Mona Sarfaty, MD MPH FAAFP, is the Director of the Program on Climate and Health in the Center for Climate Change Communication.  The Program collaborates with medical societies and research organizations to increase awareness, research, and preventive activity regarding the health effects of climate change.  As a family medicine professor and physician for over 30 years, Dr. Sarfaty has engaged in research and teaching focused on primary care, cancer screening, and public policy, including the health effects of climate change.  She has lectured at national and regional venues including medical societies, health plans, health departments, professional organizations, and government conferences.  Dr. Sarfaty is the author of widely circulated guides and articles on how to increase cancer screening rates in practice and on improving practice outcomes by using the features of the patient centered medical home.

Since 2003, Dr. Sarfaty has been on the faculty of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia as Associate Professor of Family Medicine.  She has engaged in research, teaching, and patient care.  She has held a joint appointment in the Jefferson School of Population Health.  From 1992-2003, she was on the faculty of the George Washington University (GWU) Medical Center with a joint appointment in the GWU School of Public Health and Health Services.  During her years at GWU, she was the Medical Director of the Montgomery County Cancer Crusade and the Primary Care Coalition of Montgomery County, and the Founding Director of the Community Oriented Primary Care Track of the MPH Program.  From 1985-92, Dr. Sarfaty served as the Associate Director for Health Policy and Senior Health Policy Advisor for the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources (the principal authorizing committee in the Senate for health programs).  She authored major pieces of legislation, planned hearings, and advised Senators on both sides of the aisle.

Dr. Sarfaty has been a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians since 1980. She is a long time member of American Public Health Association (APHA), where she has served as Chair and Governing Councilor of the Medical Care Section.  She also served on the Board of Directors for the Association of Prevention Teachers and Researchers (APTR), the professional arm of the American College of Preventive Medicine.  Dr. Sarfaty is an invited member of the distinguished National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable.  She has received many awards for her work. Selected publications are listed below.

Renee N. Salas, MD, MPH, MS is a Clinical Instructor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an emergency medicine physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). She received her Doctor of Medicine from the innovative five-year medical school program to train physician-investigators at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. She concurrently obtained a Master of Science in Clinical Research from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Subsequently, she received a Master of Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health with a concentration in environmental health while completing a Fellowship in Wilderness Medicine at MGH. She now has a sole academic concentration on climate change and health. As a 2018 Burke Fellow, she is addressing the current research gaps in this field. She served as the lead for the 2018 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change U.S. Brief and is a nationally recognized leader on this subject.

Jalonne L. White-Newsome is a senior program officer at The Kresge Foundation, responsible for the Environment Program’s grant portfolio on Climate Resilient and Equitable Water Systems (CREWS). Jalonne is also a core team member of Kresge’s Climate Change, Health and Equity Initiative, supporting grantmaking across the public health sector.

Before joining Kresge in 2016, Jalonne served as director of federal policy at West Harlem Environmental Action Inc. (WE ACT), where she led national campaigns to ensure that the concerns of low-income communities of color were integrated into federal policy, particularly on issues of clean air, climate change and health. She is an adjunct professor at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. As a researcher on climate, health and equity,  Jalonne was a lead author for the human health chapter of the Fourth National Climate Assessment. She provides leadership on various boards, including the National Academy of Sciences Board on Environmental Change and Society, the US Climate Action Network, Health Environmental Funder’s Network Steering Committee and the Urban Water Funder’s Group.

A native of Detroit, Jalonne earned a Ph.D. in environmental health sciences from the University of Michigan School of Public Health, a master’s degree in environmental engineering from Southern Methodist University and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Northwestern University. Jalonne has recently been recognized by Who’s Who in America, The Environmental Management Association’s Environmental Achievement Award, the Michigan League of Conservation Voters and is a 2017 PLACES Fellow alum with The Funders Network.

Gregory Wellenius is an associate professor of epidemiology in the Brown School of Public Health. His research focuses on the environmental determinants of cardiovascular disease, including in China. Much of his work has examined the effects of ambient air pollution on the risk of cardiovascular events and its effects on cardiovascular physiology. In the context of these studies, he has used tools from the fields of epidemiology and toxicology to: 1) evaluate the association between environmental exposures and disease, 2) identify subgroups of the population that may be particularly susceptible, and 3) elucidate the physiologic mechanisms for the observed effects. Wellenius has served as a research consultant to the Chinese government’s Center for Disease Control (CDC), and is currently engaged with the Chinese CDC in collaborative empirical research.