Bringing Knowledge Home

Burton Edelstein is a Professor Emeritus of Dental Medicine in Pediatric Dentistry and Health Policy & Management at Columbia University, and has dedicated his career to improving the oral health of socially disadvantaged children. He served as a Health Policy Fellow from 1996-1997 in the office of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD).

Following his fellowship, Edelstein became a leading advocate for children's oral health. He co-founded the Children's Dental Health Project (CDHP), a nonprofit dedicated to securing dental coverage for children in underserved communities. He was also instrumental in securing mandatory dental benefits in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a landmark achievement that has expanded access to care for millions of children.

His work continues beyond policy advocacy to the development of innovative public health programs including the "MySmileBuddy" program and the "WeSmile" program. The former program is a technology-based initiative designed to prevent and manage pediatric dental disease. The latter provides support for caregivers of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and further showcases his commitment to improving oral health for vulnerable populations. His commitment to public health shows how the experience gained during thefellowship can translate into tangible, widespread social change.

In 1998, Mario Pacheco, a family physician, founded the Northern New Mexico Family Practice Residency program which expanded healthcare into rural communities in New Mexico. Inspired by his work with the Familia Medical Center in Santa Fe, Pacheco applied and was accepted into the RWJF program in 2000. After completing his fellowship with Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Pacheco returned home to New Mexico and shifted his focus back to his residency program. He valued his fellowship experience andwanted his residents to have a similar opportunity to learn the "ins and outs" of healthcare policy. Together with Dr. Karen Armitage, HPF 2014-15, they added a legislative rotation to the residency, sending residents to the New Mexico state legislature for a month, rounding out their education in healthcare.

“Twenty-three years ago, we started this legislative rotation. Since then, there's probably been 70 residents that at least have been exposed to legislative advocacy and to health policy. I wanted them to at least have a little taste of what I was able to experience here, and some of them have done some amazing work legislatively in New Mexico.”

Continuing his work in healthcare, Pacheco currently serves as the Associate Vice President for Community Health at the University of New Mexico (UNM) Health Sciences Center and directs the Health Extension Rural Offices (HEROs). In this capacity, he is working to translate the Cooperative Extension Service model, a well-established educational model for agriculture science and engineering, to a similar model suitable for healthcare, linking university programs and resources to promote health and access in rural and underserved communities.

Janice Phillips was a health policy fellow from 2010-2011 in the office of Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV) where she worked on the Patient Protection Act, Affordable Care Act, and legislation to combat prescription drug abuse. The fellowship instilled in her the desire to take on more progressive leadership roles related to policy; however, this desire was not immediately granted. While awaiting her dream role, Phillips continued to make a difference by teaching about health policy and writing about health policy for the rising generation of nurses.

After her fellowship, Phillips accepted a teaching position at Rush University's College of Nursing where she had the opportunity to educate nursing students on the importance of health policy. She then assumed the role of Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs for the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) where she evaluated foreign-educated nurses who wanted to work in healthcare in the United States. Never giving up on her desire to work in policy, Phillips created her own health policy column for Minority Nurse magazine where she made complex policy issues accessible tothe wider nursing audience.

Her passion and consistent effort ultimately led her to a key leadership position in the Illinois Departmentof Public Health where she is able to influence policy and public health initiatives, bringing her accumulated knowledge and experience to a larger scale. Her journey illustrates that a policy career is not always linear. However, as a result of her persistence, she successfully prepared herself for a high-impact policy role. The fellowship experience not only positioned her for future success, but also allowed her to impact a wide-range of individuals along the way.

Karen Domino was a health policy fellow from 2012-2013 where she served on the House Committee on Ways and Means (Minority). She is a board-certified anesthesiologist, and Vice Chair for Clinical Research in the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine as well as adjunct professor of neurological surgery at the University of Washington, Seattle. She is also a senior examiner for theAmerican Board of Anesthesiology and former president of the Society for Neuroscience in Anesthesia and Critical Care.

Following her fellowship, Domino wanted to continue practicing medicine but also branch into policywork, hoping to alleviate problems in healthcare closer to the source. Equipped witha better understanding of health policy and a desire to continue working in medicine, Domino was appointed to chair multiple state-level positions, including Chair of the State Medical Board of the State ofWashington. She notes that her experience on the House Committee on Ways and Means was verysimilar to the work she was doing at the state level with regards to the "legal aspect of things." She also notes that the fellowship had an "incredible impact" on her career and taught her how to "bridge differences in opinion" by listening and adapting to find agreement, "which is not easy to do."

Barbara Damron was a health policy fellow from 2012-2013 where she held two placements: one with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pension (Minority) and one in the office of Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN). During this time, she leveraged her nursing background to successfully advocate for a change in a bill that enabled nurse practitioners to prescribe certain pharmaceuticals, a significant win for advanced practice nurses. Prior to her fellowship, she held significant leadership roles, including heading a plastic surgery unit and serving as president of the Texas/Hawaii Division of the American Cancer Society.

Following her Fellowship, she returned home to New Mexico and was appointed Cabinet Secretary of Higher Education for the State of New Mexico. In this role, she translated her policy understanding into tangible change at the state level. She spearheaded the passage of legislation to enhance college retention rates and implemented a common course numbering system across all public universities and colleges in New Mexico, streamlining the educational experience for students. Domino also served as the Chief Government Relations Officer for the University of New Mexico system where she was responsible for overseeing all Federal, state, tribal, county, and municipal government affairs.

Currently, she is a tenured professor at the University of New Mexico College of Nursing and School of Medicine and was recently elected as chair of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE). In these roles, she continues to draw on her extensive experience in health and education policy, her understanding of how legislation works, and her ability to build coalitions.

Robin Fleming's career demonstrates a powerful trajectory from clinical practice to influential policy-making, with a particular focus on the Washington State school system. As an experienced school nurse in Seattle Public Schools, she was a hands-on leader, developing grant-funded programs to tackle health disparities. She eventually became the Health Services Program Administrator for the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, where she was responsible for administering school health services across all 295 school districts in the state. In this role, she provided leadership and policy guidance to school nurses and worked to improve student attendance, learning, and graduation rates for vulnerable children. She also formed strong partnerships with community organizations and state agencies to shape policies that promoted a culture of health in non-health entities, like schools.

Her time as a health policy fellow from 2017 to 2018 provided her with invaluable experience at the federal level, serving in the office of U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). This experience deepened her understanding of the legislative process, which she then brought back to her work in Washington. Following her fellowship, she provided consulting services for the Washington State Health Care Authority to organize statewide site visits for the National Academy of Medicine Committee on the Future of Nursing 2020-2030. By organizing statewide site visits for this committee, she was able to influence these recommendations based on her first-hand experience and knowledge of the challenges and opportunities within the Washington State school system. Her work has been instrumental in shaping policies that promote a culture of health and reduce health inequities, firmly establishing her as a champion for health in education at both the local and state levels.

Kirsten Johnson has had a successful career in health policy, using her fellowship experience to focus her work on bridging the disconnect between Federal decisions and the lived experiences of people at the state and local levels. Using her program knowledge, she has become a key policy leader back in her home state of Wisconsin as the former Commissioner of Health for the City of Milwaukee Health Department and the present Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.

Prior to her fellowship, Johnson had over two decades of experience in the field of public health through her work with the Peace Corps in West Africa and leading the Washington Ozaukee Public Health Department. Her passion for understanding the "nuts and bolts" of policy led her to apply to the RobertWood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship where she served as a fellow in Congressman Ron Kind’s (D-WI) office working on legislative issues related to public health. The fellowship provided her with a hands-on understanding of how policy is made and who influences it. Additionally, this experience emphasized to Johnson the importance of listening to the voices of those in underserved and under-represented populations, particularly those living in "flyover states," like Wisconsin, and in urban communities. Upon returning home, she applied her newly acquired policy skills to lead the Milwaukee’s pandemic response, issue public health orders, and communicate complex health information to the public in a clear, persuasive way. This leadership role was a direct application of the critical perspective she gained during her time as a fellow, showing how Federal policy experience can be leveraged to drive significant change at the state and local level

Jay Himmelstein served as a health policy fellow on the health staff of Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) from 1991-1992. He is a Professor and Chief Health Policy Strategist at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, where he holds positions in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences, Family Medicine and Community Health, and Internal Medicine. He has participated in numerous state and national health reform initiatives focusing on increased access and improving the quality and range of services offered to populations with disabilities. He has also been an expert consultant to the Social Security Administration and the Institute of Medicine.

Following his Fellowship, he returned to the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School and began teaching political competency to medical students. His Fellowship gave him the confidence to speak up as an expert and taught him the importance of compromise. It inspired him to focus on the intersection of health policy and politics. He teaches university students how the political system works and how to be a more effective advocate for the needs of others within the healthcare system.

Throughout his career, Himmelstein has focused on improving healthcare and health outcomes for the public sector, with a special emphasis on Medicaid programs and health services for people with disabilities. He has over 30 years of experience as a health policy advisor and strategist at both the state and national levels. His academic and professional achievements include publishing over 100 peer-reviewed articles and technical reports and serving as the principal investigator for more than 40 grants. He is also an elected member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and is board-certified in internal medicine and occupational and environmental health/preventive medicine.

Sharron Crowder's experience as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow profoundly influenced her work at the Indiana University School of Nursing, leading to a complete overhaul of her teaching methodology and the creation of innovative new programs. During her 2019-2020 fellowship, she served with the House Committee on Education and Labor (Majority), where she gained invaluable, first-hand knowledge of the federal legislative process. This immersive experience fundamentally altered her approach to academia: she revised her graduate-level health policy courses, incorporating real-world elements such as having students track and analyze federal bills; she also began inviting speakers she had met during her fellowship—including members of her cohort and individuals from various organizations—to provide students with a direct link to the policy world.

Upon returning to the university, Dr. Crowder leveraged her legislative insights to empower both students and faculty. She expanded upon existing initiatives, transforming a state-based legislative fellowship into a national "specialty fellowship" where students work with organizations on critical issues like mental and maternal health. These fellowships allow students to track legislation and meet with key policy groups, such as the Senate Committee on Aging. Furthermore, she recognized the need to broaden this policy focus beyond her own classes. As the Assistant Dean for Health Policy Initiatives, she developed a health policy faculty forum to help faculty integrate advocacy and policy across all nursing curricula, from the undergraduate BSN level up to the PhD program, ensuring that the next generation of nurses isequipped to influence health policy at every level.

Karen Armitage, formerly a pediatrician and public health physician, was a health policy fellow in 2014-2015 working with the health team in the office of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). Prior to this fellowship, she had a long career in public health, including serving as Chief Medical Officer for the New Mexico Department of Health. Although had intended to apply for the position of Director of Health Policy at the University of New Mexico after her fellowship, the resignation of the current dean and potential foreclosure of the college, motivated Armitage to step into that new and unfamiliar position.

“I would never have done that if I hadn't been in Washington. If I hadn't pretended that I knew what I didn't know and faked it until I made it, I wouldn't have been that brave.”

She currently serves as the Associate Clinical Professor and Director of Health Policy. Her fellowship experience significantly influenced her work at UNM, as she now focuses on applying her knowledge of federal policy to state-level issues. She has developed and teaches innovative health sciences curricula, including the "Legislative Action and Public Health Systems Rotation" at the New Mexico State Legislature. This program trains future health professionals in health policy and advocacy, directly translating her fellowship experience into educational practice. Her work at UNM focuses on accelerating the translation of research into health policy, a clear continuation of the skills and insights she gained during her time in Washington.

Angie Perone was a 2021-2022 health policy fellow in the office of Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) where she was involved in crafting legislative and regulatory issues related to the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health, and the opioid crisis. She also contributed to policy efforts concerning nursing home reform. The fellowship was instrumental in shaping Dr. Perone's approach to elder health policy, as it shifted her perspective from a reactive, legal one to a proactive, policy-based one, teaching her how to be a collaborative and influential leader. After her fellowship, she continued her work with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in the Medicare-Medicaid Coordination Health Care Office.

After her time in the Senate and CMS, she leveraged this expertise to take on her current role as an Assistant Professor and Director of the Center for the Advanced Study of Aging Services at UC Berkeley. Through this position, she now leads projects and research that directly applies her policy knowledge, enriching university-level programs and training the next generation of scholars to tackle complex issues related to equitable aging. Dr. Perone has been able to translate her experiences into her teaching, helping students overcome their initial fear of policy by redefining it as something accessible and empowering. She teaches a mandatory policy class for her graduate students, and by the end of the course, she helps them realize that the advocacy skills they already possess are a powerful tool for change. According to Perone, the fellowship gave her "the skills and the knowledge to train students to effectively understand what is policy and how can they contribute in ways that are meaningful to them and meaningful to our larger society."

Brenda Baker is an associate professor of nursing at Emory University’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing with a clinical focus on reducing maternal and newborn morbidity and mortality, particularly for incarcerated women. Her advocacy for this population began at a local level, where she successfully pushed for policy changes to end the practice of shackling pregnant women in custody. Her commitmentto health policy led her to serve as a health policy fellow from 2021-2022 in the office of Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), an experience she calls a transformative gift that provided her with first hand knowledge of the federal legislative process. This fellowship strengthened her belief that nurses should be actively involved in shaping health policy.

Inspired by her fellowship, Dr. Baker now teaches her nursing students about the critical connection between legislation and patient care, helping them understand how to advocate for positive change. At Emory, she is the founder of the Georgia Prison Motherhood Project, a unique collaboration with the Georgia Department of Corrections. This initiative provides her nursing students with a hands-onopportunity to apply their learning by offering vital prenatal education, labor support, and postpartum help to incarcerated women. This work not only benefits the mothers and their children, but also instills in her students the importance of using their clinical knowledge to address systemic health disparities. In 2023, her expertise was further recognized with her appointment as the Director of Policy for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), a role where she continues to influence national health policy and advocate for the nursing profession.

Thomas Delbanco was a health policy fellow from 1977-1978, serving in the offices of Representative John Dingell (D-MI) and Senator Bob Dole (R-KS). He was a professor of General Medicine and Primary Care at Harvard Medical School and, for more than 30 years, was Chief of the Division of General Medicine and Primary Care at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Prior to his fellowship, he established one of the first primary care teaching programs at an academic health center. He also created the Harvard Medical School Faculty Development and Fellowship Program, which has trained over 250 general internists for academic careers.

Delbanco's work is driven by his belief that, despite changes in technology and the business of medicine, the fundamental doctor-patient relationship remains the most important aspect of healthcare. His work focused on improving patient health services, and he is a strong advocate for a more equitable healthcare system, stating that the U.S. has a "moral failing" because so many people fall through the cracks due to a lack of insurance. In 1998, he was named a Master of the American College of Physicians, and in 2003, he received the Robert J. Glaser Award, the highest honor awarded by the Society of General Internal Medicine.

Linda Degutis was a health policy fellow from 1996-1997 where she served in the office of Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN). She is currently an adjunct professor at Emory University in the Department of Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences. Prior to her position at Emory, she was a lecturer at the Yale School of Public Health where she spoke on topics related to government affairs, policy-making, and advocacy. She is a consultant on public health issues related to injury and violence prevention, and works on research initiatives that focus on the prevention of suicide in U.S. veterans. In 2019, she received the RWJF Health Policy Fellows Program's Lifetime Achievement Award for her "long commitment and extraordinary impact on public health, medicine, and nursing."

Because of her experience as a fellow, Degutis has served in various leadership positions for several national health organizations, including President of the American Public Health Association and Directorof the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She also serves as a Chief Science Officer (pro bono) for The Avielle Foundation, which focuses on the relationship between brain health, compassion, and violence. She is currently President of the Board of the Directors for Grandmothers for Gun Responsibility, an organization aimed at preventing gun violence in the lives of children and teens. Her work in government, emergency and trauma nursing, and academia motivates her to seek solutions for gun violence through the collaboration of diverse stakeholders.

Mark Rasenick was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow from 1999-2000 as a staffmember of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in the office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA). He is a distinguished professor at the University of Illinois and researches the relationship between G-protein signaling and the cytoskeleton and how this interaction might affect neurotransmitter response and responsiveness, as well as synaptic plasticity and mood disorders.

Participating in the Fellows program allowed him to gain new perspectives and learn how to have a more open mind in regard to accepting differences of opinion and compromise. The Fellows program prepared him to become the chair of a non-profit called the American Brain Coalition, which unites 200 patient advocacy groups and works to create new policy for people with brain disease. The coalition is focused on acceptance and fairness for anyone experiencing neurodivergence in the brain.

“Without [the fellowship] experience, I don't think that I would be able to help guide this organization that is trying to create new policy for people with brain disease.”

Sheldon Fields was a health policy fellow from 2009-2010 in the office of Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD). He was the first male Registered Nurse ever selected for the RWJF Health Policy Fellowship Program. Prior to his fellowship, he worked as a tenured associate professor at the University of Rochester School of Nursing. During his fellowship, he served as a policy adviser on the Senate HELP committee during the historic healthcare reform debates and the passage of the Affordable Care Act. The fellowship changed him, giving him a health policy lens through which to see every situation. The change and growth he received as a fellow led him to seek leadership roles in academia following his fellowship. He became the inaugural Assistant Dean of Clinical Affairs and Health Policy at Florida International University, and later became the inaugural Associate Dean for Equity and Inclusion in the College of Nursing at Penn State University. He also served as dean of the Mervyn M. Dymally School of Nursing and dean of the School of Health Professions at New York Institute of Technology. Fields is a well-known HIV/AIDS prevention research scientist with a significant focus on young men ofcolor, and is the founder and CEO of his own healthcare consultant firm, The S.D.F Group, LLC.

His fellowship allowed him to learn about influence and advocacy. He has used that knowledge to connect communities, give them a voice, and implement change. A lifetime member of the National Black Nurses Association, he currently serves as the 14th national president. In these positions, he participates in the Annual Black Nurses Policy Advocacy Day to bring awareness and change to policies that disproportionately affect communities of color, such as black maternal health, mental health, and gun violence. He is an advocate for more diversity in the healthcare workforce because better patient outcomes are reported for those who are taken care of by someone they have a connection with. He is one of the very few men of color to have led a school of nursing.

Hassan Tetteh, a cardiovascular and thoracic transplant surgeon and U.S. Navy captain, began his career in military medicine with service across the globe, including deployments to the Middle East, Africa, and Afghanistan. During his fellowship, Tetteh was placed at the Congressional Budget Office, where his clinical perspective shaped national policy discussions on health spending. The experience deepened his understanding of policymaking and helped him translate frontline expertise into systemic solutions. After the fellowship, Tetteh began to climb the ranks of military medicine. He was assigned to the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery at Navy Medicine headquarters, where he served as the health policy advisor to the Surgeon General, and to the Navy Medicine leadership. In just over a year, he had gone from being a surgeon in the military, to influencing the policies that governed all military surgeons. Tetteh retired fromthe military in August 2023.

In the early 2000s, Tetteh founded a successful organ recovery practice called Specialized Thoracic Adaptive Recovery Teams, or STAR, tasked with recovering organs for heart and lung transplant centers. He grew the practice and sold it in 2021. During its tenure, Tetteh and his team recovered over 1,000 hearts and lungs. Additionally, he serves on three boards: The David Lynch Foundation, Mentoring in Medicine, and the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health. He has written several bestselling books and founded HumanCare Technologies Inc. with the aim of bringing artificial intelligence solutions to civilian healthcare.

“The RWJF Health Policy Fellows program takes you from being a really good checker player to being able to play four - dimensional chess.”