Mary T. Bassett, MD, MPH, is the Director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University and FXB Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights in the department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. From December 1, 2021 to December 31, 2022 Dr. Bassett was on leave from Harvard and served as New York State’s Health Commissioner. Prior to that, she served as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Director for the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's African Health Initiative and Child Well-Being Prevention Program; and as Deputy Commissioner of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Early in her career, Dr. Bassett served on the medical faculty at the University of Zimbabwe and went on to serve as Associate Director of Health Equity at the Rockefeller Foundation's Southern Africa Office. After returning to the United States, she served on the faculty of Columbia University, including as Associate Professor of Clinical Epidemiology in the Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Bassett received a B.A. in History and Science from Harvard University, an M.D. from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, and an M.P.H. from the University of Washington

Amy Kapczynski is a Professor of Law at Yale Law School, Faculty Co-Director of the Law and Political Economy Project, cofounder of the Law and Political Economy blog, and Faculty Co-Director of the Global Health Justice Partnership. Her research focuses on law and political economy, health justice and the political economy of technology. She has worked closely with social movements involved in campaigns for access to medicines in the U.S. and transnationally, and more recently as part of a coalition calling for a Community Health Corps to combat COVID-19. Before teaching, Kapczynski served as a law clerk to Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Stephen G. Breyer at the U.S. Supreme Court

Nancy Hagans, RN, BSN, CCRN, is president of the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), the nation’s oldest nurses’ union and professional association, representing more than 42,000 registered nurses and healthcare professionals across the state. She also serves on the Council of Presidents of National Nurses United (NNU), the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in the United States, with nearly 225,000 members nationwide.

Ms. Hagans is a nurse and critical care expert with more than 30 years of experience. She was first elected to NYSNA’s Board in 2015 and was elected president in June of 2021. Under Nancy’s tenure as president, NYSNA has helped members navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, lobbied and won groundbreaking safe staffing legislation in New York state, and achieved historic safe staffing, wage and benefit, health and safety, and community benefit victories for 16,000 NYC private sector nurses through the largest contract campaign and strike in the union’s history.

A native of Haiti, Nancy moved to the United States with her family as a preteen. Throughout her career, she has been a vocal advocate for health equity and social justice. With broad experience as a local leader at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn and in oversight of the union, Nancy is a strong and knowledgeable leader.

Nancy has been recognized for her contributions to the field of nursing by numerous organizations, including the Crain’s New York Business list of Top 50 Most Powerful Women in New York in 2021 and 2022, Crain’s 2023 Women of Influence Who Work in Health Care, City and State New York’s 2023 Power of Diversity: Black 100 list and Health Care Power 100 list, PoliticsNY’s Power Players in Health Care, and the 2023 Caribbean Life Impact Award.

Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP, FRCP, KBE, is President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), an organization he co-founded and led as President and CEO for 19 years. He is one of the nation's leading authorities on health care quality and improvement. In July, 2010, President Obama appointed Dr. Berwick to the position of Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which he held until December, 2011. A pediatrician by background, Dr. Berwick has served as Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Health Care Policy at the Harvard Medical School, Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health, and as a member of the staffs of Boston's Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Brigham and Women's Hospital. He has also served as vice chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the first "Independent Member" of the Board of Trustees of the American Hospital Association, and chair of the National Advisory Council of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. He is an elected member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine). Dr. Berwick served two terms on the IOM’s governing Council, was a member of the IOM’s Global Health Board, and currently chairs the NAM Board on Health Care Services. He served on President Clinton's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Healthcare Industry. His numerous awards include the 2007 William B. Graham Prize for Health Services Research, the 2006 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award, and the 2007 Heinz Award for Public Policy. In 2005, he was appointed Honourary Knight Commander of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the highest honor in the UK for non-UK citizens. He is the author or co-author of over 200 scientific articles and six books. He also serves now as Lecturer in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School.

Darrick Hamilton is a university professor, Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy, and founding director of the Institute of Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School. Darrick examines social stratification and political economy in order to move policy and practice in fundamentally new directions that promote economic inclusion, social equity, and civic engagement. 

Considered one of the nation’s foremost public intellectuals, Darrick has been profiled in the New York Times, Mother Jones, and the Wall Street Journal. In 2017, he was featured in Politico's50 Ideas Shaping American Politics and the People Behind Them issue. In 2020, Darrick was named a Freedom Scholar by the Marguerite Casey Foundation and the Group Health Foundation. 

Darrick has been involved in crafting policy proposals that have garnered media attention and inspired legislative proposals at the federal, state, and local levels, including baby bonds, guaranteed income, and a federal job guarantee. In 2020, Darrick served as a member of the economic committee of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force. He has testified before several Senate and House committees, including the Joint Economic Committee and the Senate Banking Committee.  

Darrick was born and raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York. He is a graduate of Oberlin College and received a PhD in Economics from the University of North Carolina.

Victor Roy, MD PhD, is a family physician and sociologist. He is currently completing a post-doctoral fellowship in the National Clinician Scholars Program at Yale School of Medicine and will be starting as Assistant Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Pennsylvania this fall. Alongside Professor Darrick Hamilton and Dr. Dave A. Chokshi, he is building the Health and Political Economy Project, a new initiative aiming to build health-focused economic strategy and action.  

Taking a political economy lens, Victor’s research has investigated equitable access to medicines and the financialization of health care. He is the author of Capitalizing a Cure: How Finance Controls the Price and Value of Medicines (University of California Press, 2023), which examines the influence of financial logics and actors in shaping the pricing, value, and access to breakthrough medicines through the case of curative hepatitis C treatments. His writing on these topics have also been featured in the New England Journal of Medicine and the BMJ.

Previously, he co-founded and served as Executive Director of GlobeMed, a network of students on university campuses partnered with communities around the world to tackle poverty and health inequity. He earned his MD as a Paul and Daisy New American Fellow at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern and his PhD in Sociology as a Gates Cambridge Scholar at the University of Cambridge. A practicing family physician, he completed his residency training during the COVID-19 pandemic at Boston Medical Center. He is the grandson of a physician and village health worker from rural West Bengal, India. 

Dave A. Chokshi — a practicing physician and public health leader — is currently the Sternberg Family Professor of Leadership at the City College of New York. Dr. Chokshi previously served as the 43rd Health Commissioner of New York City. From 2020-2022, he led the City’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including its historic campaign to vaccinate over 6 million New Yorkers. Earlier, he was the inaugural Chief Population Health Officer at NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H), the largest public healthcare system in the nation, where he also served as CEO of the H+H Accountable Care Organization. Dr. Chokshi has practiced primary care internal medicine at Bellevue Hospital since 2014. He has held successive senior leadership roles that span the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. A Rhodes Scholar and White House Fellow, he is nationally recognized as a transformational leader, a clinical innovator, a policy expert, and an advocate for a stronger and more equitable health system.