Contributing Writers

	Jessie C. Gruman, PhD (jgruman@cfah.org) is president and founder of the Center for Advancing Health, a Washington-based research institute that works to ensure that everyone is prepared to live a healthy life and make good choices about health and health care. Dr. Gruman is a widely published author; her most recent book, AfterShock, What to Do When the Doctor Gives You — Or Someone You Love — A Devastating Diagnosis, helps patients navigate their way through the health care system in the weeks following a serious or life-threatening diagnosis. Her experiences as a patient — having been diagnosed with four life threatening illnesses — informs her perspective. Dr. Gruman is also a respected academic and scholar. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University and is a Professorial Lecturer in the School of Public Health and Health Services at The George Washington University. She is the co-editor of the Journal of Participatory Medicine and serves on the board of trustees of the Center for Medical Technology Policy, the Advisory Panel on Medicare Education of DHHS, and the Technical Board of the Milbank Memorial Fund. More information about Dr. Gruman.
	Gail Hunt, is president and CEO of the National Alliance for Caregiving, a nonprofit coalition of more than 40 national groups, which conducts national research, outreach and public awareness programs to support family caregivers of older and disabled people. Until 1996, Ms. Hunt was president of Gibson-Hunt Associates, a Washington management consulting firm specializing in aging issues. In 1993, working with the American Occupational Therapy Association, she developed an award-winning video and training package for Alzheimer's caregivers, "A Part of Daily Life," that described how to structure the home environment to support family life with a person with Alzheimer's. She also was a senior manager at KPMG Peat Marwick in Washington. Her work on eldercare has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Working Woman, American Demographics, the New York Times, Parade magazine, CNN, MSNBC and other media. Ms. Hunt attended Vassar College and graduated from Columbia University with a degree in English. She also attended the International Graduate Institute at Oxford University in England..
	Dorothy Jeffress, MBA, MSW, MA, (djeffress@cfah.org) is the executive director of the Center for Advancing Health. Prior positions include vice president, Center for Information Therapy, 2005-2008, where she assisted with the IxAction Alliance membership program, the annual Ix Conference and finance/administration for the IxCenter; and as the assistant vice president of Value Based Purchasing for the National Business Coalition on Health (NBCH) from 2003 to 2005, where she directed the eValue8 Request for Information (RFI) program. She also worked with NCQA from 1999 to 2002 where she was the director of constituent relations and a senior health care analyst in HEDIS performance measure development. She has also worked for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health as the director of a CDC/state-funded women's health promotion and chronic disease prevention program. She has managed a TPA for self-funded employee benefit programs and also been a benefit manager for a mid-sized employer. Dorothy has an MBA from Clemson University and an MSW in clinical social work and an MA in theology from Boston College.
	Sarah Jorgenson (sjorgenson@cfah.org) serves as the Communications and Research Associate for the Center for Advancing Health and a contributing writer for the Health Behavior News Service. She recently graduated with a MA in Bioethics, Humanities, and Society from Michigan State University (MSU). There she worked as a research assistant for Dr. Margaret Holmes-Rovner with the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences. She served on the research team for the Snapshot of People's Engagement in Their Health Care, contributed to a Cochrane Review update, and participated in research on shared decision making for patients with coronary artery disease. Sarah also worked as a receptionist at MSU's Child Health Care Clinic for two years and currently collaborates as part of the research team for the Patient Centered Medical Home. She also volunteers at the Refugee Development Center in Lansing, Michigan teaching English as a Second Language.
	Douglas Kamerow, MD, MPH, (doug.kamerow@cfah.org) chair for the board of the Center for Advancing Health, is chief scientist for health, social and economics research at Research Triangle Institute. He is the former director of the Center for Practice and Technology Assessment at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, where he developed and led a multi-program national initiative to improve health care quality through the development and implementation of evidence-based tools and research. He conceived and supervised creation of the Evidence-Based Practice Centers program and the National Guideline Clearinghouse. In 2001, he joined RTI, where he leads research on health-related behaviors, preventive medicine, evidence-based care and improving the quality of health care. Previously, Dr. Kamerow spent 20 years in the U.S. Public Health Service, initiating and leading key federal research, health policy, public health and clinical programs. A family physician, he is a graduate of University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and holds a Master of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University. He did his undergraduate work in government at Harvard College.
	Trudy Lieberman, (tlieberman@cfah.org) a journalist for 40 years, was recently director of the health and medical reporting program at the Graduate School of Journalism, City University of New York. She had a long career at Consumer Reports specializing in insurance, health care and health care financing. Lieberman was also the director of the Center for Consumer Health Choices at Consumers Union. She is a contributing editor to the The Nation and the Columbia Journalism Review and will continue to blog for its website, CJR.org, about the press coverage of health care, Social Security, and other income security issues. More information about Trudy Lieberman.
	Molly Mettler, MSW, (mmettler@cfah.org) is the Senior Vice President for Healthwise where she advocates for a transformation in the role of the health care consumer from a passive recipient to one who's stronger, more active and involved in his or her own care. Ms. Mettler is past chair of the National Council on Aging (NCOA) and continues to serve on its Board and Leadership Council. She was the founding chair for the NCOA's Health Promotion Institute in 1990. In addition, she serves on the National Advisory Board for the Practice Change Fellows Program, a two-year fellowship supporting health professionals in developing leadership skills and content expertise to positively influence care for older adults. Ms. Mettler has written four books and is a well known speaker, key media source and advocate for informed patients.   More information about Molly Mettler
	Kalahn Taylor-Clark, PhD, MPH, (ktclark@cfah.org) leads the Racial and Ethnic Healthcare Equity Initiative in the RWJF funded High Value Health Care Project within the Engelberg Center of Healthcare Reform at the Brookings Institution. This Initiative seeks to inform regional, state, and national practices for collecting and reporting race/ethnicity data and measuring health care equity. Prior to joining Brookings, she was a W.K. Kellogg Health Scholar at Harvard University, where her areas of research included public health communication in politically and socially marginalized populations and minority voting on healthcare issues. In 2005-2007, Dr. Taylor-Clark was a lecturer at Tufts University, where she taught "Women and Health" and "The Politics of Health Disparities." Before teaching at Tufts, Dr. Taylor-Clark held a position as a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health's Project on Biological Security and the Public, where she focused on risk communication in communities of color during public health emergencies. Selected first-authored publications include, "News of Disparity: Content Analysis of News Coverage of African American Healthcare Inequalities in the USA, 1994-2004" (2007), "Communication Inequalities on Cancer and the Environment: Implications for Communicating Environmental Risk in Low-SEP Populations" (2007), "Confidence in Crisis: Understanding Trust in Government and Public Attitudes toward Mandatory State Health Powers" (2005), and "African Americans' Views on Health Policy: Implications for the 2004 Elections," published in Health Affairs in 2003. She completed a PhD in Health Policy and Political Analysis from Harvard University, and an MPH and BA (in International Relations and French) from Tufts University.

Prepared Patient Contributing Writers

	Lisa Esposito, former editor of the Health Behavior News Service, has a dual background as a health journalist and clinician. Before coming to the Health Behavior News Service, she worked at several media outlets, including Gannett Information Services and the Knight Ridder Tribune business wire. A graduate of the University of Maryland, she is a registered nurse who served as a research coordinator at the National Institutes of Health. She has written about HIV/AIDS, diabetes, obesity, nursing profession issues, rape forensics and emergency room care.
	Becky Ham, Science Writer, has been a science writer since graduating with her Ph.D. in biological anthropology from New York University in 2000. Before coming to HBNS, she worked as a writer for the American Association for the Advancement of Health and the Optical Society of America. Her freelance publications include work for Health magazine, MSNBC.com, the American Public Health Association and Macmillian Publishers. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers.
	Taunya English is a reporter for WHYY in the Philadelphia, PA region, reporting on health and energy policy from the Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa. Before joining WHYY, Taunya was interim Bureau Chief for Public Radio Capitol News, the statehouse news service in Harrisburg, Pa. For three years, Taunya worked as a freelance health reporter for Baltimore's NPR affiliate, WYPR. Her stories gave attention to farmers in rural Maryland, working homeless people in Aberdeen and lay health workers in the Washington, D.C. suburbs. Taunya English has also worked a newspaper reporter in Northern California and as a science writer in Washington, DC. She earned her graduate degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. The Prepared Patient feature stories written by Ms. English were written while she was an employee of the Center for Advancing Health.
	Maia Szalavitz is a neuroscience journalist who has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Time Magazine online and other major publications. She's a senior fellow at media watchdog stats.org and co-author, most recently, of "Born for Love: Why Empathy is Essential — and Endangered "(Morrow, 2010) with Bruce Perry, MD, PhD.

Health Research News Writers

Valerie DeBenedette is a medical writer whose work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, newsletters and on the Internet. She is the author of Caffeine, a book for young people, and is a member of the National Association of Science Writers.

Randy Dotinga is a freelance writer based in San Diego. He writes for the Christian Science Monitor, Chronicle of Higher Education, Wired News, Voice of San Diego and HealthDay News, among other publications.

Sylviane Duval is a Canadian writer who includes the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the federally funded Networks of Centres of Excellence program among her science-based clients. Sylviane is a member of the Editors' Association of Canada and Ottawa Independent Writers.

Glenda Fauntleroy is a freelance editor and writer with more than 17 years experience as an editor of national health publications, including award-winning consumer health magazines. She covers a wide range of health care-related topics, but specializes in women's health, health insurance and chronic illnesses. Glenda is based in Carmel, Ind.

Joan Hennessy is a freelance writer specializing in health, children and family policy. Her articles have appeared in the Baltimore Magazine, Baltimore Sun, American Journalism Review, Virginia Business and Virginia Living.

Katherine Kahn has been a full-time medical writer and journalist since 2003, and also focuses on continuing medical education materials for health care providers and patient education. She has written for venues like WebMD and Alternative Medicine and writing fellowships and grants include awards from the Hedgebrook Foundation and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Star Lawrence is a long-time health and science writer, whose work has appeared on WebMD, UPI Science Desk and CBS "HealthWatch." Her health humor Web site, HealthSass, has been running for three years with more than 950 entries to date.

Patricia McAdams is an award-winning journalist with 18 years experience writing scientific and medical copy for a general audience. Her articles have been appeared in the AARP Bulletin, the Washington Post, Breast Cancer Network of Strength, the Alliance for Aging Research, and the National Academy of Sciences. Patricia is based in Kennett Square, Pa., near Philadelphia.

Amy Sutton, editor of Stroke Sourcebook (Omnigraphics), is a graduate of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Amy, who lives and works in Lancaster County, PA, has contributed to a variety of consumer health, fitness, nutrition, and parenting publications and Web sites, such as Parenting, Muscle & Fitness Hers, and KidsHealth.org.

Bruce Sylvester began writing medical news for United Press International (UPI) and now writes for a variety of American and European-based print and electronic medical publications. He covers breaking news from major medical meetings around the world, from two home/office "bases," one near Atlanta, Ga., and the other near Vienna, Austria.

Kurt Ullman is a veteran medical writer with 25 years of experience. He has had more than 500 articles published in many different publications for both professionals and consumers.

Joan Vos MacDonald is the author of High Fit Home, a book about architecture and fitness, published by HarperCollins, plus five nonfiction books for young adults, including Tobacco and Nicotine Drug Dangers. She has written about health issues while on staff at the Journal News, a Gannett daily newspaper, and for Cosmetic Dermatology and SpineUniverse.com.