Ruth Thomas-Squance, PhD, MPH

Co-Executive Director at the Build Healthy Places Network a national center positioning cross-sector partnerships from community development, public health and healthcare sectors to lead and leverage community- centered investments across the country to address the drivers of health and advance racial equity. A passionate public health change agent, Dr. Thomas-Squance brings over 20 years of experience working in multisector collaborations with diverse partners to promote health equity. She is past Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for US Green Building Council and Chairs their Strategic Planning Committee. She also served on the inaugural Multisector Partner Advisory Group of the Center for Health Justice at the American Association of Medical Colleges. Dr. Thomas-Squance was selected as a University of California, Berkeley Public Health Social Impact Fellow ‘24-25. She earned her a doctorate from Imperial College London and an MPH from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in San Francisco, CA.

David Ansell, MD, MPH

the Michael E Kelly Presidential Professor of Internal Medicine and Senior Vice President/Associate Provost for Community Health Equity at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. He is a 1978 graduate of SUNY Upstate Medical College. He did his medical training at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. He spent 13 years at Cook County as an attending physician and ultimately was appointed Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine at Cook County Hospital.  From 1995 to 2005 he was Chairman of Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai Chicago. He was recruited to Rush University Medical Center as its inaugural Chief Medical Officer in 2005, a position he held until 2015. His research and advocacy has been focused on eliminating health inequities. In 2011 he published a memoir of his times at County Hospital, County: Life, Death and Politics at Chicago’s Public Hospital. His latest book is The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills was published in 2017. 

Thea James, MD, MPH, MBA

Vice President of Mission, Associate Chief Medical Officer and Co-Executive Director of the Health Equity Accelerator at Boston Medical Center. She is Professor of Emergency Medicine and Director of the Violence Intervention Advocacy Program at BMC. Dr. James is a founding member of the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention (the HAVI). In 2011 she was appointed to Attorney General Eric Holder’s National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence. As vice president of mission, Dr. James partners with caregivers throughout BMC and coordinates BMC’s relationships and strategic alliances with a wide range of local, state, and national organizations and partners across sectors, to meet the full spectrum of essentials that enables patients and communities to thrive. The intentionality is to foster a strategic ecosystem of growth, innovation, transformation, community collaboration, and effective models of care that are rooted in equity, clinical excellence and economic justice. Dr. James served on the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine 2009-2012, where she served as chair of the Licensing Committee. She is 2008 awardee of Boston Public Health Commission’s Mulligan Award for public service, and a 2012 recipient of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Role Model Award. She received The Boston Business Journal Healthcare Hero award in 2012 &2015. She was 2014 recipient of the Schwartz Center Compassionate Care Award. The Boston Chamber of commerce awarded Dr. James with the Pinnacle Award in 2015, which honors women in business and the professions. In 2020 Dr. James received the American College of Emergency Medicine Lifetime Achievement Award. Also, in 2020, The History Project presented her with a History Maker Award. Dr. James recently received the inaugural 2020 Thea James Social Emergency Medicine Award from the American College of Emergency Physicians. Dr. James’ passion is in Public Health both domestically and globally. She was a Supervising Medical Officer on the Boston Disaster Medical Assistance Team (MA-1 DMAT), under the Department of Health and Human Services. She has deployed to post 9/11 in NYC, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005, Bam, Iran after the 2003 earthquake, and Port-Au-Prince Haiti after the earthquake of 2010. Dr. James traveled to Haiti with MA-1 DMAT one day after the 2010 earthquake. A graduate of Georgetown University School of Medicine, James trained in Emergency Medicine at Boston City Hospital, where she was a chief resident.

Ayesha Jaco

Website: https://westsideunited.org/ a lifelong resident of Chicago’s west side, Ayesha Jaco has dedicated her career to improving the health and economic vitality of the community she grew up in. As Executive Director of West Side United (WSU) founded by Ascension, Cook County Health, Lurie Children’s RUSH, Sinai Chicago & UI Health, she leads programs and partnerships with additional anchor institutions, including nonprofits and churches, who work collaboratively to eliminate the now 25-year life expectancy gap between Black and Brown residents on Chicago’s West Side and Chicago’s Loop. Under Ayesha’s leadership, WSU has co created strategies that address social drivers of health including a small business grant program that has awarded $2.5 million to support the development of more than 175 West Side businesses. Her team has also coordinated $10 million in social impact investing funds pooled by WSU hospitals, American Medical Association, Illinois Medical District and Northern Trust to increase access to capital for west side communities through 600 low interest loans curated by Community Development Financial Institution partners to support affordable housing, community projects and other economic development projects. As a member of the Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative, WSU was an instrumental partner along with other anchor and community partners in the selection of the Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative as the 2022 recipient of the Pritzker Traubert Foundation’s $10 million Chicago Prize for the development of Sankofa Wellness Village. The Village will provide programming that seeks to enhance residents in West Garfield Park’s economic vitality and quality of life through a Federally Qualified Health Center, arts center, business incubator and community grocer initiative. Ayesha is a member of the board of directors of Choose Chicago, the City’s convention, and tourism bureau, and also serves on the community advisory board for the Chicago Chronic Condition Equity Network.

Bridget Lamme

Bridget Lamme is Vice President of Human Resources at Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc. (MHM), a faith-based, not-for-profit organization with over $2 billion in assets that serves 74 counties across South Texas, many of them rural communities along the Texas–Mexico border. With more than 500 team members, many of whom live and work in the communities MHM serves, the organization acts as a convener, capacity builder, and catalyzer for health equity and community well-being. Bridget serves as the organizational lead for MHM’s inaugural anchor committee and as the lead for MHM’s membership in the Healthcare Anchor Network (HAN), advancing the organization’s role as an anchor institution by promoting equitable hiring, purchasing, and community investment practices. As part of this work, she also leads the Thriving Workforce Taskforce, which applies the Vital Conditions framework to strengthen workforce well-being through initiatives such as a living wage structure for frontline employees, expanded parental leave, and student loan repayment assistance. She earned her Master of Legal Studies in Healthcare Law and Policy from Texas A&M University and brings expertise at the intersection of workforce strategy, policy, and health equity.

Emily Cleveland-Manchanda, MD