Tracy Battaglia, MD, MPH is a primary care clinician-investigator internationally recognized for her collaborative, innovative approaches to addressing health disparities among women historically marginalized. She has led the development of foundational infrastructure to support community-engaged methods in translational science. Her own research focuses on engaging with community to increase access to care for at-risk women, including ground-breaking work on the role of oncology patient navigators. Through her participation on several National Cancer Institute cooperative groups, she contributed to the 2012 Commission on Cancer Accreditation Standard requiring navigation services in cancer centers. As founding chair of the National Navigation Roundtable, she partners across sectors for sustainable navigation workforce.

Dr Christine S. Lee serves as the Deputy Director for the Office of Minority Health and Health Equity (OMHHE) in the Office of the Commissioner at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In this role she works closely with the Director to oversee OMHHE’s daily functions and implements OMHHE’s health equity initiatives to include the Enhance Equity Initiative and the Racial and Ethnic Minority Acceleration Consortium for Health Equity (REACH) Initiative. In addition, Dr Lee leads OMHHE’s health disparity focused research and develops strategic innovations that advance health equity. Dr Lee began her FDA career in 2013 at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) where she held roles in the Professional Affairs and Stakeholder Engagement Staff, Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology, and Office of Compliance. Prior to joining FDA, Dr Lee worked at the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH) in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Dr Lee received her PharmD from the University of Buffalo and her PhD in Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy from the University of Florida.

Kristin Tolbert is a seasoned marketing executive with a strong background in cross-cultural marketing. She currently serves as the Associate Vice President of Health Equity Strategy at Jumo Health, where she leads initiatives to support DAP readiness and support expanding both awareness of and engagement with clinical research among under-represented groups.

Ms Tolbert's expertise spans strategic planning, consumer insights, and creative development, with a particular emphasis on culturally relevant marketing strategies. Her leadership in these areas has been instrumental in driving inclusive marketing efforts that resonate with diverse audiences for both consumer and healthcare brands. Prior to marketing, she was a cultural-studies instructor at the university level and still enjoys authoring thought leadership in her more recent area of expertise.

Daniel Bloomfield is the CMO at Anthos Therapeutics.  Prior to joining Anthos, Dan helped create Cardurion Pharmaceutical in May 2017 as its first CEO.  Dan had a 14-year career at Merck and Co. culminating as SVP, Global Clinical Development, Therapeutic Area Head for Cardiovascular, Diabetes, Endocrine, and Women’s Health, and was responsible for Merck’s R&D organization in China across all therapeutic areas.   Dan had a diverse career at Merck that included leadership roles in cardiovascular discovery, as well as early and late clinical development, he chaired the governance committee responsible for all compound entering clinical development and spent a year as Chief of Staff for Ken Frazier, Merck’s CEO. Dr. Bloomfield was a founding member and co-chair of the Cardiac Safety Research Consortium (a public private partnership with the FDA, academia, and industry). Dr. Bloomfield also served as Rapporteur for the ICH E14 implementation working group for 9 years.  After finishing a BA in Chemistry at Haverford College, Dan took a master’s degree in social Anthropology at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, attended Harvard Medical School, did his Internal Medicine and Cardiology training at Columbia before joining the faculty.  As an Associate Professor of Medicine, his academic research was supported by grants from the NIH (K08, R01, K24), multiple foundations, and industry. He became recognized internationally as an expert in syncope (fainting spells), as well as novel methods used to identify patients at risk for sudden cardiac death. 

Ari Brettman is a Senior Managing Director in the Blackstone Life Sciences group, having joined Blackstone as part of its acquisition of Clarus in December of 2018. Dr Brettman joined Clarus in September 2014.

Dr Brettman is focused on investments across the firm's portfolio, including company creation, spinouts, royalty monetizations, R&D risk-sharing collaborations, and structured credit with biopharmaceutical and med tech companies. Dr Brettman has played leading roles in Blackstone Life Science’s investments in Anthos Therapeutics, where he is a founding member of the Board of Directors and initially served as Acting Chief Medical Officer, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, AvenCell, where he is a founding member of the Board of Directors, and Pfizer. At Clarus, he played leading roles and served on the Board of Directors in portfolio companies Praxis Precision Medicines and Essa Pharmaceuticals.

Prior to Clarus, Dr Brettman completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr Brettman was also an NIH-sponsored post-doctoral fellow at the MGH Center for Systems Biology, where he studied the autophagy of lipid droplets and used electronic medical record-based big data analytics at Partners Healthcare to conduct clinical research and improve disease management.

Dr Brettman received his MD from Duke University and his AB in History and Science from Harvard College. While a medical student, he was a Sarnoff Cardiovascular Research Foundation Fellow at Stanford University, where he studied angiogenesis.

Kemi Olugemo, MD, is a Neurologist and Physician Scientist with a passion for health and gender equity. As Chief Medical Officer at Korro Bio, Dr Olugemo leads cross-functional teams in developing therapies for rare and prevalent diseases using the companies’ proprietary RNA-editing platform. Dr Olugemo brings over 20 years of clinical research and biopharmaceutical industry experience, with experience in rare and orphan disease, nucleic acid therapies, biologics and other modalities. Prior to joining Korro, Dr Olugemo was Vice President Global Clinical Development at Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical, and has held positions of increasing responsibility at Parexel, Ionis Pharmaceuticals and Laronde. Dr Olugemo is the recipient of the Zuckerberg College of Health Sciences Alumni Award from the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, Leadership in Action Award from Women of Color in Pharma, and the 2023 Extraordinary Women Advancing Healthcare in Massachusetts Award from the Women’s Edge. She is founder and president of Zebulon Foundation and holds leadership positions at the International Society for CNS Clinical Trials and Methodology (ISCTM) as well as Clinics IV Life.

Catherine Stehman-Breen, MD, is the former Chief Executive Officer at Chroma Medicine and an Advisor at Atlas Venture. She also serves as an Independent Board member at Generation Bio, Tenaya Therapeutics and Dyne Therapeutics, Inc. Previously, she was Chief Research and Development Officer at Obsidian Therapeutics where she led research and discovery efforts for their engineered cell and gene therapies. Prior to Obsidian Therapeutics, Dr Stehman-Breen was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Atlas Venture and Chief Medical Officer at Sarepta Therapeutics. In addition, she held various leadership roles at Regeneron and Amgen. Dr Stehman-Breen received her M.D. from the University of Chicago and trained as a nephrologist and earned her M.S. in epidemiology at University of Washington.

Dr George Atiee has over 35 years of experience in clinical research and has participated as an investigator in well over 300 clinical studies. Before his role with DVCR, Dr. Atiee served in various leadership roles such as Vice President, Medical Director, Site Director and Lab Director for multiple CROs. Dr Atiee brings a unique perspective to our organization with his ability to assess critical study paths and provide operations teams with efficient strategies for enrollment, data collection and biomedical interventions.

Melinda Rottas, MBA is the Head of Optimization, Analytics & Recruitment Solutions (OARS), a team that aims to transform clinical trials at Pfizer, establish a new standard for clinical trial experience and deliver analytics and insights for optimized R&D performance. OARS is a talented global team delivering core capabilities spanning clinical trial country & site feasibility; protocol insights & optimization; recruitment & retention strategies; clinical trial investigative site partnerships, site intelligence & site experience; clinical trial participant diversity, experience & patient engagement and decision-making analytics & benchmarking. Ms Rottas has over 23 years of experience at Pfizer, starting her career as a Medicinal Chemist in Drug Discovery, followed by additional roles in research including Business Operations and Portfolio Reporting & Forecasting prior to moving to the clinical development space. Ms Rottas holds a BS in Chemistry from the University of Connecticut as well as an MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.