Join us as we honor our Alumni Award recipients and reflect on the journeys that began at Harvard Chan School and celebrate the ways that change extends far beyond campus through the individuals our alumni serve, the policies they help shape, and the lives they touch across the globe.

Schedule

Friday, September 25, 2026, 5:00 – 9:00 PM

UMASS Club; Downtown Boston

5:00 – 6:00 pm | Reception

6:00 – 9:00 pm | Award of Merit Celebration Dinner

The program will include:

• Remarks by Andrea Baccarelli, MD, PhD, Dean of the Faculty
• A conversation with Demond Martin, Co-Founder, CEO of WellWithAll and Amanda T. Yarnell, Director of the Center for Health Communications at Harvard Chan School.
• Award of Merit presentation to Lorraine Dean, SD ’10 and Felix Gutzwiller, MPH ’75

Saturday, September 26, 2026, 10:00 am – 3:30 pm

Harvard Chan School

9:00 – 9:55 am | Planned Giving Breakfast

Steve Shama MPH ’74 will lead an interactive conversation focused on financial planning. Steve will share about his experiences at the School and why he decided to set up a named scholarship fund. Separate registration required.

9:30 am | Registration

10:00 – 11:15 am | Case Study Session

Presented by Rick Siegrist, Faculty Director of the DrPH Program and senior lecturer in the Department of Health Policy and Management.

11:15 am – 12:15 pm | Health for All: Public Health Leadership Lessons

A conversation with several of our Public Health Champions focused on what it takes to lead and ensure “health for all” when the system is under pressure. The panel’s conversation will focus on leadership in different sectors of the health ecosystem. Moderated by Howard Koh, Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership, and featuring:

• Morissa Henn, DrPH ’19, Deputy Commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services
• Amy Rosenthal, MPH ’01, Undersecretary of Health, Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services
• Mahrokh Irani, MPH ’18, Chief of Staff & Senior Strategist, Yale School of Public Health

12:15 – 1:30 pm | Association Meeting and Professional Awards Luncheon

Hear from Alumni Association President, Bernie Lee, MPH ’14, and celebrate our three Professional Achievement Awardees.

1:30 – 2:30 pm | Advanced Learning Academy Session: Building AI Solutions to Transform Health Care

An introduction to the Harvard Chan Advanced Learning Academy, the School’s new hub for non-degree programs. In addition to learning about this new venture and offering ideas to help shape its future, attendees will get to experience a session from a recent ALA program, Building AI Solutions to Transform Health Care, gaining insight into the practical skills learners walk away with—such as designing real, implementation-ready AI prototypes for their own organizations. 

Presented by:

• Rifat Atun, Vice Dean for Non-Degree Education and Innovation
• Heather Mattie PhD ’17, Lecturer on Biostatistics

2:30 – 3:30 pm | Closing the Gap: Why Sex Matters in Public Health

A discussion with leading experts in women’s health investment, therapeutic development, healthcare, and policy. They will share insights on how sex specific research, data, and care are key to unlocking some of the biggest challenges we face today and current policy efforts driving systemic change. With significant shifts in government spending and priorities, the panel will address how advocacy is playing a vital role in weathering the storms and ensuring women’s health continues to advance.

• Elizabeth Garner, MD ’93, MPH ’94; CEO, Sena Therapeutics; Founding Leader of Women’s Health Advocates
• Liz Powell, Esq., MPH ’03; Founder, Women’s Health Advocates; Founder, G2G Consulting
• Kathryn Rexrode, MD, MPH ’96; Chief of the Division of Women’s Health, Mass General Brigham, Professor, Harvard Medical School
• Emily Gaudiano, PhD, Eli Lilly

Speakers

Rifat Atun is Dean for Education and Innovation and the Julio Frenk Professor of Public Health Leadership and at Harvard Chan School. As Dean for Education and Innovation, Atun provides strategic and operational leadership across the School’s degree and non-degree education portfolio, including the Advanced Learning Academy. He is developing a multi-year strategy that strengthens a solutions orientation in our teaching and fosters innovation in credentials, technology, and AI-enabled learning models. Atun has deep expertise in education theory, methods, and administration. As Director of the Health Systems Innovation Lab, he also oversees an annual international hackathon and venture incubation program.

Andrea Baccarelli, MD, PhD, became Dean of the Faculty at Harvard Chan School in January 2024. An internationally recognized scientist and thought leader, his pioneering work has transformed our understanding of how environmental factors impact long-term health. Elected to the National Academy of Medicine and recognized as one of the world’s most highly cited scientists, Dean Baccarelli brings a vision of expansive collaboration and unwavering commitment to excellence. Under his leadership, the School is forging new paradigms in public health research and education. Dean Baccarelli champions bold interdisciplinary initiatives and a culture where faculty, students, and staff will have the resources to develop impactful solutions to global health challenges.

Elizabeth Garner, MD ’93, MPH ’94 is CEO of Sena Therapeutics and a founding leader of Women’s Health Advocates. As CEO of Sena Therapeutics, she focuses on advancing impactful solutions in women’s health, leveraging extensive expertise in clinical development and regulatory strategy. Garner’s work is rooted in addressing critical challenges within healthcare and improving quality of life through innovative therapeutic and diagnostic advancements. Her commitment to improving patient outcomes extends to her role as Board Chair at NUA Surgical and as Owner and President of KNI Health Consultants, LLC, where she provides expert insights across clinical and regulatory landscapes.

Emily Gaudiano, PhD, is Associate Director of External Innovation at Eli Lilly. She has previously worked at SV Health Investors and MPM BioImpact and earned her PhD in chemical biology at Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Morissa Henn, DrPH ’19, is Deputy Commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. Her career is focused on helping build stronger communities and more responsive systems at the intersections of public health, public policy, and service delivery. Henn leads major system transformations, including Mission Zero to end psychiatric boarding in emergency departments, a national-first effort to replace a 144-bed youth detention facility with a 12-bed therapeutic center and community alternatives, and the state’s acquisition of a psychiatric hospital and its transformation into a public safety-net institution and Dartmouth-affiliated training hub.

Mahrokh Irani, MPH ’18 is Chief of Staff & Senior Strategist at Yale School of Public Health. Her responsibilities span institutional strategy, capital planning, corporate and external partnerships, and school-wide events. A member of YSPH’s senior leadership team, Irani helped shape the school’s first five-year strategic plan as an independent institution and leads implementation of its third strategic priority, Fostering Community. She also leads strategic planning for the school’s proposed new building, helping translate the school’s long-term academic and institutional priorities into its physical environment.

Howard Koh is the Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership and the inaugural Chair of the Harvard Chan Initiative on Health and Homelessness at Harvard Chan School and a member of the Faculty Executive Committee of the Advanced Leadership Initiative and Co-Director of the Initiative on Health, Spirituality and Religion at Harvard University. He has published over 325 articles on topics including disease prevention and health promotion, health reform, health equity, health and spirituality, public health emergency preparedness, health literacy. Outside of academia, Koh has served as was Commissioner of Public Health for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and as the 14^th Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Demond Martin is a CEO, founder, philanthropist, and investor shaping a new model of wellbeing that starts with purpose and ends in possibility. Martin has experienced the full range of life’s realities—from city blocks and a down South trailer home, to boardrooms that move billions. He’s built portfolios on Wall Street and programs that restore hope on the ground. As a Co-Founder of WellWithAll, he is using that same discipline and empathy to help people live longer, fuller lives—proving that doing good and doing well can be the same act of leadership.

Heather Mattie is a Lecturer in the Department of Biostatistics. Her research uses network science and machine learning to study interactions in communities and the development and application of artificial intelligence in healthcare research. She has found links between unhealthy weight control behaviors and the use of mobile dating applications, particularly in racial and ethnic minorities. Mattie has developed methods that predict tie strength in a network, which assists in modeling the spread of disease and information. Her work has also examined the potential for artificial intelligence to improve inference from data for care and population health, and the challenges related to bias and scalability in such models.

Liz Powell, MPH ’03, Esq. is the Founder of Women’s Health Advocates and G2G Consulting, with 25 years of experience working in Congress and as an attorney and lobbyist. She started G2G in 2007 and oversees government relationships and operations for the firm. Powell also serves on the Steering Committee for the Innovation Equity Forum led by the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and created Women’s Health Advocates as well as the Women’s Digital Health Network and the Breast Cancer Early Detection Coalition. For Harvard Chan School, Powell co-founded the D.C. Alumni Chapter in serves on the Alumni Giving Committee.

Kathryn Rexrode, MPH ’96, MD, is Chief of the Division of Women’s Health at Mass General Brigham and a professor at Harvard Medical School. She has broad and deep experience in women’s health research, particularly the role of obesity and hormonal factors, and the influence and intersection of sex and gender in cardiovascular health and disease. She is currently focused on the impact of metabolism on the risk of heart disease and stroke in women. She is also examining interventions that might reduce breast density in women, thereby reducing the risk of breast cancer. In addition to her leadership roles and research efforts, Dr. Rexrode practices primary care at Gretchen S. and Edward A. Fish Center for Women’s Health in Chestnut Hill.

Amy Rosenthal, MPH ’01 is Undersecretary of Health in the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services. With nearly 30 years of experience in health care, advocacy, public policy, politics, and philanthropy, she specializes in elevating unheard voices and building coalitions to address difficult problems. Immediately prior to her current role, Rosenthal drove major policy change as Executive Director at Health Care For All. Since 2014, she has also taught classes at Harvard Chan School.

Rick Siegrist is senior lecturer on health care management and Director of the DrPH Program at Harvard Chan School. He teaches physician, graduate, and executive education courses on financial management, cost accounting, management control, innovation and entrepreneurship. Siegrist was previously CEO and chief innovation officer of Press Ganey Associates, a leading patient satisfaction and performance improvement company in healthcare. He was also a senior leader at WebMD, which acquired the company he co-founded, HealthShare Technology. Siegrist also co-founded Transition Systems, Inc. (TSI), a leading provider of hospital cost accounting and decision support software, subsidiary of Tufts New England Medical later became part of Eclipsys/Allscripts.

Amanda T. Yarnell is Senior Director of the Center for Health Communications and a lecturer in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Harvard Chan School.

Under her leadership, the Center launched a Public Health Creators program, which equips and inspires influential creators to spread evidence-based health information on social media. The program is a natural laboratory where Yarnell and her team study how creators are reshaping health narratives and health behaviors, and what it means for society. Before joining Harvard’s faculty, Yarnell worked as a science journalist and news executive at C&EN, an award-winning nonprofit science news outlet published by the American Chemical Society.

Harvard Chan School hosts a diverse array of speakers, invited to share both scholarly research and personal perspectives. They do not speak for the School, and hosting them does not imply endorsement of their views, organizations, or employers.