Advisory Board

Shavon Arline is the national director of health programs for the NAACP where she is responsible for coordinating and planning the association’s health agenda and program implementation efforts. Ms. Arline has 10 years of public health experience in the areas of health disparities, federal and state government health program management, and community and stakeholder collaborative relationship building. Read more >

Ruben Brambila is the Project Manager for the Youth Activism Against Obesity (YAAO) project. Through collaborations with teens from the Healthy Eating Active Communities (HEAC) initiatives in South Los Angeles and Baldwin Park, YAAO spearheaded the very first online social network developed by teens-for-teens to combat childhood obesity. Read more >

Richard H. Carmona, M.D., M.P.H., FACS, the 17th U.S. Surgeon General (2002-2006), is vice chairman of Canyon Ranch, the country’s leading health and wellness company, and president of the nonprofit Canyon Ranch Institute, which translates the best practices of Canyon Ranch to empower communities worldwide to prevent disease. Dr. Carmona oversees health strategy and policy for Canyon Ranch. He is also Distinguished Professor of Public Health at the University of Arizona’s Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. Read more >

Marjorie Innocent, Ph.D., is the senior director of research and programs at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Inc. in Washington, D.C., where she oversees the strategic development, implementation, and evaluation of the foundation's initiatives in the areas of health, education, economic development, and leadership development.

Ms. Innocent has several years of experience in evaluation and research related to public health and education, as well as in examining policy and practice issues in the delivery of health and social services to low-income youth. Read more >

Over the last 25 years, Donna Richardson Joyner's purpose and passion has been to educate, empower, and energize children, women, and families to live healthy lifestyles. Ms. Richardson Joyner founded Sweating in the Spirit to help churches and communities live healthier by incorporating good nutrition and daily physical activity to improve overall wellness. Read more >

Marc Morial is president of the National Urban League. His energetic and skilled leadership has expanded the League’s work around an empowerment agenda, which is redefining civil rights in the 21st century with a renewed emphasis on closing the economic gaps between whites and blacks as well as rich and poor Americans. Read more >

Valerie Montgomery Rice, M.D., is the founder and executive director of the Center for Women’s Health Research at Meharry Medical College. She previously served as Meharry’s senior vice president for Health Affairs, dean of the School of Medicine, and chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. While a dean she was one of 14 female deans of medical schools in the country and the youngest among all serving deans. Read more >

Eduardo J. Sanchez, M.D., M.P.H., serves as vice president and chief medical officer for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas. Prior to this, he was the director of the Institute for Health Policy at The University of Texas (UT) School of Public Health. Dr. Sanchez served as Commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services from 2004-2006 and the Texas Department of Health from 2001-2004. Read more >

Johnathan Williams is founder and CEO of The Accelerated School (TAS) Community of Schools, a model public/private partnership charter school organization located in South Central Los Angeles, where he has dramatically begun to change the academic achievement of the students, and the surrounding neighborhood. In 2001, TAS was named School of the Year by TIME magazine, for "having found the most promising approaches to the most pressing challenges in education." Read more >

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