Staff
Jon Broyles
Executive Director
Jon oversees day-to-day operations and sets strategy for C-TAC. Early in his career he met Reverend Diane Smalley, a powerful advocate living with advanced illness, who told him to keep it simple: focus on opening doors. In acting on Diane's legacy Jon has the benefit of drawing on hundreds of innovators’ experience and talent in the Coalition. His role is channeling these resources into practical approaches to improve care for those living with advanced illness.
Clinical Models
Ravi Parikh, MD, MPP
Senior Clinical Advisor
Ravi is a resident in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. Ever since serving as a hospice bereavement counselor in high school, Ravi has striven to improve seriously ill individuals’ quality of life, ensuring that people are not only dying better, but living better as well. He has worked to implement novel delivery models of care in advanced illness at the local, state, and national level. He has served on leadership boards of the American College of Physicians, American Geriatrics Society, and Massachusetts Medical Society, and has advised for-profit and non-profit organizations including AARP Services, Inc. and the Healthy Living Center for Excellence. Ravi worked on accountable care organization implementation as a Rappaport Fellow in the Massachusetts State House in 2010; his legislative recommendations earned commendation from the Massachusetts Speaker of the House and were incorporated into landmark payment reform legislation passed in 2012. Ravi’s research interests include delivery reform in advanced illness, cancer survivorship, and integrated palliative care. His work has been published in national venues including The Washington Post, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association, The Atlantic, and Readers’ Digest Magazine, and he is a staff contributor at the Now@NEJM Blog. He has received the AMA Foundation Excellence in Medicine Leadership Award and the American Geriatrics Society Edward Henderson Award. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Harvard College, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Ravi enjoys spending time with his family, cooking, tennis, and watching basketball.
Mark Sterling
Chief Strategy Officer
Mark is C-TAC’s Chief Strategy Officer, and serves as the inaugural Senior Fellow in Advanced Care and Health Policy for the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.
For over 35 years, Mark has been an advisor to mission-driven healthcare organizations. His experience includes serving as partner in a leading global law firm, as general counsel and chief strategy officer of a leading health care services organization providing end-of-life care, and as a member of nonprofit Boards of Directors serving frail elderly and terminally ill individuals. He recently was a Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative. Mark has been a partner in the Washington DC and Miami offices of Hogan Lovells (formerly Hogan & Hartson), where he was a founding member of both its Health group and its Miami office.
Over three decades, Mark has worked to structure, develop and expand innovative programs serving the elderly and terminally ill, including PACE, home care, and hospice programs. He served on HHS’s first Negotiated Rulemaking Committee, which reached a consensus recommendation on the hospice wage index that was adopted by the Medicare program. He also has worked on public-private partnerships to establish new medical research institutes, including Scripps Florida on behalf of The Scripps Research Institute and JAX Genomic Medicine on behalf of The Jackson Laboratory.
Mark holds Juris Doctor and Master of Public Policy degrees from The University of Michigan, and served as Managing Editor of the Michigan Law Review. He has served as President (Board Chair) of Hospice Care of the District of Columbia, and as a Board member of Comprehensive Care Management Corporation (now CenterLight Health System), which operates PACE programs in New York City.
Brad Stuart, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Brad is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of ACIStrategies. With more than 35 years of experience practicing internal medicine, palliative care and hospice, and as a healthcare innovator with a national reputation, he has a career-long commitment to improving clinical and economic outcomes by promoting dignity, choice and responsibility. He was instrumental in creating the first Advanced Illness Management (AIM) program in the US with a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 1999, shepherded its growth over a decade at Sutter Health, and spearheaded the proposal that earned AIM a $13 million award in 2010 from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation. Brad drove AIM’s growth and development toward a national model now adopted by the American Hospital Association and many US health systems and championed by the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC), where he is a founding Board member. For over 10 years Brad has focused on delivery system redesign, specializing in outcome and financial metrics and analytics, physician and staff training, and value-driven cost reduction in advanced illness. A graduate of Stanford University School of Medicine, he was named to the 2013 HealthLeaders’ Media list of Top 20 national difference-makers and was profiled in Atlantic Monthly. He has been named Physician of the Year by the California Association of Health Services at Home. Brad speaks internationally on clinical, economic and spiritual issues in advanced illness.
Communications
Alishia Parkhill
Strategic Advisor
Alishia Parkhill is a nonprofit executive with more than 17 years of experience in marketing, communications, membership and operations management. From leading multimillion-dollar cause marketing campaigns to driving change that creates new paths to reach organizational goals, her work has yielded increased awareness, efficiency and revenue for nonprofit brands. Her passion for improving serious illness and end-of-life care has inspired her to shift her career to focus on these issues and pursue her M.S. in Health and Social Innovation. In her spare time, she serves as a volunteer at a local hospice organization where she provides support to patients and families.
Stephen Waldron
Communications Manager
Stephen Waldron serves as communications manager at the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC). In this role, he supports the Coalition’s outreach with journalists as well as members of the various communities with which C-TAC partners. He monitors the latest media coverage of issues related to advanced care, identifying and generating opportunities to promote C-TAC’s mission to ensure that all Americans living with advanced illness receive high-quality and person-centered care. He is also heavily involved with the planning and execution of C-TAC’s National Summit on Advanced Illness Care. Trained as a journalist at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, Stephen works to amplify the compelling stories of people living with advanced illness to advocate for their needs. Before joining the C-TAC team, he supported communications efforts at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, first promoting research published in the open-access journal Science Advances, and then highlighting the organization’s various projects and initiatives on the News & Information team.
Index
Lou Gagliano
Strategic Advisor
Lou Gagliano joined C-TAC as a Strategic Advisor early in 2018, concentrating on the group's Advanced Care Transformation (ACT) Index Measures. He has helped to focus the development effort of the Index Measures to a state-by-state base in order to create a better method of identifying changes that will improve delivery of Advanced Care. This is being accomplished by determining Best Practices of care delivery in states that are accomplishing goals of care that exceed those of other states. By determining the reasons for these better care patterns, C-TAC seeks to help states that are not performing as well to improve their care patterns.
Lou is currently working with a 42-person Arizona group of health care professionals to define and design improvements to the care of Arizonans with serious illness. The goal will be to research best practice improvements throughout the United States and bring them to the group for consideration and implementation. Once implemented, these improvements will be evaluated using publicly reported measures, including C-TAC’s ACT Index, for this population, and also evaluated by a survey of patient and family voices. This initiative, which began in 2019 and funded by the Lovell Foundation, will be completed over the next several years with a concentration on community-based care in alignment with patient stated goals of care.
Interns & Graduate Fellows
Qianmo Xing
Database, Operations, and Research Intern
Qianmo Xing is originally from China, and he came to the US 3 years ago. He recently received his M.S in Economics from Georgetown University. His field of studies was quantitative economics and statistics. Some of Qianmo’s interests including data analysis, sales and volunteer work. During the past year, he worked at Dahlgren Memorial Library as a student employee in information services, helping medical school students find books and journals, connecting to MedStar Hospital network and using Ovid/PubMed to access medical resources. He believes medical resources will be utilized optimal by data excavation and analyzing.
Adriana Krasniansky
Faith-Based Partnerships Intern
Adriana Krasniansky is a Ukrainian-American who grew up near Cleveland, Ohio. Today, Adriana is a Master's student at Harvard Divinity School. At HDS, Adriana studies how government, technology, and business organizations can serve the underprivileged and under-accessed, particularly those in the disability and advanced illness communities. She also researches how nonprofit groups, faith communities, and care organizations can use technology and innovation practices to amplify their efforts. Adriana found her passion for advanced illness care while serving as a family caregiver and volunteering at nursing homes and local hospitals. Her interests include running, biking, kayaking, and working as a youth mentor with the Ukrainian American Youth Association.
Ayush Thacker
Partnerships & Programs Intern
Ayush Thacker is an Indian-American who grew up in Sharon, Massachusetts. Currently, he is a rising sophomore at Brandeis University studying Biology and Health: Science, Society, Policy. He is currently on track to pursue medical school in the future and eventually acquire a clinical position. Ayush is a Partnership and Programs Intern and is also involved in Interfaith and Diversity. His passion for working in palliative care comes from the community oriented nature of the position. Throughout his short journey so far at Brandeis he has been able to learn and research the empathetic nature of end of life care and how patients can strengthen their relationship between their own minds and bodies. His hobbies and interests include playing Ultimate Frisbee, running, and biking, as well as playing the guitar.
Joshua Tabuena
Partnerships & Programs Intern
Joshua Tabuena is a rising junior at Northwestern University majoring in Economics and Biology. He is originally from the Philippines and currently lives in Chicago with his four younger siblings. He is involved in organizing the Northwestern Economics Tournament, an educational event for high school students, and is also a peer tutor for Organic Chemistry. He has previously conducted research in geochemistry and has tutored middle and high school students in math. He hopes to pursue a career at the intersection of clinical care and its institutional determinants to improve equity and increase healthcare access. In his free time, he enjoys playing Frisbee, biking, and exploring Chicago.
Kacy Ninteau
Policy & Advocacy Intern
Kacy Ninteau grew up in Western Massachusetts and is now a rising senior at Brandeis University. She is majoring in Neuroscience, Health: Science, Society, & Policy, and Biology. After graduation, she hopes to attend medical school. Kacy found her passion for end of life care while working at a nursing home in high school and later as a hospice personal care attendant. Her interests include dancing, ultimate frisbee, mental health advocacy, and being a mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters. Kacy is particularly proud of her work as a Crisis Counselor with Crisis Text Line. Through CTL, she is able to connect to people from all walks of life, giving them a space to share their pain and find some relief.
Tierney Beauregard
Programs & Communications Intern
Tierney Beauregard graduated from Bucknell University this spring, where she majored in Environmental Studies with minors in Economics and English-Literary Studies. Tierney is largely interested in the connections between environment and health and in working to improve social inequities which put marginalized and underserved communities most at risk for serious health consequences and chronic conditions.
Operations
Jennifer Driscoll
Senior Project Manager
Kristina Minior
Operations Coordinator
CB Wismar
National Summit Producer
CB Wismar is a writer and Creative Director who has written for film and television as well as both print and electronic media. He created events and experiences for Fortune 500 companies for over 30 years including TIME’s 75th Anniversary, the Xerox “drupa” Pavillion, 8 ASTA World Travel Congresses and nine Life@50+ events for AARP. He has created and scripted major events for United Way Worldwide, America’s Promise, MCI, ExxonMobil and Conoco-Phillips. Twice a finalist for the Academy Award in the short subjects category, his scripts have been nominated three times for EMMY Awards.
Outreach
Cheryl Matheis
Strategic Advisor
Cheryl Matheis is C-TAC’s Strategic Advisor. She is a recognized expert in healthcare, aging and consumer law and policy, having served in various high-level positions with AARP for over 25 years. Some of her many highlights include: serving as AARP’s Senior Principal and Counsel for External Affairs; serving as Senior Vice President for Policy, Strategy & International Affairs; providing expert counsel to AARP’s Board of Directors and executives; and directing successful campaigns on Health Reform and Medicare Part D Implementation. As State Affairs Director, Cheryl oversaw work combating predatory lending, and excessive utilities fees, and securing increased access to Medicaid services. She was AARP’s lead representative with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, drafting and securing adoption of consumer protection provisions in model laws. For more than a decade, Cheryl led AARP’s federal regulatory advocacy, brokering agreements with industry and government that resulted in important regulations. She helped write federal standards for Medicare Supplement and Long Term Care Insurance. Throughout her career, Cheryl has worked closely with State Attorneys General, pursuing joint initiatives with the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia Law School.
Cheryl received numerous awards during her AARP career, including the organization’s Outstanding Association Achievement award. She has appeared on major news outlets, including CBS, NBC, ABC, NPR, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
Cheryl is a graduate of Manhattanville College and Catholic University Law School, where she was a member of the Law Review. She is admitted to practice before the District of Columbia federal and local courts and the United States Supreme Court.
Elder Angela Overton
Senior Advisor to the Interfaith and Diversity Workgroup
Elder Angela Overton resides in Louisville, Kentucky. She was ordained under the Pastoral Leadership of Dr. C. Ronald S. Williams II in Cleveland, Ohio. She is a licensed Associate Minister at Green Castle Baptist Church where Rev. James R. Pitts is the Senior Pastor and assist where needed as an Assistant Minister at Burnett Avenue Baptist Church, supporting the Senior Pastor, Rev. Daniel C. Shull with Pastoral Care duties and responsibilities. She is passionate about the healthy development of people. She unapologetically believes that with each day lived therein lies the opportunity for God to do the impossible and she loves the privilege and responsibility of being used as God’s vessel. She is in awe and amazed at God’s power, kindness, mercy and love that has been shown toward her.
Angela is a cancer survivor, which she believes has been one of her greatest accomplishments and best experiences outside of being a mother that she has had. She is the Senior Advisor at the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC) in Washington, DC of the Interfaith & Diversity Workgroup. Angela oversees faith and diversity leaders across the United States where they are functioning to improve advanced illness care in our health systems, the quality of care and determinants of goals of care for the person with advanced illness, and their caregivers by creating, providing and implementing best practices and tangible resources for distribution to faith leaders to be shared with their community.
She is a former Contract Chaplain for Norton Healthcare where she filled in for Staff Chaplains as needed. She has volunteered for, and worked with numerous faith-based and not for profit organizations since her cancer experience in 1996. She is interested in expanding her ministerial and clinical capacities in the area of Pastoral Care and being a conduit of bridging the gap between faith and tangible resources to the marginalized and disfranchised persons.
Angela earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in History with a concentration in Social Sciences from the University of Louisville. She will receive her Master’s degree in Divinity from the Louisville Seminary in December 2020.
Sarah Park
Outreach Associate
Sarah Park serves as the Outreach Associate at The Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC). In her role, she supports efforts in building and maintaining partnerships as well as growing C-TAC’s reach across the advanced illness care spectrum.
Prior to joining C-TAC, Sarah worked at the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism for the South Korean government to foster awareness for Korean arts and culture. There, she developed social media campaigns, conducted community events, and oversaw New York City engagement for the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Sarah’s time at the Ministry grew her dedication for creative and genuine storytelling. She continues to pursue this passion at C-TAC by hoping to share the stories of those living with advanced illness.
Originally from New Jersey, Sarah received a B.A. degree in International Affairs and Global Public Health from The George Washington University in May 2018.
Rev. Tyrone Pitts
Senior Faith Advisor
An internationally published writer on racism, the Rev. Dr. Tyrone Pitts is the general secretary emeritus for the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. In addition for his work with the New Baptist Covenant, Dr. Pitts has also worked for racial justice under the auspices of the National Council of Churches, and currently serves as the chair of the Morehouse School of Religion Board of Directors.
Dr. Pitts is an ordained minister in the Progressive National Baptist Convention, having earned his doctoral ministry degree from United Theological Seminary in Ohio.
Mike Simmons
Strategic Advisor, Community Engagement
Luke Scuitto
Partnership Manager
Patient & Caregiver Voice
Tim Bauerschmidt & Ramie Liddle
Caregiver Fellows
Tim Bauerschmidt and Ramie Liddle are professional nomads who retired by age fifty to travel full-time in an Airstream travel trailer with Ringo, their Standard Poodle. They have explored every state but Alaska and consider Mexico's Baja California Peninsula the closest thing to home.
Shirley Roberson
C-TAC Fellow
Shirley Roberson has a Bachelor Science in Health Sciences and has done extensive research in nutrition and alternative health care modalities. Beginning with patient care under Dr. Jewell Pukrum, Shirley has personally experienced the healing benefits of macrobiotic and vegetarian diets. From her own research in medical science and the latest studies, she has effectively counseled others on natural healing that includes diet, meditation and spiritual practices. Over the years, Shirley has worked with the Hartford Church Health Ministry in the presentation of several health conferences. The Karmanos Cancer Institute frequently features Shirley as a model for patients with advanced breast cancer. She was selected to attend a national conference of Women Living With Metastatic Breast Cancer in Philadelphia. Roberson is frequently sought after to participate in groups and retreats for cancer survivors and is the progenitor of the “Blue Chair” featured in the 2018 National Summit.
Policy & Advocacy
Davis Baird
Policy & Advocacy Manager
Davis oversees and guides C-TAC’s policy and advocacy initiatives in close collaboration with the policy team. He helps manage policy and advocacy workgroups, conducts research and analysis of regulation and legislation to inform C-TAC policy priorities, cultivates relationships with Capitol Hill staff and Administration officials, helps manage the Congressional outreach plan for C-TAC, collaborates with members and partners to offer policy recommendations and gather stakeholder support for policy campaigns, and works closely with other groups with similar interests to organize briefings and roundtables to promote C-TAC’s work.
Prior to his role at C-TAC, Davis was a Program Manager at the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (n4a). In this role, he provided strategic programmatic and policy support to advance the mission and work of the Aging and Disability Business Institute to connect community-based organizations (CBOs) and health care payers and providers.
Davis received his bachelor’s degree in Psychology at The College of Charleston, and his Masters’ degree in Gerontology from the University of Southern California.
Marian Grant, DNP, ACNP-BC, ACHPN, FPCN, RN
Senior Regulatory Advisor
Marian Grant is a nurse practitioner (NP) dually certified in Acute Care and Palliative Care/Hospice. She is an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing and is also a nurse practitioner on the University of Maryland Medical Center’s Palliative Care Service. She is currently a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow and worked in Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office on Capitol Hill in 2015 and is now an INSPIRE fellow at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) on their Hospice demonstration.
Grant received her Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) from the University of Maryland, and her Masters and Bachelors in Nursing degrees from the Johns Hopkins University. She has worked as a nurse at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, helped start the Palliative Care program at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, and worked as an NP at the Gilchrist Hospice In-Patient Unit in Towson, Maryland. She is a co-author of The Hospice and Palliative Care Approach to Serious Illness, has done research as an online palliative care nurse practitioner on the Johns Hopkins Pancreatic Cancer website, and blogged for the Journal of Palliative Medicine. Before becoming a nurse, Dr. Grant received a Bachelors in Science from Miami University in mass communication and had a career in advertising and marketing for the Procter & Gamble Company.
Andrew MacPherson
Senior Policy Advisor
As Senior Policy Advisor to C-TAC and Principal at Healthsperien, Andrew provides comprehensive strategic guidance, in-depth policy analysis and effective messaging development on wide-range of federal health policy and political issues, including those related to the implementation of Affordable Care Act (ACA), quality and value-based purchasing, Medicare, Medicaid, prescription drug coverage and pharmaceutical cost containment, long-term care supports and services, chronic care management, and public and private insurance coverage expansions. Through his work with dozens of public and private stakeholders at the local, state, regional and federal level, Andrew has a special emphasis on policy and political issues related to advanced care and serious illness.
Prior to his work at Healthsperien, Andrew was Founder and Principal of MacPherson Strategic, Inc., a health care policy, legislative strategy, and communications consulting firm. MacPherson Strategic served a diverse set of health care stakeholder clients, including consumer groups, broad-based coalitions, innovative health care start-ups, and the largest health care purchasers.
Prior to founding MacPherson Strategic, Andrew served as Director of Government Affairs at Jennings Policy Strategies, Inc. (JPS), a nationally recognized health policy consulting firm led by Chris Jennings, the former Senior Health Care Advisor to President Bill Clinton and now Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama. From 2005-2013, Mr. MacPherson staffed a wide variety of client and pro bono initiatives in the policy, political, and communications arenas with JPS, Inc., such as the Bipartisan Policy Center health reform project with former Majority Leaders Baker, Daschle, Dole and Mitchell, presidential campaigns including Obama for America and Hillary Clinton for President, and the Clinton Global Initiative. While at JPS, Andrew researched and co-authored numerous articles and speeches on a range of health policy issues.
From 2005 to 2007, Andrew served in the Government Relations Department with the American Psychiatric Association. At APA, Andrew developed national policy positions, conducted in-depth research on physician access and reimbursement, and engaged on all aspects of targeted lobbying activities including those related to implementation of the Medicare Part D drug benefit, physician reimbursement under Medicare and mental health “parity” legislation.
From 2001 to 2004, Mr. MacPherson worked for a range of policy and political organizations and elected officials, including Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Democratic Governors’ Association, Vermont Democratic Party, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, Inc., a market research and strategic communications consulting firm based in Washington, D.C.
Originally from Vermont, Andrew received a B.A. in Political Science from The George Washington University in May 2005.
Sage Rosenthal
Policy and Advocacy Associate
Sage Rosenthal serves as the Advocacy and Policy Associate at the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC). In this role, she supports advancing the policy and advocacy mission of C-TAC through research and building and maintaining stakeholder relationships. Sage has a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Brandeis University in Health: Science, Society, and Policy and Psychology along with a minor in Business. Prior to C-TAC, Sage has gained experience working with state-level and federal-level advocacy on topics such as children’s mental health, global poverty, and preventable diseases. Additionally, she has spent a previous summer gaining policy experience working on the hill.
She hopes to contribute her public health and health policy lens to the mission of delivering high-quality, person-centered care to all individuals in the country living with advanced illness. As well as support the holistic perspective C-TAC emphasizes in its work.