Arlyss Anderson Rothman, Ph.D., M.H.S., R.N.-C.S., F.N.P., is assistant professor of family health care nursing in the School of Nursing, University of California, San Francisco. She has a doctorate in organizational theory and health services delivery and a master’s degree in health services. Anderson Rothman has worked in primary care as a family nurse practitioner and educator for over twenty-five years and has been conducting health services research for five years. Her studies have included nurse practitioner practice in California, the future of medical education in California, interdisciplinary health care teams in ambulatory care, residents’ attitudes toward fellowship training, the future of primary care in the United States, and the need for nurse management training programs. Anderson Rothman maintains a private practice as a family nurse practitioner in Berkeley, California.

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 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.

Ethan Bronner is the assistant editorial page editor of the New York Times. From 1999 through 2001 he was the paper’s education editor. He came to the New York Times in 1997 as a national correspondent and reported on trends in higher education and grades K–12. From 1985 until 1997 he was with the Boston Globe, where he served as Middle East correspondent, based in Jerusalem, and a Supreme Court and legal affairs correspondent in Washington, D.C. He began his journalistic career at Reuters in 1980 and reported from London, Madrid, and Brussels. Bronner is the author of Battle for Justice: How the Bork Nomination Shook America, which was chosen by the New York Public Library as one of the twenty-five best books of 1989. He received a B.A. in letters from Wesleyan University and an M.S. from Columbia University’s School of Journalism.

Digby Diehl is a writer, literary collaborator, and television, print, and Internet journalist. Recently honored with the Jack Smith Award from the Friends of the Pasadena Public Library, 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. For eleven years, Diehl was the literary correspondent for ABC-TV’s Good Morning America and was recently the book editor for the Home Page show on MSNBC. He continues to appear regularly on the morning news on KTLA. 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 art book publisher Harry N. Abrams, 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. He is presently collaborating with Coretta Scott King on her memoirs.

Richard S. Frank is a freelance writer and editor and is currently an adjunct professor at Boston University’s Washington Journalism Center. From 1976 to 1997 he was the editor of National Journal, the Washington-based weekly on national politics and federal policy. During his tenure, the magazine won two National Magazine Awards, and its reporters won numerous national awards for public affairs reporting. His earlier journalistic experience included stints as a local government reporter for the Bergen Record in New Jersey, as a statehouse and city hall reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun, as state legislative correspondent and public transportation reporter, and later as a Washington correspondent, for the Philadelphia Bulletin, and as international economics and trade reporter, associate editor, and managing editor at National Journal. He interrupted his journalistic career for almost two years to serve as chief administrative assistant to the mayor of Baltimore. He has a bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University in international relations and journalism and a master’s degree from the University of Chicago in political science, and he was an Advanced International Reporting Fellow at Columbia University.

Paul Jellinek, Ph.D., is a principal at Isaacs/Jellinek and senior fellow at Health Policy Associates. He served on the staff of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation from 1983 to 2002, the last eleven years as a vice president for programs. At the Foundation, he was involved in developing and managing programs to improve access to health care, reduce the harm from substance abuse, and improve the organization and delivery of chronic care services. Jellinek has had a particular interest in developing programs to strengthen community capacity, including Fighting Back and Join Together. A former fellow at the Bush Institute for Child and Family Policy in North Carolina, his articles have appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs, and Issues in Science and Technology. Jellinek received a Ph.D. in health policy and administration with a concentration in health economics, as well as a master’s degree in health administration, from the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of South Florida.

Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., MBA, joined the staff of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in April 2001 as the senior vice president and director of the health care group. In January 2003, she became the Foundation’s fourth president and chief executive officer. Prior to coming to the Foundation, Lavizzo-Mourey was the Sylvan Eisman Professor of Medicine and Health Care Systems at the University of Pennsylvania. Lavizzo-Mourey served as the deputy administrator of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (now the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality). While in government service, she worked on the White House health care policy team, including the White House Task Force on Health Care Reform, where she co-chaired the working group on quality of care. Lavizzo-Mourey has served on numerous federal advisory committees and is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and a Master of the American College of Physicians–American Society of Internal Medicine. She earned her medical degree at Harvard Medical School and a MBA degree at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. After completing a residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Lavizzo-Mourey was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, where she also received her geriatrics training.

Laura C. Leviton, Ph.D., is a senior program officer at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Before joining the Foundation, she was a professor of public health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and before that, on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health. Leviton is a leading writer on evaluation methods and practice, in particular for disease prevention. She was president of the American Evaluation Association in 2000, coauthored a leading evaluation text, and serves on several editorial boards for evaluation journals. She received the 1993 award from the American Psychological Association for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest for her work in HIV prevention and health promotion in the workplace. She served on an Institute of Medicine committee to evaluate preparedness for terrorist attacks, and was a member of the CDC’s National Advisory Committee on HIV and STD Prevention.

Jane Isaacs Lowe, Ph.D., is a senior program officer at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and serves as the team leader for the vulnerable populations portfolio, a program staff group focused on improving social health outcomes for low-income children, families, and older adults. At the Foundation, she is also responsible for the development of minority health professions training programs and a matching grants program with local funding partners. She is a current fellow at the New York Academy of Medicine and a member of the board of Grantmakers in Aging. Lowe came to the Foundation from the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work, where she served as a member of the faculty from 1989 to 1998. She was the recipient of the Outstanding Teaching Award in 1992 and 1997. From 1976 to 1989 she worked at the Mt. Sinai Medical Center (New York City), where she served as a faculty member in the medical school’s Department of Community Medicine and as a hospital social work administrator. Lowe has extensive experience in chronic illness, community-based health, and program planning. She earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology and education from Cedar Crest College, her master’s degree in social work from Columbia University, and her doctorate in social welfare policy and planning from Rutgers University.

Carolyn Newbergh is a Northern California writer who has covered health care trends and policy issues for more than twenty years. Her freelance work has appeared in numerous print and on-line publications. As a reporter for the Oakland Tribune, she wrote articles on health care delivery for the poor as well as emergency room violence, AIDS, and the impact of crack cocaine on the children of addicts. She was also an investigative reporter for the Tribune, winning prestigious honors for a series on how consultants intentionally cover up earthquake hazards in California.

Constance M. Pechura, Ph.D., is a senior program officer at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, responsible for the Foundation’s Minority Medical Faculty Development Program, Community Health Leadership Program, Health Policy Fellowships Program, and Depression in Primary Care Program. She came to the Foundation from the Institute of Medicine/ National Academies of Science, where she directed a number of studies in health sciences policy, neuroscience and behavioral health, and veterans’ health, as a senior staff officer from 1988 to 1993. Pechura also served as deputy director (from 1993 to 1995) and director (from 1995 to 1998) of the institute’s Board on Neuroscience and Behavioral Health. In addition, she taught health policy in the Stanford in Washington Program from 1993 to 1998, and anatomy and neuroscience courses at George Washington University Medical School and the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS). Pechura earned a B.S. in psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University and a Ph.D. in anatomy, with a specialization in neuroscience, from USUHS. Her awards include a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, an Outstanding Teaching award from the USUHS Medical School Class of 1988, and the National Research Council’s Special Achievement Award in 1993.

Lewis G. Sandy, M.D., is executive vice president, Clinical Strategies and Policy, UnitedHealthcare. At UnitedHealthcare, a diversified health and well-being company, he leads efforts to promote efficient and effective health care, provide tools and information to doctors and patients to promote health, and foster the growth of evidence-based medicine. Until 2003, Sandy was executive vice president of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, where he was responsible for the Foundation’s program development and management, strategic planning, and administrative operations. Between 1991 and 1996, Sandy was a vice president of the Foundation and was active in the Foundation’s workforce initiatives, its efforts to track the changing health care system, its programs to improve services for chronically ill people, and its programs to improve managed care. An internist and former health center medical director at the Harvard Community Health Plan in Boston, Massachusetts, Sandy received his B.S. and M.D. from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. from Stanford University. A former Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar and Clinical Fellow in Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, Sandy served his internship and residency at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He is an associate clinical professor of medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

Renie Schapiro has an extensive background in health writing and policy. She was editor of The New Physician magazine and the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal. She is coeditor of three books, the most recent of which is Transplanting Human Tissue: Ethics, Policy and Practise (2003). She was also speechwriter and policy adviser to FDA commissioner David Kessler and a research associate with the President’s Commission on Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical Research. She has taught health policy and bioethics at Yale University and the University of Wisconsin–
Madison. She was a special communications officer at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and over the past several years has been a consultant to the Foundation, working closely with presidents Steven Schroeder and Risa Lavizzo-Mourey on speeches and papers on health policy and philanthropy. She has an M.P.H from Yale University and a B.A. from the University of Minnesota.

Jonathan Showstack, Ph.D., M.P.H., is professor of medicine and health policy in the Institute for Health Policy Studies and Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco. He is also associate director of the Institute. Showstack has conducted numerous studies of the costs, effectiveness, and outcomes of medical care and medical education. He has over two decades of experience in the assessment of health care technologies, including studies of kidney and liver transplantation, coronary artery bypass graft surgery, hepatic surgery, neonatal intensive care, and emergency care. He received his doctorate in sociology from the University of California, San Francisco, and his master of public health degree in health administration and planning from the University of California, Berkeley.

Irene M. Wielawski is a health care journalist with twenty years’ experience on daily newspapers, including the Providence Journal-Bulletin and the Los Angeles Times, where she was a member of the investigations team. She has written extensively on problems of access to care among the poor and uninsured, and other socioeconomic issues in American medicine. From 1994 through 2000 Wielawski—with a research grant from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation—tracked the experiences of the medically uninsured in twenty-five states following the demise of President Clinton’s health reform plan. Other projects in health care journalism since then have included helping to develop a pediatric medicine program for public television, and freelance assignments for the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Wielawski has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for medical reporting, among other solo honors. She is a founder of the Association of Health Care Journalists and a graduate of Vassar College.