WHO WE ARE

For over two decades, Alexandra has worked to spark swift change in our public health system. Her aim? To promote global sustainability - not in theory but in practice. Rather than preaching to the converted, she brings together public and private organizations, champions and naysayers, leading healthcare, non-profit and Fortune 500 companies, to drive change. She launched the Public Health Institute’s Center for Climate Change and the American Hospital Association’s environmental stewardship initiative; co-developed The Greenfield Path, a communications project driving Ford Motor Company’s move to a more sustainable business; and directed Playworks’s capital campaign, raising a record $27.3 million in two years. Most recently, vexed by a vinyl bathmat leeching chemicals into the bathwater of her baby, she resolved to focus on prenatal environmental education – our lack of which costs the US $340 billion a year, and many children their health. Alexandra holds degrees from Harvard, Cornell and the Sorbonne. She has two daughters who inspire her SafetyNEST work.

Dr. Nicole Avena is a research neuroscientist and expert in the fields of nutrition, diet and addiction. Her seminal research on food addiction has jump started this exciting new field of exploration in medicine and nutrition. Her research achievements have been honored by awards from several groups including the New York Academy of Sciences and the American Psychological Association. Dr. Avena’s most recent book, What to Eat When You’re Pregnant, was released in June, 2015, and it helps women understand how to eat healthy and beat cravings while pregnant. Several recipes from this book are featured in the SafetyNEST minimum viable product. She has appeared on the Dr. Oz Show, Good Day NY, The Couch, Home and Family, The Better Show, as well as many other news programs. Her work has been featured in Bloomberg Business Week, Time Magazine for Kids, The New York Times, Shape, Men’s Health, Details, and many other periodicals. Dr. Avena is a member of the Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau. She has the #2 most watched TED-ED Health talk, How Sugar Affects Your Brain.

Dr. Eliza Chin is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCSF. She has been actively involved in AMWA for over a decade, serving as President during AMWA’s 95th Anniversary Year. Working with and collaborating with women physicians leaders is her passion.

Dr. Chin is a graduate of UC Berkeley, Harvard Medical School, and Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health. She completed her training in Primary Care at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She was Assistant Professor of Medicine at Columbia for many years before relocating to California where she continues to teach medical students and practice medicine part-time. She is a past Visiting Scholar of the Women’s Leadership Institute at Mills College.

Holly is the former Marvels columnist of The Wall Street Journal, where she wrote about how science and technology are changing us. Prior to that, she headed the editorial team at Google and was the communications director of The Skoll Foundation. Holly got her start in London, as the editor of How To Spend It at the Financial Times, and leader writer at The Times. Today she is a communications advisor in Silicon Valley and the author of one book, so far (The Baby Chase, about fertility and its opposite). Holly holds an MBA from NYU-Stern and a BA from Yale.

Katie Huffling is a Certified Nurse-Midwife and is an environmental health program manager at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. In her current position Ms. Huffling is coordinating the efforts of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (ANHE). In her work with ANHE, Ms. Huffling works with nurses nationwide on a variety of environmental health issues. Ms. Huffling is the author of a number of peer-reviewed articles on environmental health issues as they relate to pregnancy and has developed an assessment tool to assess chemical exposures during pregnancy. She was also a fellow in the 2011 Reach the Decision Makers program at the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment.

Kathryn served as the CEO of Health Forum for 25 years and retired in 2002. She's the Co-Founder of the Center for Global Service and an active consultant on global health issues. She has served on numerous Boards, including chairing the Boards of the Institute for Research on Learning and the American Society of Association Executives. She is a former W. K Kellogg Foundation Fellow. Currently, Kathryn serves on Boards of the UN’s World Food Program-USA, Global Women’s Leadership Program at Santa Clara University’s Business School, the Health Technology Center, Samueli Institute, Food Commons 2.0, Omni Med, and RENEW. She also serves on advisory boards of: MedShare Western Council, Living Goods, We Care Solar, and Care for Peace.

Peggy enjoyed striving for over 25 years as a journalist and an environmentalist. Her thesis is on what is missing in both fields: feminine embodied wisdom as a serious source of accurate news and shifting trends. For 12 years she ran the Resource Renewal Institute (RRI) Green Plans Program on sustainable management, leading policy tours to the Netherlands and New Zealand to meet with systems-thinking practitioners. While a visiting lecturer at the University of Auckland, Peggy learned the slow-care values of her midwife, along with Māori and Pasifika mothers-to-be. She led the Fred Gellert Family Foundation’s support of the Funders Forum on Antibiotic Resistance, which inspired her and three philanthropists to launch WELL Network to increase awareness of women’s toxic body burden. Since 2004, she has volunteered with the San Diego Foundation, and keeps a foot in the Bay Area, consulting for RRI and Heyday Books.

Elise has 25 years of experience working in the nonprofit sector in a number of leadership positions. She most recently served as the Director of the Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE), an international program of Commonweal. Elise is currently Chair of the Board of Directors of The Endocrine Disruptor Exchange (TEDX) and a member of the Board of Directors of Days for Girls International. She also serves on the National Advisory Board of the Children’s Environmental Health Network (CEHN). Earlier in her career, she founded and directed the Institute for Children’s Environmental Health and served as a member of the US EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee. Prior to that, she was the founding Executive Director of the Jenifer Altman Foundation. She also completed a three-year Fetzer Fellowship for her work with emerging leaders on sustainable development and environmental health issues. Elise holds degrees from Harvard University and Dartmouth College.

Danielle is a public health professional with expertise in children’s environmental health, health education and communication, school-based mental health, and social work practice. She currently serves as a health communications lead on both the American Public Health Association Children’s Environmental Health Committee and the International Society for Children’s Health and the Environment. Danielle recently completed a post-graduate fellowship awith the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Children’s Health Protection where she worked toward protecting children from toxic chemicals by streamlining health communication strategies for the public. She has significant experience in designing digital media campaigns for targeted audiences through various social media platforms. Danielle received her Master’s in Public Health and Master’s in Social Work from the University of Southern California.

Shanna is a professor of Environmental Medicine & Public Health and a professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science at Mount Sinai. Dr. Swan has worked for over twenty-five years to understand the threats posed by chemicals to our environment. Of most concern to Dr. Swan are the chemicals that our bodies can confuse with its own hormones (the “endocrine disrupting” chemicals) and their sexually dimorphic effects on development. At the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Dept of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, Dr. Swan is working with a wide range of collaborators, including epidemiologists, psychologists, biostatisticians, geneticists and systems biologists to conduct studies and develop methods to evaluate the risks from such chemicals. In The Infant Development and the Environment Study (TIDES), Dr Swan and colleagues have been following 800 mothers since early pregnancy and their children (now 4-5 years of age). In TIDES, which is now part of the larger national ECHO study, they are looking at reproductive, neurodevelopmental, pulmonary, and cardiovascular outcomes in relation to prenatal and childhood exposures as TIDES children grow. A list of her publications can be found on the Mount Sinai website.

Tracey has done extensive research and policy development on environmental health issues, with a particular emphasis on early-life development. Her research includes evaluating prenatal exposures to environmental chemicals and related adverse pregnancy outcomes, and characterizing developmental risks. She has authored numerous scientific publications and book chapters, and has been quoted widely in the press. She was appointed by the governor of California in 2012 to the Science Advisory Board of the Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant (DART) Identification Committee.