Joseph Alper is managing editor of DoubleTwist.com, an online magazine covering biotechnology, genomics, and biomedical research. During his twenty year career as a science and health care writer, he has written for a variety of publications, including Science, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Health Magazine. During his career, he has won numerous national writing awards, including the American Chemical Society’s Grady-Stack Award for career achievements in science writing and two national magazine awards from the American Psychological Association. Alper has also taught journalism and writing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Minnesota, and Colorado State University. In recent years, he has also done strategic planning for the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and several biotechnology companies. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana, and received master’s of science degrees in both biochemistry and agricultural journalism from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Sharon Begley is a senior editor at Newsweek, where she has covered science since 1977. She has won numerous awards for her journalism, including the Clarion Award from Women in Communications, the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Educational Press Association of America, the Global Award for Media Excellence from the Population Institute, and the Wilbur Award from the National Religious Public Relations Council. She has written for Astronomy, Family Life, National Wildlife, Redbook, and other publications.

Paul Brodeur was a staff writer at The New Yorker for nearly forty years. During that time, he alerted the nation to the public health hazard posed by asbestos, to the depletion of the ozone layer by chlorofluorocarbons, and to the harmful effects of microwave radiation and power-frequency electromagnetic fields. His work has been acknowledged with a National Magazine Award and the Journalism Award of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The United Nations Environment Program has named him to its Global 500 Roll of Honour for outstanding environmental achievements.

Allard E. Dembe, Sc.D., is associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and senior research scientist at the University of Massachusetts Center for Health Policy and Research. Dr. Dembe is also an adjunct professor at Harvard University, McGill University, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He currently serves as deputy director of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Workers’ Compensation Health Initiative. Dr. Dembe’s professional and scholarly interests include health policy and health services research, occupational safety and health, social analysis of work and health relationships, the history of medicine and public health, and equity and social justice in health and health care. He is the author of Occupation and Disease: How Social Factors Affect the Conception of Work-Related Disorders, published by Yale University Press.

Digby Diehl is a writer, a literary collaborator, and a television, print, and internet journalist. Currently the literary correspondent and director of the MSNBCBook Club and West Coast editor of Modern Maturity, his book credits include Angel on My Shoulder, the autobiography of singer Natalie Cole; The Million Dollar Mermaid, the autobiography of MGM star Esther Williams; Tales from the Crypt, the history of the popular comic book, movie, and television series; and A Spy for All Seasons, the autobiography of former CIA officer Duane Clarridge. Previously the entertainment editor for KCBS television in Los Angeles, he was a writer for the Emmys and for the soap opera Santa Barbara, book editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, editor-in-chief of the art book publisher Harry N. Abrams, Inc., and the founding book editor of The Los Angeles Times Book Review. Diehl holds an M.A. in Theatre from UCLA and a B.A. in American Studies from Rutgers University, where he was a Henry Rutgers Scholar.

Janet Firshein is a writer who has been covering health policy and delivery trends for 16 years. Ms. Firshein spent several years as a congressional reporter for the newsletter Medicine & Health and became editor in 1990. In 1995, she began a year-long Kaiser Foundation Media fellowship to study how managed care was affecting medical education in the United States. Ms. Firshein has written for a variety of publications, including The Lancet, Reuters Health, United Press International, the New Democrat, and the AARP Bulletin. She also wrote a series of articles for WNET television in New York that were linked to specials on end-of-life care and drug addiction. Ms. Firshein also has done reporting for National Public Radio.

Ruby P. Hearn, Ph.D., is senior vice president of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. As a member of the program executive group, Dr. Hearn participates in strategic program planning and serves as a special adviser to the president and as the Foundation's liaison with the nonprofit community. She has had the major responsibility for oversight and program development of initiatives in maternal, infant, and child health, AIDS, substance abuse, and minority medical education. She was a Fellow, Yale Corporation (1992-1998) and served on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors for the 1995 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Connecticut, the Science Board for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Advisory Committee to the Director, National Institutes of Health. Dr. Hearn is currently a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy; the National Advisory Council of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; the Institute of Medicine and its Board of Health Care Services; the President's Drug Free Communities Act Advisory Commission; the Council on Foreign Relations; the Goucher College Board of Trustees; and the Discovery Health Media Advisory Board. She received an undergraduate degree from Skidmore College and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in biophysics from Yale University.

Jay S. Himmelstein, M.D., M.P.H., is assistant chancellor for health policy, director of the Center for Health Policy and Research, and professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Dr. Himmelstein is national program director of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Workers' Compensation Health Initiative. He previously served as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow for the U.S. Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee and has written numerous articles on occupational medicine and health policy.

Marguerite Y. Holloway is a freelance science writer and a contributing editor at Scientific American. Her work has appeared in various publications, including Natural History, Business Week, Wired, and The Village Voice. She is an adjunct professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where she received her master's degree and where she teaches courses on environmental and science and health reporting. She has edited and written medical and health stories for Scientific American since she joined the magazine's staff in 1990; before then, she covered similar topics as a reporter for the Medical Tribune.

Frank Karel is vice president for communications at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a position he held from 1974 until early 1987 and then resumed again in 1993. During the interim years, he served in the same capacity at the Rockefeller Foundation. Mr. Karel has also served as a program officer at the Commonwealth Fund, headed The Johns Hopkins Medical Institution's public relations office, was an associate director of the federal government's National Cancer Institute, and was director of planning for National Jewish Hospital and Research Center in Denver. He began his career as The Miami Herald's first science writer after having been a staff writer for The Tampa Tribune and the Gainesville Daily Sun while pursuing his undergraduate degree. He is a director of the Council on Foundations and chairs its Committee on Media and Public Affairs. He is a member and was founding chairman of the Communications Network, a member and former director of the National Association of Science Writers, a member of the Public Relations Society of America, and past chairman of that organization's Health Section. Mr. Karel received a master's degree in public administration from New York University and is a distinguished alumnus of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, where he completed his undergraduate education.

J. Michael McGinnis, M.D., M.A., M.P.P., is senior vice president and director of the health group at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Dr. McGinnis came to his post in 1999 from a four-year appointment as scholar-in-residence at the National Academy of Sciences. Previously, he served as Assistant Surgeon General and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health in the United States Department of Health and Human Services, holding leadership responsibility at the federal level for disease prevention and health promotion through four administrations, 1977 to 1995. Dr. McGinnis has served as chair of various national boards and committees, including the Nutrition Policy Board, the National Coordinating Committee on Clinical Preventive Services, the Executive Committee of the Environmental Health Policy Committee, and Secretary's Task Force on Smoking and Health. He also founded the National Coordinating Committee on School Health and the National Coordinating Committee on Worksite Health Promotion. Dr. McGinnis is a fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine and the American College of Epidemiology, and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. His public service recognitions include the Distinguished Service Medal, the Surgeon General's Medallion, the Arthur S. Flemming Award, the Wilbur J. Cohen Award, and the 1996 Health Leader of the Year Award. Dr. McGinnis has degrees in political science, medicine, and public policy from University of California at Berkeley (B.A.), UCLA (M.D., M.A.), and Harvard University (M.P.P.).

John H. Rodgers, M.A., is a research and editorial associate at Health Policy Associates in San Francisco. Previously, he was a research associate and statistical analyst at the Veteran's Affairs Center for Health Care Evaluation in Menlo Park, California, where he conducted national evaluation studies of substance abuse treatment programs. His interests include social policy, international and community development, and environmental issues. He has published articles in Medical Care, the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, the Journal of Developing Societies, and Earth Island Journal. He earned an undergraduate degree from Oberlin College and a master's degree in sociology from the University of California at Santa Barbara..

Lewis G. Sandy, M.D., is executive vice president at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. His responsibilities include strategic planning, program development and management, and Foundation operations. Dr. Sandy previously had been a vice president for programs at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (since 1991), and his portfolio of activities included grant programs for improving care for people with chronic illness; understanding the changing health care marketplace; and addressing issues of physician supply, distribution, and specialty mix. Dr. Sandy has been the Foundation's senior officer overseeing national programs to improve chronic care. He has also been active in the Foundation's workforce initiatives, in efforts to track the changing health care system, and in programs to improve managed care. An internist and former health center medical director at the Harvard Community Health Plan in Boston, Massachusetts, Dr. Sandy received his B.S. and M.D. degrees from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. degree from Stanford University. A former Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of California at San Francisco, Dr. Sandy has held clinical faculty appointments at UCSF and Harvard University and served his internship and residency at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He continues to practice and teach at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, where he is an associate clinical professor of medicine.

Steven A. Schroeder, M.D., is president and chief executive officer of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Schroeder trained in internal medicine at the Harvard Medical Service of the Boston City Hospital, in epidemiology as a member of the Epidemic Intelligence Service of the Communicable Diseases Center, and in public health at the Harvard Center for Community Health and Medical Care. He served as an instructor in medicine at Harvard, assistant and associate professor of medicine and health care sciences at George Washington University, and associate professor and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). At both George Washington University and UCSF he was founding medical director of a university-sponsored health maintenance organization, and at UCSF he founded its Division of General Internal Medicine. Dr. Schroeder continues to practice general internal medicine on a part-time basis at The Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He has more than two hundred publications to his credit. Dr. Schroeder has served on a number of editorial boards, including-at present-the New England Journal of Medicine, and is a member of the boards of the Independent Sector, the American Legacy Foundation, and the Harvard University Board of Overseers. He received honorary doctorates from Rush University, Boston University, the University of Massachusetts, and Georgetown University.

Rosemary Gibson is senior program officer at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She is team leader for the Foundation’s grant making to improve care for people at the end of life, with special interest in reform of health professions education, building capacity in health care systems to provide palliative care, and state and federal policy change. Her responsibilities have also included overseeing and developing new funding initiatives to improve care for persons with chronic disabling conditions and to encourage more minorities to enter the health professions. Before joining the Foundation, she served as a consultant to the Medical College of Virginia and the Joint Commission on Health Care of the Virginia state legislature. She began her professional career as a research associate at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. Other interests include economic development and health care in developing countries. Ms. Gibson received a master’s degree in public policy and finance from the London School of Economics.

Ruby P. Hearn, Ph.D., is senior vice president of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. As a member of the program executive group, Dr. Hearn participates in strategic program planning and serves as a special adviser to the president and as the Foundation’s liaison with the nonprofit community. She has had the major responsibility for oversight and program development of initiatives in maternal, infant, and child health, aids, substance abuse, and minority medical education. She was a Fellow, Yale Corporation (1992–1998) and served on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors for the 1995 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Connecticut, the Science Board for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Advisory Committee to the Director, National Institutes of Health. Dr. Hearn is currently a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy; the National Advisory Council of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; the Institute of Medicine and its Board of Health Care Services; the President’s Drug Free Communities Act Advisory Commission; the Council on Foreign Relations; the Goucher College Board of Trustees; and the Discovery Health Media Advisory Board. She received an undergraduate degree from Skidmore College and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in biophysics from Yale University.

Jay S. Himmelstein, M.D., M.P.H., is assistant chancellor for health policy, director of the Center for Health Policy and Research, and professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Dr. Himmelstein is national program director of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Workers’ Compensation Health Initiative. He previously served as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow for the U.S. Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee and has written numerous articles on occupational medicine and health policy.

Marguerite Y. Holloway is a freelance science writer and a contributing editor at Scientific American. Her work has appeared in various publications, including Natural History, Business Week, Wired, and The Village Voice. She is an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, where she received her master’s degree and where she teaches courses on environmental and science and health reporting. She has edited and written medical and health stories for Scientific American since she joined the magazine’s staff in 1990; before then, she covered similar topics as a reporter for the Medical Tribune.

Frank Karel is vice president for communications at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a position he held from 1974 until early 1987 and then resumed again in 1993. During the interim years, he served in the same capacity at the Rockefeller Foundation. Mr. Karel has also served as a program officer at the Commonwealth Fund, headed The Johns Hopkins Medical Institution’s public relations office, was an associate director of the federal government’s National Cancer Institute, and was director of planning for National Jewish Hospital and Research Center in Denver. He began his career as The Miami Herald’s first science writer after having been a staff writer for The Tampa Tribune and the Gainesville Daily Sun while pursuing his undergraduate degree. He is a director of the Council on Foundations and chairs its Committee on Media and Public Affairs. He is a member and was founding chairman of the Communications Network, a member and former director of the National Association of Science Writers, a member of the Public Relations Society of America, and past chairman of that organization’s Health Section. Mr. Karel received a master’s degree in public administration from New York University and is a distinguished alumnus of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, where he completed his undergraduate education.

J. Michael McGinnis, M.D., M.A., M.P.P., is senior vice president and director of the health group at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Dr. McGinnis came to his post in 1999 from a four-year appointment as scholar-in-residence at the National Academy of Sciences. Previously, he served as Assistant Surgeon General and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health in the United States Department of Health and Human Services, holding leadership responsibility at the federal level for disease prevention and health promotion through four administrations, 1977 to 1995. Dr. McGinnis has served as chair of various national boards and committees, including the Nutrition Policy Board, the National Coordinating Committee on Clinical Preventive Services, the Executive Committee of the Environmental Health Policy Committee, and Secretary’s Task Force on Smoking and Health. He also founded the National Coordinating Committee on School Health and the National Coordinating Committee on Worksite Health Promotion. Dr. McGinnis is a fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine and the American College of Epidemiology, and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. His public service recognitions include the Distinguished Service Medal, the Surgeon General’s Medallion, the Arthur S. Flemming Award, the Wilbur J. Cohen Award, and the 1996 Health Leader of the Year Award. Dr. McGinnis has degrees in political science, medicine, and public policy from University of California at Berkeley (B.A.), UCLA (M.D., M.A.), and Harvard University (M.P.P.).

John H. Rodgers, M.A., is a research and editorial associate at Health Policy Associates in San Francisco. Previously, he was a research associate and statistical analyst at the Veteran’s Affairs Center for Health Care Evaluation in Menlo Park, California, where he conducted national evaluation studies of substance abuse treatment programs. His interests include social policy, international and community development, and environmental issues. He has published articles in Medical Care, the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, the Journal of Developing Societies, and Earth Island Journal. He earned an undergraduate degree from Oberlin College and a master’s degree in sociology from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Lewis G. Sandy, M.D., is executive vice president at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. His responsibilities include strategic planning, program development and management, and Foundation operations. Dr. Sandy previously had been a vice president for programs at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (since 1991), and his portfolio of activities included grant programs for improving care for people with chronic illness; understanding the changing health care marketplace; and addressing issues of physician supply, distribution, and specialty mix. Dr. Sandy has been the Foundation’s senior officer overseeing national programs to improve chronic care. He has also been active in the Foundation’s workforce initiatives, in efforts to track the changing health care system, and in programs to improve managed care. An internist and former health center medical director at the Harvard Community Health Plan in Boston, Massachusetts, Dr. Sandy received his B.S. and M.D. degrees from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. degree from Stanford University. A former Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of California at San Francisco, Dr. Sandy has held clinical faculty appointments at UCSF and Harvard University and served his internship and residency at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He continues to practice and teach at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, where he is an associate clinical professor of medicine.

Steven A. Schroeder, M.D., is president and chief executive officer of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Schroeder trained in internal medicine at the Harvard Medical Service of the Boston City Hospital, in epidemiology as a member of the Epidemic Intelligence Service of the Communicable Diseases Center, and in public health at the Harvard Center for Community Health and Medical Care. He served as an instructor in medicine at Harvard, assistant and associate professor of medicine and health care sciences at George Washington University, and associate professor and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). At both George Washington University and UCSF he was founding medical director of a university-sponsored health maintenance organization, and at UCSF he founded its Division of General Internal Medicine. Dr. Schroeder continues to practice general internal medicine on a part-time basis at The Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He has more than two hundred publications to his credit. Dr. Schroeder has served on a number of editorial boards, including—at present—the New England Journal of Medicine, and is a member of the boards of the Independent Sector, the American Legacy Foundation, and the Harvard University Board of Overseers. He received honorary doctorates from Rush University, Boston University, the University of Massachusetts, and Georgetown University.