2023 Keynotes
Allyson Felix reigns as the most decorated American Track & Field Olympian of all time. She officially retired from her competitive running career in the summer of 2022, with thirty-one global medals at the Olympics and World Championships, and titles as both a World Record Holder and a Master’s World Record Holder. In 2020, Felix broke records after winning her bronze and gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. She continued to make history during the games by sporting racing spikes created by her company Saysh. Publicly launched post Games in June 2021, Saysh not only aims to create an encouraging and supportive community for women, but it also designs and manufactures athletic-inspired footwear made for and by women. Off the track, Felix is a fierce advocate for maternity rights for all women. In 2019, she wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times that called out Nike, her former sponsor, for not providing guaranteed protections for pregnant athletes and new moms. During the 2020 Olympics, Felix alongside her new sponsor Athleta, created the Power of She Fund: Child Care Grant – a fund to assist mom-athletes with childcare while competing at the games. Felix has also been appointed to the Board of Directors of Comanche Biopharma, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a novel therapy for the treatment of preeclampsia. Allyson brings her valuable experience and unique perspective as a preeclampsia survivor, successful entrepreneur and advocate for maternal health. Felix currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.
Erin Brockovich’s icon status and “stick-to-it-iveness” fuels her determination to expose injustice and lend her voice to those who do not have one. In 1996, Brockvich’s exhaustive investigation uncovered that Pacific Gas & Electric had been poisoning the small town of Hinkley’s Water for over 30 years. As a result of the largest direct action lawsuit of its kind, the utility giant was forced to pay out the largest toxic tort injury settlement in US history: $333 million in damages to more than 600 Hinkley residents. The story and eventual film, starring Julia Roberts, made “Erin Brockovich” a household name. Over time, Brockovich realized that she could use her notoriety to spread positive messages of personal empowerment and to encourage others to stand up and make a difference. Erin Brockovich has conquered all forms of media. Her first TV project was ABC’s 2001 Special, Challenge America With Erin Brockovich, where she helped motivate and organize the rebuilding of a dilapidated park in downtown Manhattan. Brockovich then dominated the world of publishing with her New York Times Business Bestseller, Take It From Me: Life’s A Struggle, But You Can Win. She has also written two fiction novels, Rock Bottom and Hot Water. Her latest release, Superman's Not Coming: Our National Water Crisis and What We the People Can Do About It, drew wide media attention before its publication. As President of Brockovich Research & Consulting, she is currently involved in numerous environmental projects worldwide.
Peter Lee, PhD, is Corporate Vice President of Research and Incubations at Microsoft. He leads Microsoft Research and incubates new research-powered products and lines of business in areas such as artificial intelligence, computing foundations, health, and life sciences. He speaks and writes widely on science and technology trends. Before joining Microsoft in 2010, he was at DARPA, where he established a new technology office that created operational capabilities in machine learning, data science, and computational social science. Prior to that, he was a professor and the head of the computer science department at Carnegie Mellon University. Lee is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and serves on the Boards of Directors of several institutes for the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, the Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine, and the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine. He served on President Obama’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity and led studies for PCAST and the National Academies. He has testified before both the US House Science and Technology Committee and the US Senate Commerce Committee. With Carey Goldberg and Dr. Isaac Kohane, he is the coauthor of the book, “The AI Revolution in Medicine: GPT-4 and Beyond.”
Kedar Mate, MD, is President and Chief Executive Officer at IHI, President of the IHI Lucian Leape Institute, and a member of the faculty at Weill Cornell Medical College. His scholarly work has focused on health system design, health care quality, strategies for achieving large-scale change, and approaches to improving value. Previously Dr. Mate worked at Partners In Health, the World Health Organization, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and served as IHI’s Chief Innovation and Education Officer. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and white papers and has received multiple honors, including serving as a Soros Fellow, Fulbright Specialist, Zetema Panelist, and an Aspen Institute Health Innovators Fellow. Dr. Mate graduated from Brown University with a degree in American History and from Harvard Medical School with a medical degree. You can follow him on Twitter
@KedarMate.
Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP, FRCP, KBE, is President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) an organization he co-founded and led as President and CEO for 19 years. He is one of the nation’s leading authorities on health care quality and improvement. In July 2010, President Obama appointed Dr. Berwick to the position of Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which he held until December 2011. A pediatrician by background, Dr. Berwick has served as Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Health Care Policy at the Harvard Medical School, Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health, and as a member of the staffs of Boston’s Children’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He has also served as vice chair of the US Preventive Services Task Force, the first “Independent Member” of the Board of Trustees of the American Hospital Association, and chair of the National Advisory Council of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. He is an elected member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Medicine (NAM, formerly the Institute of Medicine, or IOM). Dr. Berwick served two terms on the IOM’s governing Council, was a member of the IOM’s Global Health Board, and currently chairs the NAM Board on Health Care Services. He served on President Clinton’s Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Healthcare Industry. His numerous awards include the 2007 William B. Graham Prize for Health Services Research, the 2006 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award, and the 2007 Heinz Award for Public Policy. In 2005, he was appointed Honourary Knight Commander of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the highest honor in the UK for non-UK citizens. He is the author or co-author of more than 200 scientific articles and six books. He also currently serves as Lecturer in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School.
