Neesha Joseph is the Senior Program Lead for the Stanford Healthcare Innovation, Policy, and Engagement (HIPE) Lab at Stanford Health Policy. Since joining Stanford Health Policy, she has managed three NIH-funded research centers focused on areas including diabetes translational research and the demography and economics of healthy aging. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she served as Program Manager for the Stanford-CIDE Coronavirus Simulation Model (SC-Cosmo) Consortium, which collaborated with government decision-makers engaged in pandemic response planning. Most recently, her work has centered on research related to diabetes and cancer. She also spearheads HIPE Lab initiatives to advance innovation through the design of AI-enabled tools to support research planning, development, and operational efficiency.

Eugene Lewit, PhD, is an Adjunct Lecturer in the Department of Health Policy, Stanford University. His current research interests focus on implementation of the ACA and it’s impact on children and families. He also consults with philanthropies on strategy and evaluation. 

From 2009 to 2013, Lewit was Program Officer and Manager in the Children, Families, and Communities Program at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation where he managed a multimillion-dollar grant program designed to help bring health insurance to all children. From 1999 to 2008, Lewit was Senior Program Manager for Heath and Economic Security and from 1991- 1999, Director, Research and Grants, Economics at the Packard Foundation. He managed large grant programs focused on children’s health care quality, poverty, welfare reform, and family economic security.  In this capacity, he helped launch and develop key organizations working on children’s health care quality including the Vermont Oxford Network and the National Institute for Children’s Health Care Quality as well as seeding the dissemination of the California County Children’s Health Initiatives from Santa Clara County to 28 other counties in California.

Lewit is trained as a health economist and until 2010 was a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. With his NBER colleagues, he published several seminal articles on tobacco taxation and other tobacco control policies. He has consulted with the WHO and World Bank on tobacco policy in developing countries. Lewit has also published on grantmaking, children’s health and health care policy, and poverty and income security for children and families and was an editor and regular contributor to The Future of Children.

In 2013, Lewit received the Academy Award from the National Academy for State Health Policy for “outstanding national leadership in improving health coverage for children,” and the Champion for Children award from the First Focus Campaign for Children.  From 2011 to 2014, Lewit served on the Board of Directors of Grantmakers In Health.

Dr. Mintu Turakhia a board-certified internist, cardiologist, and cardiac electrophysiologist and Director of the Cardiac Electrophysiology program at the Palo Alto VA Health Care System. He is a core investigator of the VA Center for Health Care Evaluation (CHCE).

Dr. Turakhia's research program aims to improve the treatment of heart rhythm disorders by evaluating quality of care, comparative effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of drug and device-based therapies for treatment of arrhythmias, with an emphasis on atrial fibrillation. Dr. Turakhia is a recipient of the VA HSR&D Career Development Award, AHA National Scientist Development Grant, and his research program is supported by grants from VA, AHA, NIH, foundations, and industry collaborations. By leveraging and linking VA and Medicare claims, electronic health records, and third-party data sources, Dr. Turakhia's group has created one of the most-comprehensive and cohorts with incident atrial fibrillation, including over 500,000 person-years of follow-up. Dr. Turakhia has over 100 peer-reviewed publications and abstracts.