The members of our National Advisory Committee are experts in their fields who advise The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation both on the selection and the monitoring of LFP projects.

John F. Bunker, Sc.D., M.H.S. (Chairperson) serves as President of New Futures, Inc. and has over 25 years of experience in the prevention and treatment of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug problems. He currently serves on the New England Institute on Addictions Studies Board of Directors, the New Hampshire Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Commission, State Incentive Grant Advisory Committee, and the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Underage Drinking Task Force.

After serving as a VISTA and Peace Corps Volunteer, Bunker worked in community-based alcohol and drug abuse service agencies and held faculty appointments at the University of Texas and George Mason University. He provided health care consultation to a variety of public and private sector clients, including the World Health Organization, AT&T, Bell Atlantic, Exxon and Levi-Strauss. In 1996 he returned to his home state to serve as Vice President of Health Risk Management at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Hampshire.

Bunker received his Master of Health Science and Doctor of Science from the Johns Hopkins University, School of Hygiene and Public Health.

Tim J. Callahan, Vice President of the M.E. and F.J. Callahan Foundation, taught both photography and motion picture film production at the Rochester Institute of Technology. After teaching for seven years, he worked in the freelance motion picture film business in upstate New York and Boston. His professional involvement included a range of public broadcasting shows such as "Nova," "Discover," "Scientific American Frontiers," "Bill Moyers' Healing and the Mind," and a feature documentary on tenor Luciano Pavarotti's 1987 trip to China.

Callahan now works as a private investor and as the Executive Director of the Lennon Charitable Trust. He serves on numerous nonprofit boards, including The Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art, The Cleveland Institute of Art, The Cleveland Institute of Music, and the Case Western Reserve University. Callahan completed the Executive MBA program at Case Western Reserve in 1999.

Fernando Chang-Muy, J.D., directs the Philadelphia and Connecticut sites of the Funders’ Collaborative for Strong Latino Communities, an association of foundations that seek to strengthen the capacity and leadership of Latino organizations. He also teaches at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Law and Graduate School of Social Work. Chang-Muy provides independent consulting to local and national philanthropic, social service, and cultural organizations regarding strategic planning, board development, non-profit management and donor development.

He was the founding director of the Liberty Center for Survivors of Torture, a federally funded project to raise awareness about survivors of torture and to provide survivors with health and legal case management. Formerly he was a program officer at The Philadelphia Foundation and coordinator of the Emma Lazarus Collaborative-a collaborative of foundations that supported service and advocacy for immigrants and refugees. He is the past co-chair of the Philadelphia Bar Association's International Human Rights Committee and the author of various articles dealing with immigration and refugees, human rights, and public health.

From 1988 to 1993, Chang-Muy served as legal officer with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Health Organization, serving as the human rights officer for its Global Program on AIDS. He earned a bachelor’s at Loyola, a master’s at Georgetown, a juris doctorate at Antioch, and completed Harvard Law School’s Negotiation Project.

Rheba de Tornyay, R.N., Ed.D. is Professor and Dean Emeritus at the School of Nursing, University of Washington. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Washington, she was Dean and Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Nursing; a Professor at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Nursing; and Professor and Chair of the Department of Nursing at San Francisco State University. She has held numerous positions in hospitals and community health agencies.

De Tornyay’s professional associations include being a member of the Institute of Medicine and the American Academy of Nursing. She is a former member of the Board of Trustees of Harborview Medical Center in Seattle and a Trustee Emeritus of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Her primary interest is in aging and long-term care. She serves on the Regional Advisory Board of the Northwest Geriatric Education Center.

A graduate of Mount Zion Medical Center School of Nursing in San Francisco, CA, De Tornyay received her bachelor's degree in nursing and her master's degree in education from San Francisco State University, and her Ed.D. from Stanford University.

Reverend Micheal Elliott is the president and CEO of Union Mission, Inc. in Savannah, GA. Union Mission is a series of housing and supportive services for homeless persons and those living with HIV/AIDS, providing housing and assistance to 600 people every day. Under his leadership, the organization has grown from one facility in 1987 to nine in 2003, and the annual operating budget grew from $40,000 to over $8 million.

Previously, Elliott served as the executive director of the Louisville Coalition for the Homeless and as the Pastor/Director of the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel in Louisville, KY. He has published eight books including Why the Homeless Don’t Have Homes and What to Do about It. His first novel, Tour of Homes, tells the story of the creation of a recuperative center very much like the J.C. Lewis Health Center, Union Mission’s program that offers care for homeless individuals who have been discharged from the hospital but are still too sick for a shelter or the streets. Union Mission received a Local Initiative Funding Partners matching grant for the health center in 1999.

Elliott is the winner of numerous awards including the Robert Wood Johnson Community Heath Leadership Award. He is a graduate of Georgia Southern University and received a Master of Divinity degree and a Master of Social Work from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Annette Green, M.S.W. is a consultant with the Pittsburgh Foundation where she was formerly Senior Program Officer in the area of Health and Special Needs Populations. Green managed grantmaking programs and services related to the foundation’s Targeted Area for Impact “Reducing Disparities in Health Outcomes” and she provided grantmaking support to their Targeted Area for Impact “Supporting Families, Children and Youth.” Green researches community needs and priorities, analyzes grant proposals, and monitors outcome measurement and reporting from grantees. She has served Pittsburgh in this role for more than ten years.

Previously, Green served as Deputy Director for Drug and Alcohol Programs in the precursor to the current Allegheny County Department of Human Services, Office of Behavioral Health. Green also served as Principal Investigator or Program Director on a number of federal and state grants. She has served on the Board of Directors for Allegheny Health Choices and Tobacco Free Allegheny as well as on numerous advisory committees for organizations such as Allegheny County Children’s Initiative, Southwest PA AIDS Planning Coalition, and PA Block Grant Task Force for Drug and Alcohol Services.

Green holds the degree of Master of Social Work from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Social Work.

Hurdis M. Griffith, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N. is Professor and Dean Emeritus of the College of Nursing of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Prior to joining Rutgers, Griffith was Health Policy Advisor, U.S. Public Health Service, responsible for development and dissemination of a national program to improve the delivery of clinical preventive services. She was also a research consultant for the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research. In the policy arena, Griffith was Director of the Nursing Economics and Legislative Services, Director of Public Relations for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, and a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow for the U.S. Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee chaired by Senator Edward Kennedy. A prolific writer, Griffith has authored numerous articles, most published in peer-reviewed publications, and served on several editorial boards.

Griffith has received numerous honors including the Outstanding Civilian Service Medal, the highest award given by the Department of Defense to a civilian. She was a Presidential Appointee to the White House Conference on Aging, a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, and a White House Intern.

Griffith received her B.S.N. degree from Jamestown College in North Dakota, her M.S.N. degree at the University of Washington, Seattle, and her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, where she was also certified as an adult primary care nurse practitioner. In her early career, she was a nurse practitioner and community health nurse in the U.S. and Germany.

Namratha R. Kandula, M.D., M.P.H. is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, IL. She is also a member of the faculty in the division’s Program in Communications and Medicine. Previously, at the University of Chicago, Kandula was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar and completed research on immigrant health. She also instructed medical students in cross-cultural communications using standardized patient scenarios that she helped develop.

Her published research includes several articles on the health of immigrants including tuberculosis prevention among Mexican immigrants, physical activity among Asians in the U.S. and the impact of welfare reform on the Medicaid enrollment of eligible immigrants. She is a co-investigator on an American Cancer Society Research Scholar Grant to analyze cancer-related risk factors among seven of the largest Asian American groups in California. As a medical student, Kandula also served for a year in Dhaka, Bangladesh as a research associate for Save the Children Fund (USA). Her current research is on designing and evaluating culturally targeted cardiovascular disease prevention messages for the Asian Indian community.

Kandula received her B.A. at Bryn Mawr College and both her Doctor of Medicine and Master of Public Health degrees from Tufts University School of Medicine. She was an Intern and Resident in Primary Care/Internal Medicine at New York University/Bellevue Hospital.

Victor Merced, J.D. is the Director of the Oregon Housing and Community Services Department. He was formerly a program officer at the Meyer Memorial Trust in Portland, Oregon where he managed a grant portfolio worth over $26 million. In addition to evaluating proposals, he was responsible for providing technical assistance to non-profit organizations that seek support from the Meyer Trust. Previously he was deputy adminstrator for the Adult and Family Services Division in the Oregon Department of Human Resources. He is also the former executive director of the Oregon Council for Hispanic Advancement. Earlier in his career he worked as an attorney and as director of operations for the People’s Development Corporation in Bronx, NY.

Merced was a W.K. Kellogg National Leadership Fellow and received the Lehman College Presidential Award from the Herbert H. Lehman College of the City of University of New York. He is a past board member of Philanthropy Northwest and past chairman of the Housing Authority of Portland Board of Commissioners. Merced received his bachelor’s in housing and urban development from Lehman College and his Juris Doctor degree from New York University School of Law.

Allen Smart, M.P.H., C.H.E.S., FACHE is a Senior Program Officer in the Health Care Division at the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust in Winston-Salem, NC where he has leadership responsibilities in the development of programming for the uninsured and related access-to-care issues, as well as non-profit capacity building. Previously he served as the vice president of programs for The Rapides Foundation where he developed and administered the foundation’s grantmaking programs including the Central Louisiana Medication Access Program(2005 National Rural Health Association Program of the Year); Community Development Works(a non-profit Management Services Organization) and the largest rural Automated External Defibrilator training and placement program in the country.

His prior experience includes his role as the corporate director of community development for Ancilla Systems, a nonprofit hospital system serving Chicago and East St. Louis, IL as well as northern Indiana. Smart was also the human services administrator for the city of Santa Monica, CA. He has particular interest and experience in community-based delivery systems, non-profit management, rural health and community health advocacy.

Smart received his bachelor’s in philosophy from Macalester College, his Master of Public Health from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a master’s degree in telecommunication arts from the University of Michigan.

Katherine Smith is a Senior Program Officer at The Meadows Foundation, a private philanthropy dedicated to assisting people and institutions of Texas to improve the quality and circumstances of life for themselves and future generations.

Smith has been with the Foundation since 1995, serving as a program officer until 2000 and then promoted to Senior Program Officer. Her responsibilities include review and analysis of grant requests as well as grant monitoring and evaluation. She serves as a frequent presenter at non-profit sector grant workshops and donor panels.

Before joining the Foundation, Smith worked 20 years in government grantmaking and private and non-profit health care administration. She has a bachelor’s degree from Tennessee State University and a master’s degree in Health Care Administration from the University of Houston.

Joseph Westermeyer, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., completed medical school and psychiatry residency at the University of Minnesota, with an interim in family practice and general medicine-surgery in Laos. Prior to becoming Chief of the Psychiatry Service at Minneapolis VA Medical Center, he had been on the faculty of the University of Minnesota for two decades and was professor and Chair of Psychiatry at the Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center for three years.

Westermeyer's more recent honors include the Annual Career Achievement Award from the Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture (2004); a "Best Doctors in America" award for Alcoholism-Addictions Psychiatry, Woodward/White (2004) and the Research Honors Award from the VA Office of Research Development (2004).

His interests span alcoholism-addictions psychiatry, epidemiology, treatment efficacy and outcome, and sociocultural psychiatry. Westermeyer has led numerous research projects and provides mentoring to many prospective researchers. A prodigious author and sought-after lecturer, Westermeyer is involved in psychiatric organizations on local, national, and international levels.

Dianne Yamashiro-Omi is a Senior Program Officer for The California Endowment. There she conducts outreach to organizations to increase their awareness of funding opportunities, reviews health-related grant proposals from community-based organizations, helps to develop programs to assist underserved communities and monitors foundation grants for Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Santa Clara, San Francisco and San Mateo Counties.

Most recently, she served as a foundation consultant with a number of organizations including the Levi Strauss Foundation, the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund, the Asian Pacific American Community Fund and the San Francisco Foundation.

Prior to her work as a consultant, Yamashiro-Omi served as a program officer with the Koret Foundation and the Gap Foundation. She also served as executive director of the Asian Foundation for Community Development, co-director of Asian Health Services and executive director of Asian Manpower, Inc.

Yamashiro-Omi holds a bachelor’s degree in social science from U.C. Berkeley and a teaching credential from the University of San Francisco.

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