Suzanne Mintz
President and Co-founder
National Family Caregivers Association (NFCA)
Kensington, MD

Suzanne Mintz is a social entrepreneur. She took a personal experience, her husband's diagnosis of MS and its ensuing impact on their lives, and built a national organization to improve the lives of family caregivers, the National Family Caregivers Association (NFCA). She has transformed the lens through which healthcare professionals, public policy makers, the media and the general public view family caregiving and has empowered hundreds of thousands of individual family caregivers to take charge of their own lives and speak up on behalf of themselves and their loved ones.

Ms. Mintz is currently president of the organization she co-founded 15 years ago as the only national organization for all family caregivers, regardless of their loved one's age or diagnosis.  She recognized early in this journey that the impact of family caregiving goes beyond individual families and has become a national healthcare and social policy issue.  Suzanne has testified before Congress and is often quoted by the national press.

In 2006 she was one of 15 winners, out of an initial pool of 1,200 for the first-ever Purpose Prize, a national award for Americans 60 and above who are leading a new age of social innovation. Suzanne is also the 2004 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Eli Lilly Welcome Back initiative.

Her latest book, A Family Caregiver Speaks Up: It Doesn't Have to be This Hard is full of advice for family caregivers, tips for interacting with the healthcare system to better meet the needs of families dealing with chronic illness, and a cogent presentation of how public policy has a profound effect on even the most intimate details of life in caregiving families.  In addition to her book Suzanne is the author of numerous articles and educational pamphlets.

Ms. Mintz is on the board of the National Health Council, the Board of Governors of the National Patient Safety Foundation, Advisory Board of the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease and serves as an advisor to numerous other projects and committees.

Suzanne holds a bachelors degree in English from Queens College University of the City of New York and a master's degree in human ecology from the University of Maryland.

She lives in Kensington MD with her husband Steven and their cat KC.

Rebeca D. Monk, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine and Program Director, Nephrology Fellowship
University of Rochester Medical Center
Rochester, NY

Rebeca D. Monk, MD is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Program Director of the Nephrology fellowship at the University of Rochester Medical Center.  She is actively involved in kidney disease education for medical students, residents and fellows. She is particularly interested in the care of patients with kidney stones, chronic kidney disease and in critical care Nephrology.  She also serves as medical director of two hemodialysis centers in Western New York.  Dr. Monk graduated from the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons following undergraduate training at Barnard College.  She completed her internal medicine residency and Nephrology fellowship at the University of Rochester, Strong Memorial Hospital.

Howard Moore,
Caregiver to wife who is in kidney failure
Rochester, NY

Gail Gibson Hunt
President and CEO
National Alliance for Caregiving
Washington, DC

Gail Hunt is President and CEO of the National Alliance for Caregiving, a non-profit coalition dedicated to conducting research and developing national programs for family caregivers and the professionals who serve them.  Prior to heading NAC, Ms. Hunt was President of her own aging services consulting firm for 14 years.  She conducted corporate eldercare research for the National Institute on Aging and the Social Security Administration, developed training for caregivers with AARP and the American Occupational Therapy Association, and designed a corporate eldercare program for EAPs with the Employee Assistance Professional Association.  Prior to having her own firm, she was Senior Manager in charge of human services for the Washington, DC, office of KPMG Peat Marwick.  Ms. Hunt attended Vassar College and graduated from Columbia University in New York.  In May of 2004, she was appointed by the White House to serve on the Policy Committee for the 2005 White House Conference on Aging. She is also very involved in international activities in caregiving.

Joseph A. Vassalotti, MD, FASN
Chief Medical Officer
National Kidney Foundation
New York, NY

Dr. Vassalotti is the National Kidney Foundation's Chief Medical Officer. He also currently serves on the clinical faculty of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. Dr. Vassalottis oversees the medical operations of NKF's Kidney Early Evaluation Program, which identifies early chronic kidney disease (CKD) in high risk individuals.

He plays a major role in the development and evaluation of professional education programs and materials produced by NKF's Kidney Learning System and works closely with NKF's medical leadership and Scientific Advisory Board on the full range of NKF's medical programs. He is Co-Principal Investigator for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demonstration project to identify individuals at high risk for CKD in the United States using state-based screening.

Dr. Vassalotti holds an MD from SUNY Stony Brook. He served his Residency and Nephrology Fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Louis Papa, MD
Primary Care Physician
Partner, Olsan Medical Group
Strong Health
Rochester, NY

Louis J. Papa M.D., FACP is board certified in Internal Medicine and is a primary care physician and partner at Olsan Medical Group. He is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of Rochester, where he helps educate internal medicine residents on primary outpatient care. In 1989, Dr. Papa graduated from the State University of New York at Stony Brook School of Medicine and came to Rochester to complete his residency at Strong Memorial Hospital where he is currently an attending physician. Dr. Papa is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, a former Delegate for the Young Physicians Section representing New York State to the American Medical Association, and was named by his peers to "Best Doctors in America" in 2001. He was selected by "Rochester Business Journal" as one of the "Forty under Forty" young community leaders in 2001 and was named as one of only 25 physicians under 40 years old nationally to receive the "Excellence in Medicine Award" from the American Medical Association Foundation for leadership in 2003. Dr. Papa is involved in a number of medical, civic and community activities and boards including his role as a board member of the largest health foundation in Upstate New York - the Greater Rochester Healthcare Foundation, volunteer work with the uninsured, as a New York Council member for the American College of Physicians and is a past President of his local medical society.