Daniel Skinner, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Health Policy in the Department of Social Medicine at Ohio University’s Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, in Dublin, Ohio; Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, The Ohio State University (at Nationwide Children’s Hospital); and Assistant Director of the Health Policy Fellowship, American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine. His areas of expertise include health care politics and policy, the politics of medicine and disease, hospital-community relations, and health care for vulnerable and underserved populations.  At present, he is working on three books: The Politics of Medical Necessity (University of Minnesota Press, 2018), Medical Urbanism (University of Chicago Press, 2019, co-authored with Berkeley Franz and Jonathan Wynn), and Voices from Ohio’s Opioid Epidemic (The Ohio State University Press, 2019, co-edited with Berkeley Franz and Jane Balbo). Dr. Skinner is also Associate Editor for the Americas for the journal Critical Public Health, Program Director for Ohio University’s Cuba Comparative Health Systems Program, and a scholar-activist with interests that include the promotion of universal health care access. Skinner’s research has appeared in journals including Health Communication, The Journal of Health Care Management; The Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice; Public Administration Review; The Review of Politics; Polity; New Political Science; The Journal of Medical Humanities, The Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, and The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, among others. He regularly speaks with community groups and organizations about a range of health policy and politics issues.

Jason Ridley is a Pastor in Allegheny West Conference and is currently the Pastor of the Hilltop Community Worship Center where he also serves as the Director of Youth Ministries for the Allegheny West Conference of SDA. He has ministered around the globe in such places as Canada, Bermuda, Thailand, Taiwan, Zambia, the Amazon in Peru, Albania, Birmingham (UK), and London. Pastor Ridley is also a member of the African-American Ministers Leadership Council, a national cross-denominational organization in the United States that deals with issues of race and equality for all. He is a member of the Micah Leadership Council, a national cross-denominational organization for emerging pastors under age 40 who fight for social justice.

Wendy Patton is the senior project director for the State Fiscal Project at Policy Matters Ohio. She has a B.A. from Kent State University and an M.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, where she studied regional economics. Wendy has worked for AFSCME International, the Ohio Department of Development, the Columbus Urban Growth Corporation, and the Ohio Employee Ownership Center. At Policy Matters, Wendy works on budget and tax issues as part of the State Fiscal Analysis Initiative.

Self-described nurse missionary Esther Flores is a servant leader, M.B.A., Registered Nurse, and missionary with a B.S. in Forensic Medicine from Lehman College. She is the CEO of 1DivineLine2Health, a 501(c)(3) public charity that provides health care to those who have no health care access. Esther’s diverse clinical competency spans neonatal, pediatric, geriatric, critical care, hospice, opiate addiction, and home health care. Her past medical expeditions began in urban ministries that served in homeless camps, rehabilitation of trafficked women, and free medical clinics. She has traveled to India, Palestine, Mexico, Ecuador, Petén Guatemala, Ukraine, and African countries on special medical assignments with charitable organizations.

She also hosts the Love Drop-In Center where the sisters can eat a meal and rest. If they want to, they can leave the street life and are taken to detox centers. There is a nurse to clean their wounds and advocate for them. The vision is to have a warehouse/Love depot whereby people in need can be served with love by other nonprofits and like-minded business people. The love depot would have medical supplies, clothing and furniture, food pantry, life skill center, intergenerational day care center, gym, medical and legal clinic, worship center, a truck dispatching center and other resources.

Nancy Duff-Boehm, Ph.D., earned her doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Cincinnati in 1985 and is currently on the clinical faculty of the Department of Psychiatry of Case Western Reserve Medical School. Specially trained and certified in treating drug and alcohol use disorders, she supervises the four intensive outpatient program (IOP) groups run in the Boehms’ practice, including one exclusively for pregnant women. The mission of their practice is to promote recovery and well-being of men, women, and children by providing medical, behavioral, and psycho-social treatments, supplemented by community networking support, to encourage the development of enduring self-respect and emotional wellness for themselves and their families.

Gregory Boehm, M.D., has worked as Medical Director of detox/inpatient addiction facilities since his residency and child/adolescent fellowship in 1980. Since 2003, he has served as Medical Director of Y-Haven, a Residential Treatment Program for homeless, alcoholic, or addicted men. His teaching appointments include five years as Director of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and Director of Psychopharmacology for the Child/Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship at Case Western Reserve Medical School in the early 1990s. He has continued on CWRU faculty since 1991. In his private practice, he started and maintains the only IOP exclusively for pregnant, addicted women, one of the programs participating in the State of Ohio’s demonstration project, the MOMS grant.