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Janusz Cisek serves as Professor in the Center of European Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow where he heads the Program on History and Culture of Central Europe. He is also Director of the Museum of the Polish Army in Warsaw. He heads a major project to renovate the ruins of the Warsaw Citadel and relocate the Museum of the Polish Army, the Katyn Museum, there. Dr Cisek also served as expert for the Cultural Commission of the European Council in Strasburg (CD-CULT). He was a member of the Bureau responsible for Group ‘G’ that included Latvia, Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Georgia, Moldavia, Armenia and Azerbaijan (2001-02). Dr Cisek served as Director of the Josef Pilsudski Institute in New York (1992-2000) where he presented a major international conference “Wilsonian East-Central Europe: Current Perspectives” (1993). Dr Cisek frequently consults on U.S. and Polish historical television and movie productions, including the movie “Battle of Warsaw 1920.” He also directed a documentary “General Pulaski! Tu jestesmy” and wrote scripts for several historical documentaries including “General Anders malo znany”or “Olimpiady Kusego.” He cooperated closely with WNYE "Studio 3" Television,” Channel 25 in New York, provided advice to TVN Discovery-Historia, NBC Sports Illustrated Specials, TVP-Historia, and other American and European movie production companies. Dr Cisek also authored several scholarly publications including “Polish Refugees and the Polish American Immigration and Relief Committee” published by McFarland & Company in 2006.

Born to a poor immigrant family in New York City, Richard Carmona experienced homelessness, hunger, and health disparities during his youth. The experiences greatly sensitized him to the relationships among culture, health, education and economic status and ultimately shaped his future. After dropping out of high school, Dr. Carmona enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1967. By the time he left active duty, he was a Special Forces, combat-decorated Vietnam veteran. He then attended college, followed by medical school at the University of California – San Francisco, where he won the prestigious Gold Cane award. Dr. Carmona became a surgeon with a sub-specialty in trauma, burns and critical care and was recruited to Tucson to establish the first trauma system in southern Arizona which he did successfully. Later, while working full time as a hospital and health system CEO, he earned a master’s degree in public health policy and administration at the University of Arizona. In 2002 Dr. Carmona was nominated by the president and unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate to become the 17th Surgeon General of the United States. After completing his statutory four-year term as Surgeon General in 2006, Dr. Carmona joined Tucson-based Canyon Ranch as vice chairman. He is president of the non-profit Canyon Ranch Institute and Distinguished Professor at the Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona.

Madelyn Clark is a vibrant 17-year-old from Mechanicsville, Virginia. She is a member of the Youth Advisory Board to the Alliance for a New Generation’s empowerME initiative. The Alliance for a Healthier Generation is a partnership between the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation to fight one of the nation's leading health threats – childhood obesity. EmpowerME gives young people tools to make healthy changes in their own lives, their schools and their communities. Clark is one of 25 youth selected after a national search for talented and motivated young people who can give feedback on the Alliances Kids’ movement programs and strategies, and generate new ideas to make healthy living the norm, not the exception. In her home community, Clark serves on the Hanover Youth Service Council. The Hanover Youth Service Council is made up of middle and high school students who conduct service projects in the community which have included a countywide school supplies drive for elementary school students in need and assisting with activities for disabled adults. She also serves on the Hanover Youth Perspective which is an organization of board-appointed middle and high school students that provides youth a more formal role in the county's planning and development process and an outlet to voice issues important to them, including plans of new parks, schools and libraries with the Hanover Planning Commission. In the summer, Clark uses her Red Cross lifeguard certification at Kings Dominion Theme Park and also participates in the junior volunteer program at the Medical College of Virginia Hospital. She is planning a career in the healthcare profession.

Bernadette Melnyk is Dean and Distinguished Foundation Professor in Nursing at Arizona State University College of Nursing & Health Innovation. Dr. Melnyk is an internationally recognized expert in theory-based intervention research and evidence-based practice as well as in child and adolescent mental health. She has worked with numerous healthcare systems throughout the nation and globe to advance and sustain evidence-based practice. Dr. Melnyk’s record of extramural research and educational funding, including grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, and HRSA totals more than $11 million. Through a series of nine randomized controlled trials, she has supported the efficacy of her COPE intervention program in improving the outcomes of critically ill/hospitalized children and premature infants and parents, which has been adopted by hospitals and insurers throughout the U.S. Her current NIH-funded RO1 grant is a randomized controlled trial testing the efficacy of her COPE/Healthy Lifestyles TEEN program to prevent overweight/obesity and depression in 800 culturally diverse teenagers in Phoenix, Arizona. Dr. Melnyk’s record of scholarship includes over 150 publications, two books, and numerous distinguished awards for her contributions to improving children’s health, nursing and healthcare.

Pate is an exercise physiologist with interests in physical activity and physical fitness in children and the health implications of physical activity. He has published more than 230 scholarly papers and has authored or edited three books. His research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Heart Association, and several private foundations and corporations. He heads a research team that currently is supported by three grants from the National Institutes of Health. He coordinated the effort that lead to the development of the recommendation on Physical Activity and Public Health of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Sports Medicine (1995). He served on the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (2003-04), the U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee (2007-08), and an Institute of Medicine panel that developed guidelines on prevention of childhood obesity. He currently chairs the coordinating committee for the National Physical Activity Plan. Pate has served in several leadership positions with the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), and in 1993-94 served as that organization’s president. He is a past-president of the National Coalition on Promoting Physical Activity, and he is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education. In 1996 he received the Citation Award from the American College of Sports Medicine, and in 1999 he received the Alliance Scholar Award of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. A lifelong distance runner, Pate competed in three U.S. Olympic Trials marathons and twice placed among the top ten finishers in the Boston Marathon. For more than 20 years he served as president of the Carolina Marathon Association, which hosted the U.S. Olympic Trials: Women’s Marathon in both 1996 and 2000.

Prior to joining HRSA, Dr. Rhee was Director of the Office of Innovation and Program Coordination at the National Institutes of Health's National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities. Before that, he was Chief Medical Officer of Baltimore Medical System Inc., the largest network of Federally Qualified Health Centers in Maryland. In addition, Dr. Rhee served five years as a National Health Service Corps Scholar and Medical Director at the Upper Cardozo Health Center in Washington, D.C. Dr. Rhee is board-certified in internal medicine and pediatrics. He received his medical degree from the University of Southern California and did his residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Dr. Rhee also holds a masters degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He received his Bachelor degree from Yale University in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry.

Deborah Kotz has been a health reporter for nearly 20 years and wrote a cover story dealing with the obesity epidemic in children for US News & World Report. She recently moved to the Boston Globe, where she launched a new consumer health blog called Daily Dose that deals with news of the day with a Bostonian twist. Before joining the Boston Globe, Kotz was a senior writer for US News & World Report covering the FDA, health reform's impact on consumers, vaccinations and other topics. She also had a women's health blog. Kotz is a 1991 graduate of Cornell University, majoring in science journalism. She now splits her time between Boston and DC. She's regularly featured on WTOP.

Dr. Shelley Carson received her Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University in 2001, where she continues to conduct research, teach, and advise undergraduates. Her research on creativity, psychopathology, and resilience has been widely published in both national and international scientific journals, and her findings have been featured on the Discovery Channel, CNN, NPR, the BBC, and Radio Free Europe. In addition, Dr. Carson’s work has been noted in magazines such as Newsweek, Scientific American, and Psychology Today. While winning multiple teaching awards at Harvard for her popular course Creativity: Madmen, Geniuses, and Harvard Students, Dr. Carson also maintains an active speaking schedule outside of the classroom, talking to such groups as the Congressional Biomedical Research Caucus, the National Council on Disability, the Massachusetts Manic Depressive and Depressive Association, and the One Day University lecture series.

Jocelyne Cesari is an associate at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, and teaches at the Harvard Divinity School and in the department of government. Cesari is a French political scientist, tenured at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris and specializes in contemporary Islamic societies. Before coming to Harvard, she served as an associate research scholar and visiting professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. At Harvard, she is director of the interfaculty Islam in the West Program. This research program produced a major publication, the Encyclopedia of Islam in the United States. She also coordinates the islamopedia website. Her areas of expertise include Islam and globalization, Muslim minorities in Europe and America, and Islam and politics in North Africa. Over the course of her career, Cesari has published 13 books and more than 50 articles in European and American journals. Her most recent books are When Islam and Democracy Meet: Muslims in Europe and in the United States and European Muslims and the Secular State. Her forthcoming book is Muslims in the West After 9/11: Religion, Politics, and Law. She has also received grants to write the reports "Islam and Fundamental Rights" and "The Religious Consequences of September 11, 2001, on Muslims in Europe" for the European Commission.

Gene Heyman earned a PhD in experimental psychology from Harvard University (1977). His thesis tested economic interpretations of the “matching law,” a behavioral principle that describes how animals and people make choices. After a year of teaching undergraduate classes, Heyman took a post-doctoral position in the Department of Pharmacological and Physiological Sciences at the University of Chicago. The psychopharmacological studies led to a research position in drug discovery for a pharmaceutical company. In 1987, Heyman returned to the Harvard Psychology Department. One of his goals was to develop an animal model of addiction that would shed light on how addictive drugs gained control over behavior. He also began teaching an undergraduate course on addiction. Heyman has received several Harvard teaching awards and published more than fifty papers and chapters on topics in choice, basic behavioral processes, psycho-pharmacology, and addiction. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and private foundations. Most recently he has been teaching Introduction to Psychology as a Natural Science at Boston College, where he is a Visiting Associate Professor.