Governors for the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), recently appointed in September 2019 as Chairperson of the PCORI Board of Governors by the Comptroller General of the United States.

Patricia Herman, N.D., Ph.D., serves as a Senior Behavioral Scientist at the RAND Corporation, specializing in health economics, innovative care models, and the overall impact of health on individuals’ lives. Dr. Herman is an NIH/NCCIH-supported methodologist, resource economist, and licensed naturopathic doctor. In 2003, Dr. Herman received her degree in Naturopathic Medicine from Bastyr University and she practiced for 5 years at an inpatient facility that treated addiction and chronic pain.

Among Dr. Herman’s many published works and presentations, she has published three systematic reviews of economic evaluations of complementary and integrative medicine, and co-authored a commissioned paper on the economics of integrative medicine for the Institute of Medicine’s 2009 Summit on Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public.

Karen Johnson, PhD is an accomplished leader with experience that spans traditional health care boundaries having worked with employers, plans, physicians, and health systems over her 30+ year career. Understanding each of these unique perspectives fuels her work as a translator, bridge-builder and change agent. Her long-standing personal mission is to make healthcare work better for more people at a cost they can afford. Ensuring that primary care is adequately funded, appropriately evaluated, and connected to the broader healthcare system in a patient-centered manner has been the central focus of these efforts for many years.

She possesses a broad understanding of the complex healthcare ecosystem with specific expertise in value-based strategies, advanced provider payment models, primary care transformation, health data exchange/interoperability, healthcare systems, and health policy. She brings deep experience with provider payment models having worked with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City (Blue KC) on its primary care and value-based payment strategies, including shared-risk ACO contracting.

In her role at the American Academy of Family Physicians, Karen’s leadership include the FPM journal editorial staff, the Center for Payment Innovation focused on moving primary care payment toward appropriately funded, prospective models and the Center for Career and Practice with the mission of equipping family physicians to enjoy successful careers in a variety of practice settings and roles.

Rebecca Kirch, J.D., is Executive Vice President of Healthcare Quality and Value for the National Patient Advocate Foundation (NPAF), providing strategic focus and leadership in bringing the millions of patient and family voices to the forefront of national health care quality improvement efforts.

Prior to her current role, Kirch served 15 years with the American Cancer Society and its advocacy affiliate, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN), as the Society’s first Director of Quality of Life and Survivorship. She serves in several advisory capacities, and has also authored numerous articles and book chapters, including publications in the New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs, and other professional journals. She has a law degree from Boston College Law School and an undergraduate degree in Biology from Wells College.

Dr. Sharad Kohli has dedicated his career to working with the underserved and to attaining health equity. He received his medical degree from the University of Oklahoma and completed a rural family medicine residency at Cascades East Family Practice in Klamath Falls, OR. He has spent over 15 years working with Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) in both urban and rural settings in California and Texas.

He works at People’s Community Clinic, an FQHC in Austin, TX, and is strongly committed to looking upstream at factors that influence health. He is currently developing an interprofessional pain program integrating numerous services including behavioral health, acupuncture, yoga therapy, nutrition, medical-legal, and more.

Dr. Kohli has been intimately involved in the growth and development of the national nonprofit Integrative Medicine for the Underserved (IM4US), a multidisciplinary organization committed to affordable, accessible, integrative health for all. He co-founded its annual conference, was a member of its founding board of directors (on which he continues to serve), and created and chaired its policy committee.

He serves as IM4US’s representative on the board of the Integrative Health Policy Consortium, a nonprofit consisting of 27 organizations and institutions representing over 600,000 integrative healthcare professionals nationwide. He was recently elected vice chair of the organization.

He is married to a naturopathic physician, from whom he learns daily, and has two wonderful daughters and a large, ornery dog. He enjoys live music and the outdoors, both in abundance in the central Texas area.

Martha Lawrence is a Health Care Executive with more than 25 years of experience in leadership and operations with national health systems including Hospital Corporation of America (HCA). Currently, Ms. Lawrence serves as CEO & Co-Founder of AccendoWave,
a machine learning health care technology company that objectively measures and manages pain/discomfort. Previously, Ms. Lawrence served as President of Sequoia Healthcare Advisors, an advisory firm providing strategic innovation and investment advisory guidance. Earlier Ms. Lawrence served in national account sales with Sandoz Corporation (now Novartis) and in sales and marketing roles with National Medical Enterprises (now Tenet Healthcare).

Martha Lawrence has a Master’s of Business Administration from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor’s of Science in Kinesiology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ms. Lawrence serves as a board member for AccendoWave, Sequoia Realty Advisors and American Healthcare Finance.

Sherry McAllister, DC, M.S. (Ed) CCSP, serves as the President for the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress, the national not-for- profit organization showcasing the benefits of chiropractic care across multiple platforms with over 35 000 members. Dr. McAllister earned her Master’s in Science from the University of California East Bay a graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic West, where she served as an Associate Professor. Recently completing two Certification programs: Stanford Graduate School of Business in Executive Leadership Development and Yale University: Science of Wellbeing.

Dr. McAllister served as a Qualified Medical Examiner, Expert Chiropractic Witness for the State of California, and appointed to Forbes Non-Profit Leadership Council.

She has been Featured in several publications including: Forbes, Boss Magazine, Becker's Spine Review, Momtastic, LiveStrong, Martha Steward Living, Managed Healthcare Executive, and News Break.

Awarded: Top Women in Healthcare: PR News Access Intelligence, Person of the Year Dynamic Chiropractic, Chiropractor of the Year by Women DC organization and the Joseph Janse Award from the Federation of Chiropractic Licensing Boards.

Dr. James Marzolf has vast experience in health finance and healthcare reform. He currently serves as a member of the Cornerstone Collaboration. He is the former Senior Director for Health Sector Finance & Policy for the Whole Health Institute where he was responsible for strategic development of economic and policy aspects of the national healthcare reform platform encompassing the public-private insurance, large self-insuring corporations, provider networks, and pharmaceutical sectors. Previously, in the Veterans Health Administration, he served as the Chief Health Analyst for the National Office of Patient Centered Care and Cultural Transformation. In this role, Dr. Marzolf led the foundational transformation in financial modeling, management information tracking systems, and financial sustainability issues to align with the delivery of Whole Health. He also served as the lead on development of Employee Whole Health as a mechanism to drive Veteran enrollment, improve employee health status and to reduce direct employee operating losses.

His background includes both domestic and international experience in the health finance field including service with Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, USAID, Pan American Health Organization, and others. In addition, he has served as a principal in both Ramsey Health Care and Hospital Developments International involved in the development of hospitals and clinic chains in Asia. Clinically, Dr. Marzolf has worked in private, government and military hospitals as well as community health centers and clinics. His training includes psychology, genetics, nutrition, and medicine. He is board certified in Occupational & Environmental Health and board eligible in Preventive Medicine.

His interests encompass the development of payment systems that incentivize use of integrated whole person health therapies tailored to cultural, social, environmental, and economic determinants of health status. Research interests include operational analytics to improve current systems and advancing the field of wellness and selfcare through empirical evidence to provide a pathway for future development.

Kate Nicholson, J.D. is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Pain Advocacy Center, She is a civil rights attorney, writer, speaker and advocate on the treatment of pain and addiction in the context of the opioid crisis. Nicholson is a former attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, and graduate of Harvard Law School. She is widely published on the challenges of pain and addiction, including the American Journal of Law and Medicine, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times.

Kate developed intractable pain after a surgical mishap left her unable to sit or stand and severely limited in walking for many years. She gave the TEDx talk, What We Lose When We Undertreat Pain, and speaks widely at universities and conferences and to medical groups.

Kate has published academic and opinion pieces related to pain in the American Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics, the Washington Post, the LA Times, Washington Monthly, STAT, and others, and is frequently interviewed in the press.

Dr. Joshua Plavin currently serves as the Associate Medical Director at the Comprehensive Pain Program and Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine & Psychiatry at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine, as well as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmoutn. Prior to these roles, he worked at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont as the VP and Cheif Medical Officer.

Dr. Isabel Roth is a Research Assistant Professor in the Program on Integrative Medicine, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and serves at the Well-being Liaison for the department. Isabel studied Dance and Neuroscience at Oberlin College, graduating with highest honors. She earned a Masters of Science in Physiology, Biophysics, and Complementary and Alternative Medicine from Georgetown University, and Doctorate in Public Health in Community Health Practice from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. In 2021, She completed the T32 Postdoctoral research fellowship in Complementary and Integrative Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, and joined the faculty at the Program on Integrative Medicine. Her research interests involve the identification of effective implementation strategies to promote access to evidence-based complementary and integrative health practices among diverse populations with chronic conditions. Dr. Roth has methodological expertise in qualitative research, mixed methods, community-based participatory research, and implementation science. She currently serves as the Chair for the Integrative, Complementary, and Traditional Health Practices Section of the American Public Health Association. In 2018 she was awarded the Young Investigator Award from the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health. Most recently, she was awarded a K01 Career Development Award from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Dr. Roth is also a registered yoga teacher who has worked with people with chronic pain and long covid.

Eric B. Schoomaker, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.P. served in active duty for 32 years achieving the ranks of Lieutenant General, U.S. Army (Retired) 42nd U.S. Army Surgeon General and Former Commanding General of the U.S. Army Medical Command. Dr. Schoomaker committed his military career to meeting the health needs of soldiers, their families and veterans, focusing on soldier medical readiness, enhancing battlefield care, establishing a comprehensive behavioral health system of care, fostering a culture of trust, advancing comprehensive pain management, and promoting health by preventing combat wounds, injury and illness. He recently retired as Professor and Vice-Chair for Leadership, Centers and Programs in the Department of Military & Emergency Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) in Bethesda, MD. Dr. Schoomaker is the recipient of numerous military awards, including the 2012 Dr. Nathan Davis Award from the American Medical Association for outstanding government service, and the Philipp M. Lippe Award from the American Academy of Pain Medicine for outstanding contributions to the social and political aspect of Pain Medicine.

Adam Seidner, M.D., M.P.H., is the Chief Medical Officer for The Hartford insurance, leading strategy and policy across all lines of business with a particular focus on workers’ compensation and disability management. Prior to his current role, Dr. Seidner was Global Medical Director for Travelers Insurance.

He earned a Doctor of Medicine degree from SUNY Health Science Center, a Master’s degree in public health from the University of Connecticut, and an A.B. in Anthropology from Hamilton College. He is also board-certified by the American Board of Preventative Medicine: Occupational and Environmental Medicine and American Board of Family Medicine.

Vanila Singh, M.D. is an American physician, educator, policy maker, and patient advocate dedicated to public health and currently tackling one of the nation’s most widespread, expensive, and devastating epidemics of our time: the opioid and greater drug epidemic. She is an expert in treating and understanding the underlying mechanisms of complex acute and chronic pain. In 2017, Dr. Singh was appointed by the White House administration to serve as the Chief Medical Officer of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH). She was later concurrently appointed by the Assistant Secretary for Health as the Acting Regional Director for Region 9 (CA, NV, AZ, HI, and the Pacific Islands) and served dual leadership roles through her HHS tenure. Dr. Singh is double-board certified Stanford physician in both anesthesiology and pain medicine with a background in molecular and cell biology, and economics. She is widely published in various news journals including Time Magazine, Modern Healthcare, and Medscape. Dr. Singh has also received awards for Visionary Leadership Award, Lifetime Achievement award, and Presidential Commendation Award from various organizations.

Cindy Steinberg is the National Director of Policy and Advocacy for the U.S. Pain Foundation, Policy Council Chair for the Massachusetts Pain Initiative and a nationally recognized leader in pain policy. She is a frequent speaker regularly in the media. Her dedication to pain advocacy was sparked when she sustained a severe crush injury that left her with daily back pain.

In February of 2019, Cindy was invited to testify at a hearing on “Managing Pain During the Opioid Crisis” of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee by Chairman Lamar Alexander and Ranking Member Patty Murray. Cindy was the only patient and pain advocate invited to testify. In May 2018, Cindy was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, to serve on the Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force created by Congress. Cindy was appointed to a three-year term on the Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee (IPRCC) in 2015 by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Sylvia Burwell. The IPRCC the highest-ranking pain policy oversight committee in the United States. In addition, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker appointed her to serve on his Opioid Working Group and in 2017 he appointed her to be a Commissioner on the Massachusetts Drug Formulary Commission.

Cindy is the recipient of numerous accolades for her contributions to the field of pain management, including the American Pain Foundation’s Presidential Medal, the State Pain Initiative Champion Award, the Grunenthal Unsung Hero Award, and the American Academy of Pain Medicine’s Presidential Commendation Award. Cindy was selected as one of six leaders in the field of pain management to receive the Mayday Pain & Society Fellowship for 2013-2014.

Alyssa Wostrel, MBA currently serves as the Executive Director of the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT). Alyssa came to IAYT with decades of management and leadership positions in sales, marketing, and medical education—notably executive director positions at national nonprofit organizations mission-focused on advancing integrative healthcare initiatives. She is also classically trained in homeopathy. Over and over again she is witness to the gift of transformation that yoga therapy offers herself and others. Based in Venice, Calif., Alyssa loves hiking, bird watching, ocean swimming, and myriad travel adventures with friends and family.