Shawn Achor is the New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage and Big Potential. Achor graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and earned a Masters from Harvard Divinity School in Christian and Buddhist ethics. After spending 12 years at Harvard, Achor traveled to 50 countries studying how to create an interconnected approach to potential and happiness. He has now worked with more than a third of the Fortune 100 companies, and at places like NASA, the NFL, and the Pentagon. Achor has tested his research in high challenge environments from working with all the public schools in Flint, MI, to six battalions of Marines at Camp Pendleton, to government leaders at Camp David, to students in a shantytown in Soweto, South Africa, to hospitals in the wake of a mass shooting in Orlando and the Boston bombing. In every place Achor has found the optimism can be increased through mindset and behavioral change, and that by creating an interconnected approach to happiness and success, we shine brighter together. Achor’s research made the cover of Harvard Business Review, his TED talk is one of the most popular of all time with more than 20 million views, and his lecture airing on PBS has been seen by millions.
Keynote 2
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.
Keynote 3
Kate Bowler, PhD, is a New York Times bestselling author, podcast host, and a professor at Duke University. She studies the cultural stories we tell ourselves about success, suffering, and whether (or not) we’re capable of change. At age 35, she was unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, causing her to think in different terms about the research and beliefs she had been studying. She penned the New York Times bestselling memoir,
Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I’ve Loved), which tells the story of her struggle to understand the personal and intellectual dimensions of the American belief that all tragedies are tests of character. On her popular podcast, Everything Happens, Bowler speaks with people like Malcolm Gladwell, Matthew McConaughey, and Anne Lamott about what wisdom and truth they’ve uncovered during difficult circumstances. Bowler’s latest memoir,
No Cure For Being Human (and Other Truths I Need to Hear), grapples with her diagnosis, her ambition, and her faith as she tries to come to terms with limitations in a culture that promises anything is possible. Bowler’s work has received wide-spread media attention from NPR, The Today Show, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the TED Stage, and Fresh Air with Terry Gross.
Keynote 4
Health Care’s Role in Addressing the Firearm Violence Epidemic
An interactive panel discussing the intersection of policy, advocacy, healthcare, and quality care to shift the paradigm
Panelists:
Manuel Oliver, Co-founder, Change the Ref
Gun safety campaigner and global activist, Oliver immigrated to Parkland from Venezuela and has dedicated himself to a particular brand of not-so-subtle activism. He started a non-profit advocacy group called Change the Ref, which seeks to vote out politicians who take NRA money and vote in politicians with gun-safety agendas. Oliver uses his artist training and guerilla advertising instincts to keep focus on his son, Guac, and more than 40,000 of gun violence victims per year in the U.S. Recently, he went viral for confronting congressman Matt Gaetz and for eviscerating Louis C.K’s recent “jokes” about Parkland. But Oliver’s biggest project has been a more than a year-long art installment. He and his team created 30 separate murals, sculptures, 3D printed likenesses, and paintings of Guac all over the country.
“Gun violence is beyond schools, beyond Parkland and even beyond our amazing son Joaquin.”
Chethan Sathya, MD, MSc, Director, Center for Gun Violence Prevention, Northwell Health
Dr. Sathya is a pediatric trauma surgeon and National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded firearm injury prevention researcher. He serves as Director of Northwell Health’s Center for Gun Violence Prevention and oversees the health system’s expansive approach to firearm injury prevention. The largest health system in New York, Northwell has taken a public health approach to gun violence prevention, focusing on key areas such as research, medical education, clinical screening, advocacy and community engagement. Under Dr. Sathya's leadership, the center has leveraged the health system’s diverse patient population and wide reach to implement groundbreaking preventative strategies and perform high-level research.
Dr. Sathya was recently awarded $1.4 million from the NIH to study gun violence prevention and implement a first-of-its-kind protocol to universally screen among those at risk of firearm injury. The grant is part of the health system’s “We Ask Everyone. Firearm Safety is a Health Issue” research study, which aims to shift the paradigm to view gun violence as a public health issue and approach firearm injury risk similarly to other health risk factors that are part of routine care, like smoking, substance use and motor vehicle accidents. Furthermore, Dr. Sathya spearheaded the formation of the National Gun Violence Prevention Learning Collaborative for Hospitals and Health Systems, which is a multi-year multi-phase platform in which hospitals and integrated health systems can learn about gun violence prevention from experts, engage in open dialogue, develop best practices through an iterative process, and implement and evaluate strategies for the prevention of firearm related injuries and deaths.
Adriana Pentz
Adriana Pentz is a gun violence prevention activist and Fellow with Everytown for Gun Safety’s Survivor Program. Pentz serves on the leadership team for Moms Demand Action Westchester and speaks regularly about the influence of gun violence on her life after losing her younger brother to firearm suicide. Pentz has been featured in Prevention Magazine, and Northwell Health’s Center for Gun Violence Prevention Report: A Time For Action. As an advocate for gun safety, Pentz has partnered with Everytown’s Community Safety Initiative to co-lead trainings on Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPO’s) with the goal of increasing awareness around critical intervention resources. She meets regularly with policymakers and public health leaders to influence legislation and build solutions to keep communities and individuals safe from gun violence. In addition to Pentz’s advocacy work, she specializes in maternal mental health through her work at Expectful, leading operations, and volunteering with Postpartum Support International.
Moderated by Sandeep Kapoor, MD
Sandeep Kapoor, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine, Emergency Medicine, and Science Education at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, Assistant Vice President of Addiction Services for the Northwell Health Emergency Medicine Service Line and Director of Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) at Northwell Health. He is the recipient of the 2020 Northwell Health President’s Award for Leadership and received the 2020 Outstanding Mentor Award by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. Dr. Kapoor is passionate about motivating others to humanize and address substance use for the enhancement of patient care and organizational culture.
Keynote 5
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.
