COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Alan I. Leshner (Chair) is Chief Executive Officer, Emeritus, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and former Executive Publisher of the journal Science. Before joining AAAS, Dr. Leshner was Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health. He also served as Deputy Director and Acting Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, and in several roles at the National Science Foundation. Previously, Dr. Leshner was Professor of Psychology at Bucknell University. Dr. Leshner is an elected fellow of AAAS, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and many others. He is a member and served as Vice Chair of the governing Council of the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. He served two terms on the National Science Board, appointed first by President Bush and then reappointed by President Obama. Dr. Leshner received M.S. and Ph.D. in physiological psychology from Rutgers University and an A.B. in psychology from Franklin and Marshall College. Dr. Leshner has received many honors and awards, including the Walsh McDermott Medal from the National Academy of Medicine and seven honorary Doctor of Science degrees.

Suma Babu is Assistant Professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the Neurological Clinical Research Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and provides clinical care for people with ALS and other motor neuron diseases at the multidisciplinary ALS clinic at the MGH Sean M Healey and AMG Center for ALS. She has a special interest in developing disease modifying treatments and clinical trial biomarker readouts for people with motor neuron diseases. Her clinical research work is primarily aimed at improving ALS patient care and survival outcomes. As the overall principal investigator (PI), she has led two multisite, early-phase, biomarker-driven clinical trials in ALS (MN-166 in ALS-investigator initiated, LAM-002A in C9orf72 ALS-protocol PI for OrphAI therapeutics industry-sponsored trial). She serves as a multiple PI on several NIH-U01 expanded access protocols (EAPs), including the awarded Trehalose 25-site EAP (Seelos), Pridopidine 45 site EAP (Prilenia), and 10-site Autologus Treg infusion EAP (Rapa) funded under the Accelerating Access to Critical Therapies for ALS Act (ACT for ALS). As the MGH site PI, she leads Phase 1, 2, and 3 clinical trials evaluating novel therapeutics for genetic ALS. Dr. Babu serves on the MGH Healey Center Coordinating Center design and operations committee and serves as regimen co-lead for Regimens B and G (Biohaven and Denali) of the Healey ALS platform trial. She serves as faculty of the MGH clinical coordinating center for the gene therapy consortium for gene-based clinical trials conducted within the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke (NINDS) NeuroNEXT network. As of March 2024, she serves as a compensated consultant for uniQure, a gene therapy company. Dr. Babu has also previously consulted with Medscape and served on a Biogen advisory board. Dr. Babu co-chairs the Northeast Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (NEALS) Consortium imaging subcommittee, an international organization for ALS researchers. Her research is funded by awards from NINDS of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Babu is one of the multiple PIs leading the Access for All in ALS East Clinical Coordinating Center awarded by NINDS to MGH funded under the ACT for ALS. Dr. Babu completed her neurology training at the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, and two fellowships in neuromuscular medicine and neurodegenerative disorders at Harvard Medical School. Her clinical research training includes the completion of a 2-year competitive Clinical and Translational Research Academy program at Harvard Medical School (2018), M.P.H. at the University of Maryland School of Public Health (2008), and a 1-year competitive NIH-funded Clinical Trial Methodology Course (2017 cohort).

Chelsey R. Carter is Assistant Professor of public health in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Yale School of Public Health. Dr. Carter has expertise in medicine, public health, and race. Her research program examines how scientific knowledge production, clinical care, and systemic marginalization impact historically underrepresented communities affected by neurodegenerative diseases, like ALS, and genomic medicine. Dr. Carter is also undertaking a book project that includes an ethnographic study of the diverse experiences of living with ALS, which draws on more than 15 years of experience with Black communities affected by ALS. Her scholarship has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Wenner Gren Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the ALS Association, the National Institutes of Health, and more. She serves as an executive board member for the Society for Medical Anthropology, and from April 2022 to January 2023, Dr. Carter was a working group member for the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke Strategic Plan on ALS. Dr. Carter has provided consulting services or made presentations to pharmaceutical companies and nonprofit organizations on issues of race, equity, and inclusion since 2020. Dr. Carter serves on the Care Services Committee for the ALS Association. Dr. Carter was a Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Princeton University in the Department of Anthropology and Center for Transnational Policing. She received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology with a minor in Spanish (high honors) from Emory University. She holds a Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology, an M.P.H., and a certificate in women, gender, and sexuality studies from Washington University in St. Louis.

Maceo Carter is 47 years old and was diagnosed with ALS 8 years ago on November 8, 2016. Two things he has learned during this ALS journey are (1) each person’s journey is their own roller coaster filled with highs and lows, and (2) with the right amount of help it is amazing the life you can live, albeit with a terminal disease. Maceo believes all things happen for a reason and that he has been given the opportunity to help with something that seems insurmountable. He wants to change the outlook on ALS, the approach to caring for those living with ALS, and help people live the best life possible with this disease. Maceo works with the ALS Association and the Many Shades of ALS Team at I AM ALS. He is the father of four sons ages 24, 15, 13, and 2. He is still employed and works 40 hours per week. Before diagnosis, Maceo thoroughly enjoyed cooking, especially with his sons. He is a huge University of North Carolina basketball fan. He and his wife have known each other for more than 20 years and have been married for 9.

George Demiris is Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor in the School of Nursing with a joint appointment in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics in the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. His research explores innovative ways to use inclusive technology and support patients and their families in various settings including homes and communities. He has conducted clinical trials to examine telehealth-based interventions for family caregivers in hospice. He also studies “smart home” solutions and digitally augmented residential settings to facilitate passive monitoring via telehealth, and support quality of life for older adults and people with disabilities. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the American College of Medical Informatics. He served on the National Academies’ committee for the report Health and Medical Dimensions of Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults (2020) and a National Academy of Medicine 2018 work group on technologies to enhance person, family, and community activation. He has presented his research at a National Academies’ Forum on Aging, Disability, and Independence Workshop on the Role of Human Factors in Home Health Care and served as reviewer for the National Academies’ report The Promise of Assistive Technology to Enhance Activity and Work Participation (2017).

John Dunlop is Chief Scientific Officer, Aliada Therapeutics, a central nervous system–focused drug development company advancing a differentiated approach for blood–brain barrier delivery of a range of biologic therapeutics. Until August 2023, he was head of research and development at Neumora, a company launched to pursue an innovative approach to precision medicines for brain diseases. Prior to Neumora, Dr. Dunlop was at Amgen, where he led the neuroscience research program responsible for therapeutic discovery activities in neurodegenerative diseases, pain, and migraine. Prior to Amgen, he led neuroscience discovery and early development at AstraZeneca and previously held executive leadership roles in neuroscience at Wyeth and Pfizer. Dr. Dunlop is an industry member of the HEAL (Helping End Addiction Long term) Partnership Committee, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) advisory committee established to support NIH initiatives launched to address the nation’s opioid crisis. He is a board member of Target-ALS, a nonprofit enterprise dedicated to accelerating drug discovery and development in ALS, and the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council (MassBio), and he is on the scientific advisory boards of Vigil Neuroscience and the Packard Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Dunlop holds a B.Sc. in biochemistry from the University of Glasgow and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of St. Andrews.

Eva L. Feldman is James W. Albers Distinguished University Professor, Russell N. DeJong Professor of Neurology, and Director of the ALS Center of Excellence at the University of Michigan (ALS Centers of Excellence receive some funding from the ALS Association to support patient care). With 30 years of continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health, she was the principal investigator on the first two U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved stem cell transplant clinical trials for ALS. Related to her work in stem cell transplant treatments for ALS, Dr. Feldman previously worked with biotech companies (e.g., NeuroStem Inc. and Seneca) on the clinical translation of her research. Dr. Feldman also had a one-time consulting relationship with Biogen in 2022 regarding ALS therapies. Feldman recently received a National Institutes of Health Director’s Transformative Award for her groundbreaking research on the ALS exposome, as well as separate grants from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for her work on linking environmental pollutants with ALS, and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) on how immunity contributes to ALS risk. Since December 2023, she has been a participant in the Neural Exposome Strategic Plan Working Group being convened by the NINDS Office of Neural Exposome & Toxicology to consider high-impact exposomic research opportunities. Dr. Feldman is an author of the 2022 Lancet ALS seminar outlining the current state of ALS diagnosis, clinical care, and research. At the University of Michigan, she directs a research program of 25 scientists and has more than 500 publications. Dr. Feldman served as President of the American Neurological Association (2011–2013), the third woman to hold this position in 130 years, and she has received lifetime achievement awards from multiple societies. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. Dr. Feldman received her M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, completed neurology residency at Johns Hopkins, and a neuromuscular fellowship at the University of Michigan.

Holly Fernandez Lynch is Assistant Professor of medical ethics and law at the University of Pennsylvania. She pursues conceptual and empirical scholarship regarding clinical research ethics and regulation, access to investigational medicines outside clinical trials, and U.S. Food and Drug Administration pharmaceutical policy, especially early approval pathways for diseases with unmet treatment needs. She is a board member of Public Responsibility in Medicine & Research and the American Society for Law, Medicine, and Ethics, as well as a fellow of the Hastings Center and a National Academy of Medicine Emerging Leader in Health and Medicine. She served as Ethicist in Residence at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation from 2020 to 2023, and, as of January 2024, serves on the Observational Study Monitoring Board for the new Access for All in ALS consortium. She has previously worked as an attorney in private practice, a bioethicist serving the National Institutes of Health’s Division of AIDS, an analyst with President Obama’s Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, and Executive Director of Harvard Law School’s bioethics and health law research program. She earned graduate degrees in law and bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Ileana Howard is a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician specializing in the care of persons with ALS. She currently serves as Chair of the ALS Executive Committee for the Veterans Health Administration as well as caring for patients and families as the Medical Co-Director of the ALS Center of Excellence at the VA Puget Sound in Seattle, Washington. Dr. Howard is Associate Professor of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Washington. She has volunteered for the board of the American Association of Neuromuscular and Electrodiagnostic Medicine (AANEM) and the ALS Association Evergreen Chapter. She was awarded the Clinical Excellence Award by the Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) in 2018, and the Advocacy Award by the AANEM in 2021. She has previously received honorarium for her work with AANEM, PVA, and for consulting on a PBS film on individuals living with ALS. Dr. Howard also serves on the national Medical Advisory Board and local Evergreen Chapter Leadership Council for the ALS Association. Dr. Howard is currently providing her expertise as part of an AANEM effort to develop expert-based consensus guidelines for an ALS home health and durable medical equipment medical standard. She has numerous publications and national presentations on the rehabilitation management of ALS. Dr. Howard received her undergraduate degree at Smith College and received a Fulbright fellowship to study public health in Spain prior to completing her medical doctorate at Harvard Medical School. She completed an internal medicine internship at the Lahey Clinic, followed by a physical medicine and rehabilitation residency at the University of Washington. She maintains dual board certifications in physical medicine and rehabilitation and electrodiagnostic medicine.

Jerome E. Kurent is Professor of neurology and medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina and Director of the ALS Interdisciplinary Clinic at the Ralph H. Johnson Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Charleston, South Carolina. His primary research and educational outreach have focused on palliative and end-of-life care for patients with incurable neurological diseases including ALS, as well as public policy related to providing care for persons with ALS. His research has also included a focus on improving quality of life for African American patients with incurable end-stage diseases. Dr. Kurent is co-editor of Public Policy in ALS/MND Care: An International Perspective and A Clinician’s Guide to Palliative Care. He served as a member of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization ALS Work Group. His honors and awards include the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Neuropalliative Care Society (2021); Faculty Scholar of the Project on Death in America; and Fellow, Mayday Pain and Society. Dr. Kurent received his M.D. from the University of Cincinnati, M.S. from The Ohio State University, and M.P.H. from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He completed residencies in neurology and internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He completed fellowships in neurovirology, neuromuscular diseases, and electromyography at the National Institutes of Health and in geriatric medicine from Harvard.

Won Young Lee is Associate Professor in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Dr. Lee serves as Medical Director of the Clinical Center for Sleep and Breathing Disorders Center and has worked at UT Southwestern for 15 years as an academic faculty, in the clinician educator track. Dr. Lee is board certified in internal medicine, pulmonary medicine, critical care medicine, and sleep medicine. Dr. Lee brings pulmonary expertise in managing patients with chronic respiratory failure relevant to neuromuscular conditions, including ALS, muscular dystrophy, postpolio syndrome, spinal cord injury, diaphragm disorders, myasthenia gravis, and inflammatory muscle or neurologic conditions. In addition, he has expertise in sleep medicine, and continues to practice both pulmonary and critical care medicine. Dr. Lee has received numerous teaching awards, including, most recently, the Regents Outstanding Teaching Award for the State of Texas in 2019. Dr. Lee received his M.D. from the University of Nevada, Reno, School of Medicine and completed internal medicine residency at University of Nevada Affiliated Hospitals. Dr. Lee completed a Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship at Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, and a Sleep Medicine Fellowship at the University of Chicago.

Harold L. Paz is an operating partner at Khosla Ventures focused on health care and life science companies. Previously, Dr. Paz was Professor of medicine at the Renaissance School of Medicine, Stony Brook University, where he was also Executive Vice President for Health Sciences and Chief Executive Officer of Stony Brook University Medicine. Dr. Paz has also served as Executive Vice President and Chancellor for health affairs at The Ohio State University (OSU) and Chief Executive Officer of the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center. Before joining OSU, Dr. Paz was Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at CVS Health/Aetna, where he led clinical strategy and policy for Aetna’s domestic and global businesses. He has served on numerous health care and biotechnology boards and is currently a member of the National Academy of Medicine Leadership Consortium, the board of directors of Research!America and Envision Health, and the medical advisory board of Curai Health. Dr. Paz previously served on the Board of Directors for Select Medical, which provides rehabilitation and postacute care services, and United Surgical Partners International, an ambulatory surgery company. Dr. Paz received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester, a master’s degree in life science engineering from Tufts University, and his M.D. from the University of Rochester. He completed his residency at Northwestern University. Dr. Paz was a Eudowood Fellow in pulmonary and critical care at the Johns Hopkins Medical School and a postdoctoral fellow in environmental health science at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.

Tonya J. Roberts is Associate Professor and Karen Frick Pridham Professor in Family-Centered Care in the School of Nursing at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Roberts’s research is focused on optimizing person- and family-centered care to improve quality of life for vulnerable older adults who require long-term care, with a particular emphasis on promoting autonomy, dignity, and meaningful living in nursing homes. Her research focuses on identifying ways to increase patient and family engagement in care planning and aligning care with patient and family preferences, priorities, and goals. She has prior experience in direct care, nursing, and nursing leadership roles in long-term care settings. She is Affiliate of the Center for Aging Research and Education at the University of Wisconsin and a member of Advancing Excellence, the Moving Forward Coalition, and the Gerontological Society of America. Dr. Roberts received a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. She has formal training in nursing, industrial and systems engineering, and health services research.

Rita Sattler is Professor of translational neuroscience at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. Her research is focused on mechanisms of neurodegeneration in varying dementias, including frontotemporal dementia (FTD), FTD with motor neuron dysfunction (FTD/ALS), Alzheimer’s disease, and Lewy Body dementia using human model systems, including postmortem autopsy tissues and human patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells differentiated into neurons and glial cells. Dr. Sattler is a member of the American Society for Neuroscience and the American Society for Neurochemistry. She is the recipient of several awards and fellowships, including the Governor’s Gold Medal for the highest academic achievement in graduate studies at the University of Toronto and a Human Frontier Science Program Long-term Fellowship. Dr. Sattler serves in uncompensated advisory roles for the Robert Packard Center for ALS Research, Milken Foundation, LiveLikeLou Foundation, Spinogenix Inc., and Korro Bio Inc. Dr. Sattler serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the Northeast Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (NEALS) Consortium and a new scientific program on FTD sponsored by the Milken Institute and the Kissick Family Foundation. In addition, Dr. Sattler has worked with Regenesis Biomedical Inc. Dr. Sattler received her master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Toronto and performed her postdoctoral training in the Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University. She then served as lead scientist for a small startup company overseeing assay development and drug screening of lead compounds for ALS, in addition to the validation of disease biomarkers. From there, Dr. Sattler joined the Drug Discovery Center at Johns Hopkins University to strengthen her expertise in preclinical drug development. She started her first faculty position as Assistant Professor of neurology in 2012 at Johns Hopkins University.

Joel Shamaskin is Professor Emeritus of medicine (retired) at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. He served as Chief Resident in Primary Care Internal Medicine, Fellow in Geriatric Medicine, Attending Physician at Strong Memorial Hospital, and Site Medical Director in the University of Rochester Primary Care Network. He was a clinical educator and practiced primary care internal medicine for 31 years until his ALS diagnosis in 2016. Since 2017 he has been actively involved in various ALS advocacy efforts. Dr. Shamaskin has previously received honorarium from the ALS Association and the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review related to his work in ALS. He was elected a Fellow of the American College of Physicians in 1996 and was the recipient of the James M. Stewart Outstanding Teaching award from the University of Rochester in 2014. He received his M.D. at the University of Virginia in 1980 and completed residency training at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Joshua Sharfstein is Vice Dean for public health practice and community engagement and Professor of the practice in health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He formerly served as Principal Deputy Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Secretary of Maryland’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. A board certified pediatrician, he graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1996, the Boston Combined Residency Program in Pediatrics in 1999, and the fellowship in General Academic Pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine in 2001. Dr. Sharfstein is working on a part-time federal detail to the National Institutes of Health to support efforts to develop a national hepatitis C elimination effort.

Anantha Shekhar is Senior Vice-Chancellor for the health sciences and John and Gertrude Petersen Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. He is a nationally recognized educator, researcher, and entrepreneur with major contributions in medicine and life sciences. At Pitt, Dr. Shekhar leads all six health sciences schools that, for more than a century, have led education and research in their respective fields, propelling scientific discovery and clinical innovation that advance human health. Education at the Schools of the Health Sciences—dental medicine, health and rehabilitation sciences, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and public health—emphasizes individualized curricula and interprofessional team-based instruction to train students in core competencies of their chosen health professions while also preparing them as advocates, innovators, and stewards of responsible, inclusive health care delivery. Innovation, transformation, and successful collaborations across the private, public, and philanthropic sectors have defined Dr. Shekhar’s career. His areas of expertise include basic and clinical research on neuropsychiatric disorders and clinical neuropharmacology. His laboratory has developed several translational models for neuropsychiatric disorders as well as identified novel targets for neuropsychiatric disorder treatments in commercial development. Grants from the National Institutes of Health, private foundations, and commercial collaborations have supported his research. He has co-authored more than 200 original scientific papers published in leading basic science and clinical journals. He is a founder of multiple biotech companies developing novel therapies. Dr. Shekhar is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Forum on Drug Discovery, Development, and Translation. Dr. Shekhar, who was born in India, earned his M.D. at St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore, and Ph.D. in neuroscience at Indiana University.

Mindy Uhrlaub is an author and familial ALS activist. She is a presymptomatic carrier of the fatal gene C9orf72, which causes ALS and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). She has won several awards for her writing, including the 2021 NYC Big Book Award for Cultural Heritage. For the writing of her forthcoming book, A War of Nerves: An ALS Memoir, she has been awarded residencies at Millay Arts, the Hambidge Center, and Joyce Maynard’s Write by the Lake. She is participating in more than a dozen longitudinal studies of ALS/FTD and, through ALS & FTD: End the Legacy, an organization that advocates for carriers of genetic ALS, has testified before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in an opening listening session about the needs of premanifest carriers of ALS genes.

NATIONAL ACADEMIES STAFF

Rebecca A. English (Study Director) is Senior Program Officer in the Board on Health Sciences Policy at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She has directed, co-directed, and staffed a number of projects at the National Academies including, most recently, the Forum on Temporomandibular Disorders (2023-present), Realizing the Promise of Equity in the Organ Transplantation System (2022), Assessment of Strategies for Managing Cancer Risks Associated with Radiation Exposure During Crewed Space Missions (2021), and Necessity, Use, and Care of Laboratory Dogs at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (2020). She staffed the Forum on Drug Discovery, Development, and Translation at the National Academies in various capacities between 2009 and 2016, working on wide-ranging projects related to the U.S. clinical trials enterprise as well as multidrug-resistant tuberculosis throughout the world. Prior to joining the National Academies, she worked on health policy for Congressman Porter J. Goss (FL-14) and for the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association. She holds an M.P.H. from the University of Michigan and a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame in political science.

Ashley Bologna is Senior Program Assistant in the Health Medicine Division at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. In addition to this study, she works on projects initiated by the Committee on Personal Protective Equipment for Workplace Safety and Health. This is a standing committee at the National Academies sponsored by the National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, to provide a forum for discussion of scientific and technical issues relevant to the development, certification, deployment, and use of personal protective equipment, standards, and related systems to ensure workplace safety and health. She earned her M.S. in global health at Georgetown University. She also has a B.A. in international relations and political science from Virginia Wesleyan University.

Lyle Carrera is Research Associate for the Board on Health Care Services at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. He has provided research support for several workshops and consensus studies, most recently including Sustaining Essential Health Care Services Related to Intimate Partner Violence During Public Health Emergencies and Study and Recommendations on the HIMS, FADAP, and Other Drug and Alcohol Programs within the USDOT. Before joining the National Academies, Carrera worked on equity assessment for Baltimore City’s Bureau of the Budget and Management Research, as well as transportation safety policy research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Carrera holds an M.S.P.H. in health policy from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a B.A. in public health studies and political science from the Johns Hopkins University.

Sharyl Nass serves as Senior Director of the Board on Health Care Services and Director of the National Cancer Policy Forum at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The National Academies provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, technology, and medicine. To enable the best possible care for all patients, the Board undertakes scholarly analysis of the organization, financing, effectiveness, workforce, and delivery of health care, with emphasis on quality, cost, and accessibility. The Cancer Forum examines policy issues pertaining to the entire continuum of cancer research and care. For more than two decades, Dr. Nass has worked on a broad range of health and science policy topics that includes the quality and safety of health care and clinical trials, developing technologies for precision medicine, and strategies for large-scale biomedical science. She has a Ph.D. in cell biology from Georgetown University and undertook postdoctoral training at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, as well as a research fellowship at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. She also holds a B.S. and an M.S. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She has been the recipient of the Cecil Medal for Excellence in Health Policy Research, a Distinguished Service Award from the National Academies, and the Institute of Medicine staff team achievement award as team leader.

Clare Stroud is Senior Board Director for the Board on Health Sciences Policy at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. In this capacity, she oversees a program of activities aimed at fostering the basic biomedical and clinical research enterprises; addressing the ethical, legal, and social contexts of scientific and technologic advances related to health; and strengthening the preparedness, resilience, and sustainability of communities. Previously, she served as Director of the National Academies’ Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders, which brings together leaders from government, academia, industry, and nonprofit organizations to discuss key challenges and emerging issues in neuroscience research, development of therapies for nervous system disorders, and related ethical and societal issues. She also led consensus studies and contributed to projects on topics such as pain management, medications for opioid use disorder, traumatic brain injury, preventing cognitive decline and dementia, supporting persons living with dementia and their caregivers, the health and well-being of young adults, and disaster preparedness and response. Dr. Stroud first joined the National Academies as a Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellow. She has also been an Associate at AmericaSpeaks, a nonprofit organization that engaged citizens in decision making on important public policy issues. Dr. Stroud received her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park, with research focused on the cognitive neuroscience of language, and her bachelor’s degree from Queen’s University in Canada.