David A. Ansell, MD, MPH
Senior Vice President for Community Health Equity, Rush University Medical Center
Associate Provost for Community Affairs, Rush University
As Rush’s first leader of community health equity, a role he assumed in October of 2016, Ansell is leading Rush’s strategy to be a catalyst for community health and economic vitality on Chicago’s West Side. He previously was Rush’s senior vice president, system integration. Ansell joined Rush in 2005 as the Medical Center’s first chief medical officer (CMO), a position he held until 2014, as well as the associate dean and senior vice president for clinical affairs and the Michael E. Kelly MD Presidential Professor at Rush Medical College.
Rukiya Curvey Johnson
Interim Vice President for Community Health Equity and Executive Director of the Rush Education and Career Hub (REACH) for the Rush System for Health
Rukiya Curvey Johnson serves as Interim VP, Community Health Equity and Executive Director of the Rush Education and Career Hub (REACH) for the Rush System for Health. In this role, Rukiya leads community health equity initiatives to improve health outcomes, increase educational attainment and increase economic vitality. Prior to joining Rush, Rukiya held leadership roles in Chicago Public Schools and led the Shrine of the Black Madonna Cultural Center, a nonprofit social enterprise focused on promoting the arts from the African diaspora and improving literacy.
Rukiya has spent over two decades in social entrepreneurship, education and community engagement. She has focused on fostering cross sector collaboration, systems change, and delivering strategic, data-driven initiatives to improve equity, inclusion, and social impact. With a passion for providing equitable access to high-quality education and opportunity, Rukiya believes in the power of collective action to make a difference for our youth and the communities we serve.
Rukiya serves on the board of the Chicago Children’s Advocacy Center and the Steering Committee for the Chicagoland Healthcare Workforce Collaborative and Alliance for Health Equity. Rukiya holds a BA from the University of Virginia and MBA from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.
Iliana Andrea Mora
Chief Operating Officer, Cook County Health & Hospital System
Iliana Andrea Mora was named Chief Operating Officer for the Cook County Health & Hospital System’s (CCHHS) Ambulatory Division in July 2018. Iliana is responsible for developing and implementing strategy for the CCHHS’ Ambulatory Division, and leading ambulatory clinical and business operations, programs and functions for the System. Dispersed throughout Cook County, the Ambulatory Division provides primary and specialty outpatient care in community, school and regional outpatient settings.
Before joining CCHHS, Iliana worked for nearly 15 years at Chicago’s Erie Family Health Center, where she was a staunch advocate for the low-income communities of color that Erie predominantly serves. Iliana led Erie’s growth – more than doubling its size by expanding in locations and services, building the organizational infrastructure to sustain the growth, and building partnerships to ensure sustainability. Among her many distinctions, Iliana was named a 2014 Honoree for Who’s Who in Chicago Hispanic Business, a 2013 “40 Under 40” in Crain’s Chicago Business, a Leadership Greater Chicago fellow in 2008, and a 2011 Emerging Health Care Leader by the National Association of Community Health Centers.
Iliana is active in Chicago’s civic community, and served as President & CEO of Women Employed (WE) in 2017, after nine years of being an active member of the Board of Directors. Iliana supported WE’s transition from a 40 year term CEO to WE’s future leader. Iliana has actively served on other not-for-profit Board of Directors, including Deborah’s Place, and currently serves on the City Colleges of Chicago Foundation Board of Directors. Additionally, Iliana has served as a Trustee on the Health Care System Board of Directors of Mercy Health in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Mora earned her B.A. Magna Cum Laude from The George Washington University, her Master of Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois, and the Executive Health Care Program at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Iliana is known and sought after for her expertise in safety-net healthcare, Accountable Care Act ObamaCare, population health management, transformational leadership and public speaking on issues facing women, children, communities of color, and marginalized groups.
Outside of her career, Iliana enjoys planning family reunions, traveling, cycling and salsa dancing!
Robert A. Barish, MD, MBA
Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs; Professor of Emergency Medicine, College of Medicine
Dr. Robert A. Barish, a distinguished physician and academic leader, is vice chancellor for health affairs of the University of Illinois at Chicago. He oversees the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System (UI Health). Previously, Dr. Barish served as chancellor of the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center at Shreveport from 2009 to 2015, where he provided leadership for the schools of medicine, allied health, and graduate programs, a major academic medical center, and two affiliated hospitals. Dr. Barish spent 24 years at the University of Maryland School of Medicine where he became vice dean for clinical affairs in 2005.
Marcus Betts
Assistant Vice Chancellor for External Engagement, UI Health
Marcus Betts grew up in the North Lawndale Community on Chicago’s West Side. Mr. Betts currently serves as the Assistant Vice Chancellor for External Engagement at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Mr. Betts’ responsibilities have expanded to include a strategic focus on elevating and promoting the University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System (UI Health). He also facilitates connections that strengthen and build partnerships while developing and maintaining key relationships with external stakeholders, associations, corporations and institutions. In his role, Mr. Betts advises UIC’s senior leadership on a variety of community matters.
Mary Kate Daly
Executive Director, Healthy Communities, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
Mary Kate Daly has been at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago for 18 years and has served in various external affairs positions. In her current role as Executive Director, Lurie Children’s Healthy Communities, she is responsible for providing leadership and strategic direction for the hospital’s community outreach programs and initiatives. Mary Kate has been a Leadership Greater Chicago fellow since 2015, and she currently serves Chicago Youth Program’s Board of Directors and the iHeart Media Local Advisory Board. In West Side United, Mary Kate serves as the Chair of the Communications Committee, Co-Chair of the Anchor Committee, and is an active member of the Operations and Investment Committees.
Matthew M. Davis, MD, MAPP
Senior Vice President and Chief, Community Health Transformation, Lurie Children’s Hospital
Matthew M. Davis, MD, MAPP, is Senior Vice-President and Chief of Community Health Transformation at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, where he also serves as Vice-Chair of the Department of Pediatrics. Dr. Davis is Professor of Pediatrics, Medicine, Medical Social Sciences, and Preventive Medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. In the West Side United health equity collaborative, Dr. Davis serves as Secretary of the Leadership Council. Dr. Davis is a primary care physician and researcher focused on community and population health, who also previously served as Chief Medical Executive for the State of Michigan in the Department of Community Health.
Debra Wesley
President of Sinai Community Institute
Debra G. Wesley is a social entrepreneur, leader and community builder, as well as founder of Sinai Community Institute (SCI), where she serves as president. SCI is a health system-based social services organization that has touched over 565,000 individuals through its 70 plus programs since 1993. She is also Sinai Health System’s Executive Vice President for Community Outreach. Ms. Wesley has developed innovative, community-based programs that have received national recognition. She facilitated the
incubation of the North Lawndale Employment Network and served for five years on its Board of Directors as its chair.
Liz Abunaw
Founder of Forty Acres Fresh Market
A native of New York state, Abunaw moved to Chicago in 2012 when awarded a full-tuition fellowship to the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, from which she graduated in 2014. Liz is a 2002 Cornell University graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Policy Analysis and Management. Liz Abunaw is the founder and operator of Forty Acres Fresh Market, a fresh produce grocery startup launched in January 2018. Alarmed by the paucity of fresh food options on Chicago’s west side, after leaving her sales job at Microsoft in November 2017, she committed to opening a low-cost produce market on Chicago’s Westside in the next 12 to 18 months. Prior to launching Forty Acres Fresh Market Liz was a partner manager in Microsoft’s sales division and before that spent ten years at General Mills, Inc.
Marshall Hatch Jr.
Co-Founder and Executive Director of the MAAFA Redemption Project
MAAFA Redemption Project, a Chicago-based workforce, social & spiritual-development initiative for African American men ages 18-26. Hatch Jr. hails from the Westside of Chicago. He graduated from Lincoln Park high school in 2006, and was awarded the Gates Millennium scholarship the same year. He attended Bates College located in Lewiston, Maine, and graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Religion. After working for Bates as an Admission Counselor, Marshall moved back to Chicago, joining Urban Prep Charter Academy for Young Men as the Director of College Counseling and teacher of African American History. He served in these capacities for three years while mentoring hundreds of African American young men on the South and Westside. He earned a dual Master’s degree from the Divinity and Social Service Administration Schools at the University of Chicago in 2014. Upon graduation, Marshall joined his father, Pastor Marshall Hatch Sr., in full-time ministry at New Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church, the largest congregation in Chicago’s West Garfield Park neighborhood.
Tanesha D. House
Community Organizer
Locally, Tanesha D. House, EdD., M.B.A., is a Community Organizer on the Westside of Chicago, where she was born and raised. As lead QLP staff, she is responsible for galvanizing all community stakeholders to develop and execute a comprehensive Quality of Life Plan for the North Lawndale community. Universally, having had diverse experiences in a variety of sectors, Tanesha is recognized as an award-winning transformational leader, organizer, speaker, educator and coach. Tanesha is very people oriented and possesses great optimism for community and economic development locally and globally. She is often described as a change optimizer, natural community organizer, encourager, and conscientious, as well as, proficient in her professions with an uncanny ability to connect with individuals from various social stratums — disadvantaged to diplomats.
Emma Lozano
Pastor at Church Lincoln UMC
Pastor Emma Lozano has been an activist for the immigrant/undocumented community for decades. She was born in Texas and raised in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. As a teenager and young adult, she worked alongside her brother Rudy Lozano, an activist for workers and the Latino community who was assassinated in 1983. Since his death, Lozano decided to dedicate her life to the continuation of her brother’s work. She is the founder and President of Centro Sin Fronteras where she has worked to stop thousands of deportations. She is a co-founder of Familia Latina Unida along with Elvira Arellano. She is currently the pastor of sanctuary church Lincoln UMC, a sanctuary to the undocumented and LGBTQ communities, where she continues to counsel those who are in deportation proceedings and works with the local youth to close the 20-year life expectancy gap that exists in Chicago.
Angela Taylor
Coordinator, Garfield Park Community Council
Angela Taylor is the Wellness Coordinator for the Garfield Park Community Council (GPCC), where she manages the 32-member Garfield Park Garden Network and the Garfield Park Neighborhood Market. Each summer, Angela works with up to ten local youth through the Youth Garden Corps, a paid internship program in which teens work in local gardens and gain horticultural and job readiness skills. Angela also plans and organizes additional wellness projects throughout the year, including healthy block parties through the PlayStreets program and violence prevention events through the Communities Partnering 4 Peace coalition. A lifelong Garfield Park resident, Ms. Taylor has taken a leadership and organizing role in her community’s renewal efforts. She serves on the Tilton Park Advisory Council and The Hatchery Community Advisory Council. In addition to her work in Garfield Park, Ms. Taylor is a board member of Chicago Community Gardeners Association and Advocates for Urban Agriculture, an affiliate of NeighborSpace, and a retiree of the Illinois Department of Human Services. With her family, she manages an award-winning garden, the Fulton Street Flower and Vegetable Garden, one of the original sites of the Garden Network.