Mary Woolley
President and CEO
Research!America
Mary Woolley is the president of Research!America, the nation’s largest not-for-profit alliance working to make research to improve health a higher national priority. Woolley is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) and served two terms on its Governing Council. She is a recipient of the Adam Yarmolinsky Medal for distinguished contributions to the mission of the Academy over a significant period. She has served two terms on the National Academy of Sciences Board on Life Sciences, and currently serves on its Board for Higher Education and Workforce. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of Sigma Xi, the scientific honorary society. She is a Founding Member of the Board of Associates of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, a member of the board of the Institute for Systems Biology, a member of the University of Chicago Division of the Biological Sciences and the Pritzker School of Medicine Council, and a former member of the National Council for Johns Hopkins Nursing. She holds two honorary doctoral degrees, from the Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) and Wayne State University. Woolley has served as president of the Association of Independent Research Institutes, as editor of the Journal of the Society of Research Administrators, as a reviewer for the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, and as a consultant to several research organizations. She has a 30-year publication history on science advocacy and research related topics, and is a sought-after speaker, often interviewed by science, news, and policy journalists.
Dr. Marcia K. Brand
Senior Advisor
DentaQuest Foundation
Dr. Marcia K. Brand is currently a senior advisor to the DentaQuest Foundation, the nation’s largest philanthropy dedicated to improving oral health, and a consultant on matters related to rural health care. From 2009 until 2015, she was the deputy administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. HRSA is the primary federal agency for improving health care for people who are geographically isolated and economically or medically vulnerable. HRSA’s annual budget is $11 billion. In previous federal appointments, Dr. Brand directed HRSA’s Bureau of Health Professions (2007-2009), where she provided national leadership in the development, distribution, and retention of a diverse, culturally competent health workforce that provides high-quality care. From 2001-2007, she was the director of the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy. In that position, she was responsible for health policy, research, and grant activities that promote better health care services in rural America.
Dr. Brand worked in the U.S. Senate as a legislative assistant, and held academic appointments in the dental hygiene departments at Thomas Jefferson University and Old Dominion University. She earned a doctoral degree in higher education administration from the University of Pennsylvania, and Master and Bachelor of Science degrees in dental hygiene from Old Dominion University.
Dr. Brand was the recipient of the Presidential Merit Rank Award for Distinguished Service in 2011. This award is given to only one percent of career senior executives for a sustained record of exceptional performance. In 2015, she received the Phillips Award for Public Service and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Old Dominion University.
Dr. Brand is currently the chair of the Shepherd University Board of Governors, Shepherdstown, West Virginia. She is a native West Virginian, where she resides.
Mr. Fred T. White
Senior Director, Business Development
ABS Consulting
Mr. Fred T. White has been associated with ABS Consulting since 2009. The firm provides compliance services, optimization of asset performance, and advanced engineering support and management systems for a variety of sectors including marine; offshore; oil, gas and chemical; government; and power. Recent projects include work with the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Coast Guard, and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Previously, Mr. White served as the vice president for business development at Universal Systems and Technology, working with Homeland Security, South Carolina chemical companies, South Carolina State Ports Authority, and the Coast Guard.
Mr. White received an M.S. in instructional technology from Florida State University and a B.S. in management from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.
During his career with the Coast Guard, he served as an anti-submarine warfare officer on the USCG Cutter Jarvis; navigator/combat information officer, USS Joseph Hewes; commanding officer, USCG Cutter Cape Knox; performance systems consultant at U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters; executive officer, USCG Cutter Laurel; governmental affairs officer with U.S. Coast Guard Congressional Affairs; commanding officer, Coast Guard Cutter Willow; and commanding officer of the USCG Special Missions Training Center.
He has received the U.S. Coast Guard Legion of Merit, U.S. Coast Guard Meritorious Service Medal (three times), U.S. Coast Guard Commendation Medal (three times), U.S. Coast Guard Achievement Medal, and U.S. Navy Achievement Medal.
Mr. White is a member of the Capitol Hill Exchange Club, Maritime Association of South Carolina, Greater Houston Port Bureau, and Applied Business Coalition at Shepherd University where he has been involved in partnering with Shepherd for economic development and innovation.
Mr. Cannon Wadsworth
Director, State and Commercial Programs
Global Science & Technology, Inc.
Mr. Cannon Wadsworth is a 1991 graduate of Fairmont State College with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. He has served as the director of Global Science & Technology’s State and Commercial Services Division in Fairmont, West Virginia, since 1998. GST’s State and Commercial Division provides innovative cybersecurity, custom software development, and technology support services for state, county, and municipal government, higher education, and commercial businesses throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.
Mr. Wadsworth has served on the Fairmont State University School of Business Advisory Council, the Fairmont State Athletic Department Steering Committee, the Fairmont State University Foundation Board, and the Pierpont Community and Technical College Foundation Board. In addition, he has served on charitable and youth organization boards throughout North Central West Virginia. He was recently recognized as an honorary member of Delta Mu Delta Business Honorary Society for measurable professional success in business.
Dr. Brad Fenwick
Senior Vice President of Global Strategic Alliances
Elsevier
Dr. Brad Fenwick is a professor of pathobiology and microbiology. He holds a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and Master of Pathology from Kansas State University and a Ph.D. in comparative pathology from University of California, Davis. He completed a residency at UC Davis and is board certified in microbiology and qualified in pathology. Dr. Fenwick has received numerous awards and recognitions for his research, holds several patents, founded a biotechnology company, and consults globally with companies, universities, and governments.
He is a Fellow with the American Council on Education, a Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Jefferson Fellow science advisor with the U.S. State Department where his portfolio included higher education, and science, technology, and innovation. He has held many senior administrative positions, including graduate dean, vice president for research, president for intellectual properties, vice chancellor for research and engagement, and chief scientist with the USDA. As senior vice president for global strategic alliances, he is charged with forging non-commercial partnerships with and among universities, research centers, industry, governments, and funding bodies to enhance higher education and academic research productivity and success.
Judith Miller Jones (Moderator)
Consultant and Founding Director
National Health Policy Forum
Ms. Judith Miller Jones directed the National Health Policy Forum at the George Washington University from its inception in 1972 through early 2016. The program retains a reputation in the health policy arena for providing important background information and opportunities for off-the-record discussion among senior-level health staff in the Congress, the congressional support agencies and a variety of executive branch agencies such as DHHS, the White House and OMB, the VA and DoD, DoJ, and FTC, etc. The Forum offered a variety of written products including Basics, Issue Briefs, and background papers; it also utilized varied meeting formats from large-group discussions to very small, invitation-only sessions for the most senior members of the Forum’s audience, and site visits. With the goal of facilitating a “safe-haven” for dialogue and self-critical analysis of policy options, the Forum did not allow press and greatly limited attendance by interest group representatives. The public will be able to access Forum written materials, including speaker slides, through 2018 at www.nhpf.org.
As founder and director, Ms. Jones guided the Forum’s educational programming and spearheaded NHPF’s fundraising efforts. Currently, she serves as a resource to foundations, researchers, and other members of the health policy community. Ms. Jones is also active in community activities in and around Shepherdstown, West Virginia. For some 20 years, she has chaired Healthier Jefferson County, a group dedicated to improving public health and medical care in the Eastern Panhandle. She and her husband also helped to found Good Shepherd Interfaith Volunteer Caregivers, a service delivery program for the elderly and disabled.
In 1988, Ms. Jones was appointed to the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics; she served as its chair from 1991 through 1996. She remains a lecturer in health policy in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at the George Washington University, is a mentor for the Wharton School’s Health Care Management Program, and, on occasion, consults with nonprofit groups and corporate entities across the country. Prior to her work in health, Ms. Jones was involved in education and welfare policy. She served as special assistant to the deputy assistant secretary for legislation in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and, before that, as legislative assistant to the late Sen. Winston L. Prouty (R-VT). Before entering government, Ms. Jones was involved in education and program management at IBM, first as a programmer, a systems analyst, and then as a special marketing representative in instructional systems. While at IBM, Ms. Jones studied at Georgetown Law School and completed her master’s degree in educational technology at Catholic University. Once an instrument-rated private pilot, Ms. Jones now spends much of her free time dabbling in art and gardening fiendishly.
Dr. Mary J.C. Hendrix
President
Shepherd University
Dr. Mary J.C. Hendrix is Shepherd University’s 16th president and is the first graduate to lead the school in its history. Dr. Hendrix earned her B.S. from Shepherd in pre-med/biology and her Ph.D. from George Washington University in anatomy/cell biology, followed by a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Before coming to Shepherd, Dr. Hendrix was president and chief scientific officer of the Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Prior to that, she held various leadership positions at the University of Iowa and the University of Arizona.
Dr. Hendrix has been a member of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Council of Councils, the National Human Genome Research Institute Council, and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Board of Scientific Advisors. She is a past-president of FASEB (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology) consisting of more than 100,000 members—the largest coalition of biomedical research societies in the United States. She has testified before Congress numerous times in hearings about the budgets of the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, and National Science Foundation, and about human embryonic stem cell research. She also co-directed the Virtual Naval Hospital, the first military digital medical reference tool to support service personnel deployed at remote locations.
Dr. Hendrix has written more than 270 publications on biomedical research with a focus on cancer, and is the recipient of numerous awards, including a MERIT Award from the National Cancer Institute, the 2004 Australian Society for Medical Research Lecturer and Medal Recipient for research and advocacy, the 2006 Henry Gray Award by the American Association of Anatomists that recognizes unique and meritorious contributions to the field of anatomical science, the 2008 and 2012 Princess Takamatsu Cancer Research Lecturer Award in Japan, the 2012 Princess Takamatsu Memorial Lectureship from the American Association for Cancer Research, the 2014 Vision and Impact Award from the Regional American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science, a University of Iowa Award for Excellence and Achievement Among Women, and the Distinguished Woman Faculty Award from Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
Dr. Ray Smock
Director
Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education
Shepherd University
Dr. Ray Smock has been director of the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education since 2002, when the Byrd Center was dedicated. He is the former historian of the U.S. House of Representatives (1983-95). He is a graduate of Roosevelt University in Chicago and holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maryland at College Park. He was co-editor of the 14-volume documentary series The Booker T. Washington Papers. His is author of a biography: Booker T. Washington: Black Leadership in the Age of Jim Crow (2009). His latest book, co-edited with Roger Bruns and David Hostetter, is Congress Investigates: A Critical History with Documents (2011), a two-volume compilation of scholarly articles and government documents covering the history of Congressional investigations from 1792 to 2006.
In his capacity as house historian, Dr. Smock was a key planner of the national commemorations of the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution and the bicentennial of Congress. His office was responsible for numerous publications on the history of Congress, including the standard reference The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-1989. Other publications of the Office of the Historian were Blacks in Congress, 1877-1989; Women in Congress, 1917-1990; A Guide to Research Collections of Former Members of the United States House of Representatives, 1789-1987; and The Origins of the U. S. House of Representatives: A Documentary Record.
He served on the editorial board and was a contributor to the four-volume Encyclopedia of the United States Congress (1995). He was senior historical consultant to WGBH public television in Boston on their 26-part telecourse, A Biography of America, (2000). Other publications include Masters of the House: Congressional Leadership over Two Centuries, (1998) and Landmark Documents on the U. S. Congress (1999). Smock also served as a historical consultant to the National Constitution Center, the first museum dedicated to the U. S. Constitution located on Independence Mall in Philadelphia.
Dr. Smock is a member of the adjunct history faculty at Shepherd University and teaches U.S. history and public history. He is past president of the Association for Documentary Editing, the Society for History in the Federal Government, and the Association of Centers for the Study of Congress. In 2006 West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin III appointed Dr. Smock to the board of the West Virginia Humanities Council, and he was reappointed by Governor Earl Ray Tomblin in 2012. He served on the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, an independent agency affiliated with the National Archives and Records Administration, from 2009 to 2016.