Impact Fellows

Dr. Brian Anderson is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI) where he leads a national coalition in the development of technical standards and best practices for MLOps, including governance, testing, evaluation and monitoring in Health AI Assurance Labs.

Prior to CHAI, Dr. Anderson was the Chief Digital Health Physician at MITRE where he led research and development efforts across major strategic initiatives in Digital Health, including partnering with the United States Government and private sector organizations. He was responsible for leading MITRE’s efforts in Advancing Clinical Trials at the Point of Care (ACT@POC), an effort that develops digital tools and approaches to support more diverse and efficient pragmatic clinical trials in Cancer and other diseases. He was also the co-PI on MITRE’s largest Health R&D effort in Oncology, supporting Cancer Moonshot efforts.

Dr. Anderson is an internationally recognized expert and author in digital health and Health AI; he is regularly engaged as a speaker on digital health innovation, Health AI assurance and best practices, health standards development, clinical decision support systems, and interoperability. Prior to MITRE, Dr. Anderson led the Informatics and Network Medicine Division at Athenahealth where he launched a new approach to clinical decision support leveraging machine learning models. He has also served on several national health information technology committees in partnership with the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC).

Dr. Anderson trained at Massachusetts General Hospital and also practiced at Greater Lawrence Family Health Center. He received his MD with honors from Harvard Medical School, and a BA in Social Anthropology, cum laude from Harvard College. Currently he lives in the greater Boston area, with his wife and 3 children.

Dr. Tomás Aragón served as the director of the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and as the State Public Health Officer from January, 2021 through January, 2025. Striving to embody and promote the universal values of dignity, equity, compassion, and belonging, he worked to transform systems and policies towards a culture of equity, belonging, healing, and health for all people and our planet. As CDPH director, he led CDPH’s transformation to “becoming a learning, healing, and impactful organization.” As State Public Health Officer, he exercised leadership and legal authority to protect health, promote well-being, and prevent disease and injury.

Prior to coming to CDPH, for 10 years, he was the health officer for the City and County of San Francisco and director of the Population Health Division. He has served in public health leadership roles for more than 25 years, including directing a public health emergency preparedness and response research and training center at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health.

Currently, he promotes community-based solutions that foster mental health and well-being, and that cultivate social connection, belonging, and resilience. He studies human decision intelligence to improve strategic decision making in the face of uncertainty, trade-offs, and time constraints. He blogs on public health topics at TeamPublicHealth.substack.com.

Jacey Cooper is an accomplished healthcare executive with over 20 years of experience in Medicaid policy and healthcare delivery system reform. She is a proven leader in driving transformational initiatives at federal, state, and local levels.

Jacey most recently served as director of the State Demonstrations Group at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), where she oversaw the center’s efforts to support state-led innovations in Medicaid and CHIP demonstrations. She acted as the CMS lead for emerging policies requiring Section 1115 authority, provided technical assistance to states and issued federal guidance on 1115 budget neutrality. She also prioritized addressing health disparities, improving access and coverage, and advancing innovative service delivery models.

Before joining CMS, Jacey held multiple roles with the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), most recently serving as California’s state Medicaid director and chief deputy director. During her tenure, she was instrumental in designing and launching the California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM) program, a transformation initiative aimed at reforms in population health, behavioral health, managed care, duals integration, social drivers of health and reentry. Through this, she played a key role in securing CMS’ approval for the state’s Health Related Social Needs and Justice-Involved 1115 demonstrations. She also led billions in investment to expand coverage, benefits, and payment reform initiatives.

Prior to her work in California Medicaid, Jacey served as an executive at a public hospital, Kern Medical Center, where she led the hospital’s transition from a county department to an independent hospital authority, launched the county’s self-funded health plan and managed their indigent care program.

Jacey is a recipient of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Academy for State Health Policy’s Medicaid Innovation award and was a Modern Healthcare “Up & Comers” Honoree in 2016.

Joseph Griffin is a dedicated public health practitioner, advocate, and researcher with over 15 years of experience, much of which has been spent exploring violence as a public health issue. Joseph is the executive director of Youth Alive, a violence prevention organization dedicated to breaking cycles of violence, healing trauma, and uplifting community leaders. He is a triple golden bear, completing his doctorate in public health at BPH with a focus on community-level healing from community-wide trauma.

He is currently a lecturer at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health where he helped co-found the G-VITAL Institute (Gun Violence Interruption Through Action Learning). Joseph is passionate about building the bridge between research and practice. He is known as an innovative program designer and organizer and has extensive experience working with communities in Oakland, Richmond, and San Francisco. Outside of work, Joseph can regularly be found watching Bluey with his two amazing kids.

Rebecca ‘Becky’ Messing Haigler, MPH, MBA, is an experienced healthcare executive and health economics expert. As a Strategic Advisor at Healthsperien, she guides health tech portfolio companies, investment firms and public sector clients to develop evidence-based data foundations for payment model reform. Rebecca recently completed a fellowship for The Kennedy Forum focused on the next generation data + outcomes models for behavioral health.

She currently chairs the OneMind Accelerator’s Payor Advisory Council, and serves on the San Francisco General Hospital’s Transform Mental and Behavioral Healthcare Fund. She also served 5 years on the global Board of Directors for HIMSS (the Health Information Management Systems Society).

Rebecca was previously Health Economics Lead at Verily Life Sciences, an Alphabet company where she was on the founding team of several companies including Granular Insurance and OneFifteen – a tech enabled substance use disorder treatment ecosystem.

Rebecca has held strategic leadership positions at the Chartis Group, Blue Shield of CA, Sg2 Healthcare Intelligence and developed global expertise via Abbott Labs management rotational program. She began her career in cardiovascular clinical research at Brigham & Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Rebecca completed her graduate studies at UC Berkeley and earned her bachelor’s degree in engineering at the University of Michigan.

Neal Halfon, MD, MPH is founding director of the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities, and Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; Health Policy and Management in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health; and Public Policy in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. For more than three decades Halfon has been instrumental in advancing research, policy and systems innovations focused on the healthy development of children at local, national and international levels. This has included the development of new ways of measuring child health and wellbeing and using that information to inform and advance placed based efforts to enhance equitable thriving.

Dr. Halfon has spearheaded the development of new conceptual models and measurement frameworks focused on life course health development (LCHD. In 2010, the federal MCH Bureau established the Life Course Research Network, and 2018 the Life Course Intervention Research Network, and in 2023 the Life Course Translational Research Network; all of which Halfon has directed. The LCHD framework has also been used to inform the World Health Organization’s life course approach to healthy aging, and served as the conceptual underpinning for several National Academy of Sciences reports.

Dr. Halfon has also led the development of the 3.0 Health System Transformation Framework (3.0TF), to guide the transformation of our current 2.0 Health Care System into a 3.0 Health System designed to optimize the equitable health development of the entire population. The 3.0 Transformation Framework has informed US and international health system transformation initiative.

Dr. Rishi Manchanda is CEO at HealthBegins, a national mission-driven strategy and implementation firm that helps Medicaid-serving managed care plans, health systems, and social sector clients to exceed health care equity and social needs performance requirements, and achieve long-term impact for people and communities harmed by societal practices. Dr. Manchanda’s areas of expertise include building and scaling value-based care models for historically marginalized populations, embedding and advancing equity in clinics and communities, and designing and leading national and regional policy initiatives to improve population health.

Dr. Manchanda served as the founding director of social medicine for a network of community health centers in south central Los Angeles, as the first lead physician for homeless veterans at the Greater Los Angeles VA, and as the chief medical officer for a multi-billion dollar employer with a large rural agricultural workforce. In his 2013 book – The Upstream Doctors – and TED Talk, he introduced “Upstreamists”, a new model of healthcare professionals and leaders who improve outcomes by addressing the social and structural drivers of health equity – patients’ social needs, community-level social determinants of health, and structural determinants of health equity including structural racism. Based in Los Angeles, Dr. Manchanda serves as a board member and advisor for several national nonprofits, companies, and initiatives that promote health equity, economic opportunity, and participatory democracy.

Sarita A. Mohanty, MD, MPH, MBA, is President and CEO of The SCAN Foundation, an independent public charity working to create a society where all people can age well with purpose. Under her leadership, the Foundation drives bold, equitable changes in how older adults age—at home or in community.

Before joining SCAN, Sarita was Vice President of Care Coordination for Medicaid and Vulnerable Populations at Kaiser Permanente. Her past roles include Chief Medical Officer at COPE Health Solutions, Senior Medical Director at L.A. Care Health Plan, and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Southern California.

She earned her MD from Boston University, an MPH from Harvard, and an MBA from UCLA, with an undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley. Sarita completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess and a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School. She continues to teach as an Associate Professor at the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine and practices internal medicine with Kaiser Permanente.

Sarita’s expertise spans care integration, Medicaid/Medicare systems, social determinants of health, and system-level transformation. She is passionate about improving care for vulnerable populations by aligning physical, behavioral, and social care—particularly within safety net Systems.

She serves on several advisory councils and boards, including the Implementing the MPA in California Together (IMPACT) Stakeholder Committee, which guides innovations in aging, disability, and equity policy.

In 2023, she was named to ForbesWomen’s “50 Over 50” list in partnership with Know Your Value, celebrating her impactful leadership and aligning with SCAN’s mission to elevate aging as a superpower.

Outside of work, Sarita enjoys international travel, tennis, and time with her husband, three children, and their dog, Apollo.

Nikita Singareddy is the CEO and cofounder of Fortuna Health, a technology company simplifying navigation of Medicaid and government health programs. Built with a consumer-first approach, Fortuna helps millions of low-income Americans navigate eligibility, enrollment, and renewal processes that are often fragmented, complex, and manual. The company is backed by leading investors, including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Y Combinator, as well as founders of transformative companies such as Abridge, Cityblock, DoorDash, and PillPack.

Prior to founding Fortuna, Nikita worked at the intersection of healthcare and technology as both an investor and operator. She was at Truepill, where she helped launch new service lines for Medicaid and FQHCs, and previously worked in population health operations at Oscar Health, a startup health insurer focused on the ACA Marketplace. Her work across startups, venture capital, and health systems shaped her belief that public programs deserve the same level of thoughtful, modern technology experience as the best consumer products.

Nikita holds a degree in History and Statistics from Columbia University.

Dr. Matt Willis is a physician and epidemiologist who served as Marin County’s Public Health Officer from 2013 to 2024. He is a champion of radical collaboration between government and community to solve complex public health problems, rooted in data driven strategies and clear communication of science.

Dr. Willis currently serves at Your Local Epidemiologist, a national public health news outlet. For his fellowship project, he will be launching a weekly public health newsletter dedicated to California. He will be piloting novel tools to gain input and learn from diverse communities state-wide.

Operating on the principle that the highest attainable standard of health is a human right, Dr. Willis began his career as an internal medicine physician and Director of Primary Care on the Navajo Nation in Arizona before serving as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer at the CDC. As an EIS officer he worked to strengthen tuberculosis control programs in the US, Kazakhstan, and India, and helped design the outbreak detection system in post-earthquake Haiti.

As Health Officer, Dr. Willis led local community-based coalitions dedicated to addressing the opioid crisis and Covid-19 pandemic. At the start of the pandemic, he joined six other Bay Area health officers to issue the nation’s first shelter-at-home policy.

He has published research in tuberculosis control, overdose prevention, pandemic response, vaccine decision making, and crisis communications, He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Public Health Accreditation Board, and is a scientist with the PRO Climate and Health Initiative, applying AI to forecast the health impacts of climate change.

Prior to a career in medicine he spent five years as a road cyclist on the US National Cycling Team.