Alan Jenkins, The Opportunity Agenda
Before joining The Opportunity Agenda, Jenkins was director of human rights at the Ford Foundation.  Previously, he served as assistant to the solicitor general at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he represented the United States government in constitutional and other litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court.  Prior to that, he was associate counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., where he defended the rights of low-income communities suffering from exploitation and discrimination.  His other positions have included assistant adjunct professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, law clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Carter, and coordinator of the Access to Justice Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. 

Jenkins serves on the Board of Governors of the New School and the Board of Trustees of the Center for Community Change and the Legal Action Center, and is a Co-Chair of the American Constitution Society’s Project on the Constitution in the Twenty-First Century.  He holds a law degree from Harvard Law School, a Master’s degree in Media Studies from New School University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Social Relations from Harvard College.

 Jin Hee Lee, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest
Jin Hee Lee is a staff attorney at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI), a civil rights law firm that provides community lawyering in the areas of disability rights, environmental justice, and access to health care.  As part of NYLPI’s access to health care program, Ms. Lee works with health advocates and community-based organizations to address racial and ethnic discrimination in New York City’s health care system.  Most recently, she has been working with community groups in Southeast Queens and Central Brooklyn to prevent hospital closures and other forms of health care disinvestment in those medically-underserved communities of color. 

Ms. Lee was previously an associate in Morrison & Foerster’s New York office, where she represented a habeas petitioner wrongly accused of murder, a class of New York City students unconstitutionally discharged from their high school without cause, and an applicant to the September 11^th Victim Compensation Fund.  She was also a law clerk to the Honorable Martha Vazquez, U.S. District Judge for the District of New Mexico.

Ms. Lee received her undergraduate degree (B.S.F.S. 1995) from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where she majored in African Studies and received a Fulbright Fellowship to South Korea.  She graduated from Columbia Law School in 2000, and was a Harlan Fiske Stone scholar and a recipient of the Emil Schlesinger Labor Law Prize and the Lance Liebman public interest award.  She was also executive editor of the Jailhouse Lawyer’s Manual, a 1000-page legal resource for state and federal prisoners that is published and distributed by the Columbia Human Rights Law Review.

Ngozi Moses, Brooklyn Perinatal Network
Ngozi Moses is the founding executive director of Brooklyn Perinatal Network (BPN), a 19 year old non-profit organization which emerged in 1988 from a community taskforce authorized by New York State Department of Health to examine causes of high infant deaths in Brooklyn. Ms. Moses was born in the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, South America. Her childhood was heavily influenced by her father’s role as a community activist and union organizer and her mother’s role as “community mother.” She has been active as a volunteer and community organizer beginning from the tender preteen years in the Girl Scouts.

Ms. Moses received her Master’s degree in Community and Environmental Health from Hunter College. Her professional/occupational preparation and development was gained through education for positions such as pharmacist, public health inspector, community epidemiologist and community health specialist. She has actively participated in the formation of several community groups and organizations. These include the Caribbean Women’s Health Association, which addresses maternal and child health, the New York City Prenatal Care Steering Committee (1985).  This watchdog advocacy group was responsible for city and state focus on the high infant mortality in New York City at that time, and for the eventual development of the Prenatal Care Legislation that led to the Prenatal Care Assistance Program in NYS. She participated in Mayor David Dinkins’ select committee for his Child Health Action Management Program (CHAMP), serving as the co-chair of the Infant Mortality sub-group.

Ms. Moses has facilitated, enabled and led several coalitions that have enabled the Brooklyn Perinatal Network to accomplish its mission to reduce infant death and improve maternal child health status. Significant improvement in the infant death rate in many Brooklyn neighborhoods has occurred as a result of the collaborative work which the Brooklyn Perinatal Network has facilitated over the years. She has also participated in the development of citywide and statewide forums and organizations that focus on coordinating organizations to maximize resources for maternal and child health services, public policy advocacy, community planning and more.

Ms. Moses has participated in several leadership and professional training programs from noted institutions. These include UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management, Johnson and Johnson/UCLA Health Care Executive Program, Columbia University Institute for Non-Profits, Harvard School of Public Health Forces of Change: New Strategies for the Health Care Marketplace, and CORO NY Leadership Program.

As the executive director of the Brooklyn Perinatal Network, Ms. Moses is extensively involved in community organizing for advocacy and health improvement, and she continues to integrate her multicultural experiences into her everyday work. Ms. Moses has received numerous awards for leadership, dedication to community service and improving public education quality from community-based organizations and parent’s associations, along with citations from elected officials and others.

Amy Paul, Friends and Relatives of Institutionalized Aged
Amy T. Paul, executive director of Friends and Relatives of Institutionalized Aged, Inc. (FRIA), is an attorney admitted to the Bar of NYS.  She practiced corporate and consumer protection law for over 15 years for The Hertz Corporation and MasterCard International Incorporated for over eight years, most recently as Vice President, Counsel and Corporate Secretary where her responsibilities included oversight of all legal issues affecting its card programs, general corporate issues and the company's government relations program. Ms. Paul also served on the President’s Council for strategic planning for the company including development of new products and services.

In the 1990s she switched careers to become the director of development for a non-profit domestic violence service and advocacy agency and soon became its associate director. During her seven year tenure there, the agency grew from a small, one-program organization to a multi-service agency of 55 employees. More recently, Ms. Paul was a consultant to several non-profit agencies focusing on a wide range of issues such as homelessness, affordable housing, financial literacy, and micro-enterprise. As a result of her work, one of her clients was awarded a coveted federal grant to become a Women's Business Center for the area north of New York City.

Ms. Paul is active in community affairs and has held various leadership positions in community organizations. Ms. Paul joined FRIA as its executive director on March 31, 2005.

Alan Sager, Ph.D., Boston University
Alan Sager is a professor of health policy and management at the Boston University School of Public Health, where he has taught since 1983.  His courses on health finance, planning, and administration have won eight awards and he received the School’s teaching prize in 1998. 

Analyzing closings among 1,200 hospitals in 52 U.S. cities since 1936, Dr. Sager has found that:

• Hospitals located in minority neighborhoods have been substantially more likely to close
• Greater efficiency bestows no survival value, and
• Since a free market for hospital care is lacking, targeted public support for needed but endangered hospitals is required to protect essential hospitals, their physicians, and their patients. 

With his colleague, Deborah Socolar, Dr. Sager directs the Health Reform Program (www.healthreformprogram.org).  The Program analyzes methods of winning affordable health care for all Americans while containing costs.  Specific areas of analysis include prescription drugs, hospital configuration, and Massachusetts health care. 

The Program’s work on prescription drug reform has shown that:

• A combination of lower prices and higher volumes could inexpensively finance needed medications for all Americans while guaranteeing drug makers’ capacity to invest in breakthrough research, 
• The new Medicare prescription drug benefit is expected to bestow substantial windfall profits on drug makers.

The Program’s analyses of Massachusetts health care have identified opportunities for covering all residents while containing costs:

• Massachusetts has the world’s costliest health care
• One-half of current spending is wasted
• Soaring costs threaten implementation of the already-underfinanced 2006 health reform law
• Physicians must be central to any reform effort, as their decisions control almost 90 percent of personal health spending
• It’s essential to negotiate a peace treaty with physicians that gives doctors valuable things (near-elimination of finance-related paperwork costs, end of threat of being sued for malpractice) if they agree to marshal today’s vast but finite resources to care for all people
• Essential elements include financially-neutral payment methods, physician management of budgets, guaranteed care for all, and fair and adequate payments for all needed physicians, hospitals, nursing homes, dentists, and other caregivers.

In 1979, Dr. Sager designed a “time banking” method of mobilizing voluntary aid for disabled citizens.  It creates a parallel economy of good deeds.  Individuals volunteer to help others when convenient.  Contributed time is banked.  Those who had helped others obtain aid, when needed, by exchanging their banked time for the time of a new volunteer. 

Alan Sager holds a B.A. in economics from Brandeis and a Ph.D. in city and regional planning (specializing in health care) from MIT.   He served as a trustee of the former Waltham Hospital. 

Brian Smedley, The Opportunity Agenda
Brian D. Smedley, research director for the Opportunity Agenda, served most recently as a senior program officer in the Division of Health Sciences Policy of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), where he was study director for the IOM report, Unequal Treatment:  Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care.  Previously, Smedley served as study director for the IOM reports, Promoting Health:  Intervention Strategies from Social and Behavioral Research; The Right Thing to Do, The Smart Thing to Do: Enhancing Diversity in the Health Professions; and The Unequal Burden of Cancer:  An Assessment of NIH Research and Programs for Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved.  Smedley came to the IOM from the American Psychological Association (APA), where he worked on a wide range of social, health, and education policy topics in his capacity as director for public interest policy.  Prior to working at the APA, Smedley served as a congressional science fellow in the office of Rep. Robert C. Scott (D-VA), sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Education Policy Division of the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, N.J.  

Among his awards and distinctions, in 2003 and 2000 Smedley was awarded the National Academy of Sciences’ Individual Staff Award for Distinguished Service, was awarded the Congressional Black Caucus “Healthcare Hero” award in April 2002, and in August, 2002, was awarded the Early Career Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest by the American Psychological Association.

Judith B. Wessler, Commission on the Public’s Health System
Judy Wessler is the policy coordinator and director of the Commission on the Public’s Health System where she staffs major public health and public hospitals research and advocacy projects of the Commission, including organizing for increases in the city budget; advocating for changes in policy that eliminate barriers and increase access to health care services for low-income, immigrant, and communities of color.  She also provides training for community organizations and works to increase the revenue to health care facilities to safety net providers, such as the Community Health Care Conversion Demonstration Project. Ms. Wessler is also responsible for developing strategic plans and proposals for research, policy, outreach, organizing and advocacy campaigns to increase access to health care services for the under- and uninsured.  She is also co-director of the Save Our Safety-Net Campaign, formed to monitor the work of the Hospital Closing Commission.

Ms. Wessler has also worked as an adjunct professor at New York University Graduate School of Education M.P.H. Program and as a consultant on various health care projects, including Healthy Start Perinatal Networks and the New York AIDS Coalition.  Prior to that work, Ms. Wessler opened and ran the New York office of the Children’s Defense Fund, serving as the organization’s health policy and Medicaid specialist. There, she was responsible for the design and implementation of Medicaid enrollment reforms and the expansion of community health services for children. She worked with a consortium of community health providers to expand and strengthen the availability of comprehensive primary health services for the city's low-income pre-school and school-age children.

Ms. Wessler has also served as a senior health policy analyst for the Manhattan Borough President's Office, the New York director of health advocacy for the Community Service Society and the New York health advocacy coordinator for Community Action for Legal Services, and a community health advocate for MFY Legal Services.

Ms. Wessler holds a M.P.H from the Columbia University School of Public Health, and a B.A. in Psychology from Boston University.  She has been recognized with a Certificate of Special Recognition by Congressman Rangel and has received numerous awards from various health care advocacy groups.