Building What's Next: Private Innovation for Public Health 

Dr. Holers graduated from Purdue University and Washington University School of Medicine. Following an internship and residency at Barnes Hospital, he was a Rheumatology Clinical Fellow at the University of Colorado and then a Research Fellow at Washington University. Dr. Holers was recruited to the University of Colorado to be the first Smyth Professor of Rheumatology and from 2000-2021 served as Division Head of Rheumatology. The historical focus of the Holers’ Laboratory research efforts has been on the structure-function relationships and biologic roles of the complement immune system. In that regard, his Laboratory demonstrated the key in vivo roles of these proteins in the development of murine models of human disease. He then led the development of first-in-class tissue-directed complement therapeutics that have been licensed and are undergoing testing in patients with autoimmune renal diseases. More recently the Holers’ Laboratory has moved a major focus of research activities to studying the natural history and pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) prior to the onset of clinically apparent arthritis, focusing on developing new diagnostics and therapeutics for disease prevention. Dr. Holers also currently serves as Faculty Ventures Director for CU Anschutz Innovations, working to promote the ability of faculty and trainees to move discoveries to clinical and population impact. In recognition of these and other efforts, Dr. Holers has been elected a member of several honorary societies, including the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and the Association of American Physicians (AAP). He recently received the singular American College of Rheumatology Presidential Gold Medal and the Carol Nachman International Prize in Rheumatology Research. 

Donna Lynne, DrPH, is the Chief Executive Officer for Denver Health and Hospital Authority (DHHA), a $1.6 billion community-based clinic and hospital system, providing 1.4 million patient visits a year. DHHA also operates a health plan, 19 school-based clinics, 11 ambulatory clinics, the paramedic system for Denver and surrounding counties and numerous public health services. Prior to becoming CEO of DHHA, Donna was the Chief Operating Officer of Columbia University Medical Center and the CEO of Columbia Doctors, a 2,600-physician faculty practice organization supported by over 7,000 non-physician staff. Donna also served as the University’s COVID-19 Director. Until January 2019, she was Colorado’s 49th Lieutenant Governor and Chief Operating Officer, the first person to ever hold both titles at the same time. Dr. Lynne also served as the executive vice president of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, and as group president responsible for its Colorado, Pacific Northwest and Hawaii regions—overseeing an $8 billion budget, 1.4 million members and 16,000 employees.

Dr. Lynne has been recognized as one of the top women business leaders in Colorado and one of the top 25 Women in Healthcare in the nation. Earlier in her career, she also spent 20 years working in various positions in New York City government including First Deputy Commissioner at the Office of Labor Relations, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Operations and Senior Vice President of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation.

Dr. Lynne holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from University of New Hampshire, a Masters of Public Administration from George Washington University, and a Doctor of Public Health from Columbia University. In 2014, she received an honorary doctorate of public service from the University of Denver, and in 2017 an honorary bachelor of science degree in nursing from Colorado Mountain College. Her current board service includes Advance EDU, Colorado Hospital Association, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and University of Denver. She has also been an adjunct professor at Columbia University since 2005.  

Beth Rudden spent twenty-five years at IBM building AI for large institutions: Distinguished Engineer, more than thirty patents, Chief Data Officer for the managed services business. She left to build AI that runs where the data already lives, so a hospital's records never become somebody else's training set. Bast AI, her company, makes healthcare AI that can show you the exact sentence in the exact record its answer came from, because a system making decisions about someone's care owes them an account of how it decided. She studied archaeology first, where nothing counts unless you can say exactly where you found it. 

George Sparks has been the President/CEO of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science since November 2004. He spent 24 years in the electronics measurement business at Hewlett-Packard and Agilent Technologies. His career included marketing, sales, and general management of global businesses in software, systems, and services.

Prior to joining Hewlett-Packard, George spent 9 years in the Air Force as a pilot and as an Assistant Professor of Aeronautics at the USAF Academy (1976-1978). He is a Distinguished Graduate of the USAF Academy with a BS in Aeronautical Engineering and holds an MS in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT.

George's passion is public policy, particularly around science and education. He is a member of the Colorado Forum, Colorado Concern, and is on the Boards of Colorado Education Initiative, Colorado Business Round Table, Colorado Music Hall of Fame and Denver Council of Foreign Relations.

George is the founder of the Institute for Science & Policy, a program of the Museum.

Dr. Timothy Wiemken joined Pfizer in 2021 as the Senior Director of Global Clinical Epidemiology to support the COVID, Influenza, and Antivirals team, leading modeling, methods, and special projects. His work in that role led to the first booster dose approvals for the COVID vaccine as well as proof of the virus seasonality and the need for annual vaccination. He has held additional roles since then at Pfizer as the lead for scientific innovation, digital platforms, and real-world evidence artificial intelligence. He is now the lead for transformation engineering, leading applied AI teams to develop novel AI solutions for critical business problems. Prior to joining Pfizer, he was a tenured professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, Allergy, and Immunology at Saint Louis University where his work focused on infection prevention, healthcare epidemiology, and the intersection of data science/machine learning/artificial intelligence in clinical outcomes research. He was also the infectious diseases epidemiologist for SSM Health in St. Louis, leading infection prevention, healthcare epidemiology, and antimicrobial stewardship. He is also adjoint association professor in the Colorado School of Public Health Department of Epidemiology. 

Tim holds a PhD in public health from the University of Louisville, an MPH in epidemiology from Saint Louis University, and a BA in Molecular Biology and Microbiology from Southern Illinois University. His doctoral research focused on social epidemiology, mapping communication networks among infection preventionists, and working toward identifying key opinion leaders and trustworthy information sources within networks of infection prevention professionals. 

Cathy J. Bradley, PhD, is the Dean of the Colorado School of Public Health and the Deputy Director of the University of Colorado Cancer Center. Dr. Bradley is a health economist and holds the Paul A. Bunn, Jr. Endowed Chair in Cancer Research. Prior to joining the University of Colorado, she was the founding Chair of the Department of Healthcare Policy and Research, at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine.

Dr. Bradley received a Bachelor’s degree from Old Dominion University and a Master’s of Public Administration and PhD in Health Policy and Administration from the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Public Health.

Dr. Bradley’s research focuses on decisions made at the intersection of work, health insurance, and cancer, and seeks to explain how when faced with a serious and expensive path to treat illness such as cancer, many workers remain employed to keep employer-based health insurance, despite needs for treatment and convalescence. This research has extended to families and caregivers and their financial consequences. Within this realm, Dr. Bradley concentrates on policies that reduce disparate outcomes and financial burden among people who must make these stark choices. She is also an expert in Medicaid and using administrative datasets to explore research questions related to health disparities. Since 1998, she has been continuously funded as a principal investigator by the National Institutes of Health, and has received funding from the American Cancer Society, the Commonwealth Fund, and other state and international agencies.

Dr. Bradley served on national advisory committees including the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine National Cancer Policy Forum and formerly served on the National Advisory Committee to the Agency for Healthcare Quality & Research. She currently serves on the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Methods Committee. She is also an Associate Editor for Journal of the National Cancer Institute, on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Cancer Survivorship, and was formerly an Associate Editor of Health Economics.

Dr. Bradley has received numerous awards and honors including the Women in Science, Dentistry, and Medicine Professional Achievement Award in Leadership, the Distinguished Faculty Award at Michigan State University, and the Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award at Virginia Commonwealth University.