Planning Committee
Chair
Yuri Jadotte, MD, PhD, MPH, FACPM
Yuri T. Jadotte, MD, PhD, MPH, FACPM, is Associate Professor and Associate Residency Program Director of Preventive Medicine (PM) at Stony Brook University (SBU). A board-certified PM physician dually trained as a social scientist, Dr. Jadotte’s research centers on health equity, interprofessional collaboration, cancer prevention, and evidence synthesis methodology. He has served as PI for an R03 grant on evidence synthesis methodology, and co-investigator and co-PI for 2 Health Resources and Services Administration training grants awarded to the Stony Brook PM residency program. He is the current and founding Editor-in-Chief of AJPM Focus, the official fully open access journal of ACPM and APTR. He practices clinical PM in the SBU Hospital Employee Health and Wellness Service, and heads the Generalist concentration in the SBU Master of Public Health program. His long-term professional goal is to continue working in academic PM and advance population health through research, teaching, clinical practice and policymaking.
Vice Chair
Jennifer Chevinsky MD, MPH, FACPM
Dr. Jennifer R. Chevinsky MD MPH FACPM is board certified in Preventive Medicine, Lifestyle Medicine, and Health Care Administration, Leadership and Management and she serves as the Public Health Officer for Riverside County, leading the department of over 600 staff who provide programs and services for the population of approximately 2.5 million people. She is also an Assistant Professor for Loma Linda’s Department of Preventive Medicine and School of Public Health, teaching a course on Risk Assessment and Risk Communication. Prior, she served as the county’s Deputy Public Health overseeing the Division of Infectious Disease, Community Health Planning, and Equity and as Medical Advisor for the COVID-19, Mpox, and H5N1 emergency response activities, as TB controller, treating underserved patients with tuberculosis throughout the county, as a Lean Process Improvement sponsor, leading improvement activities in the areas of health equity, improved outbreak response time, and workforce engagement and retention, and as Co-Chair of the Inland Empire HIV Planning Council. She also led the undergraduate and graduate medical student training for the department.
Dr. Chevinsky earned her medical degree at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, completed her residency specialization and a Master’s Degree in Public Health at Loma Linda University, and gained postdoctoral epidemiology training as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer for CDC within the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. While at CDC, she deployed multiple times for EVALI and for the COVID-19 pandemic, including as a Quarantine Medical Officer at the airports, and was the lead author for the Interim Guidance on Post-Covid conditions. Dr. Chevinsky serves on a number of local, state, and national public health committees, such as on the AJPM-Focus Journal’s Editorial Board, as the Vice Chair of ACPM’s Annual Conference and member of the Strategy Committee, as the Co-Chair of the California Conference of Local Health Officers (CCLHO) Health Equity Committee, member of the Health Officers Association of California (HOAC) Legislative Committee, a member for the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) Disease Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics Community of Practice, a member of the Riverside University Health System Institutional Review Board and a member of the Riverside County Anti-Terorrism Approval Authority. She has authored over 30 peer reviewed publications and has provided over 50 oral presentations which she has presented locally, nationally, and internationally. Dr. Chevinsky has been awarded and named as a “rising star” in preventive medicine. She is passionate about working together with communities to promote health and wellness on a local, state, national, and international level.
For ACPM, after being appointed as a fellow, receiving the 2023 rising star award and serving as Track Chair for Community and Population Health, Dr. Chevinsky now serves as the 2025 Conference Vice Chair as well as on the Strategy Committee and as a Vaccine Confident Ambassador.
Conference Tracks
Community and Population Medicine
Chair: Chelsea Isom, MD, MPH
Dr. Isom is an associate physician at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health at the University of California San Diego and a board certified in Preventive Medicine. Her current role is as a Principal Investigator with the Transportation Research and Education for Driving Safety group. Dr. Isom has been a part of the ACPM since 2021 and it the Chair for the Community and Population Medicine Track for the 2025 ACPM Meeting.
Dr. Isom obtained her medical degree from the University of Nevada in 2013 and then went on to be a general surgery resident at Vanderbilt Medical Center (2013-2021). She obtained her master’s in public health from Vanderbilt University (2016-2018), with an emphasis in Epidemiology. After this she transitioned to a preventive medicine residency at the University of California San Diego (2021-2023). Her research currently focusses on transportation safety and human factors. Working with the railroad to decrease fatigue in their worker and to decrease the number of injuries and death around the railroad. She is also working to design a front-line screening tool for law enforcement to increase identification of human trafficking victims.
Vice Chair: Melissa Reyes, MD, MPH, FAAD
Clinical Preventive Medicine
Chair: Sherry Mills, MD, MPH
Dr. Sherry Mills received her undergraduate degree in human biology from Brown University. She matriculated at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and completed a Preventive Medicine Residency and a Master's degree in Public Health in epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Hygiene and Public Health. She completed post graduate training as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There at the Office on Smoking and Health, she began her career as a medical epidemiologist. In 1991, Dr. Mills joined the National Cancer Institute in the now Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences where she held several extramural program leadership roles. In 2000, Dr. Mills left federal service and joined Abt Associates, a Cambridge-based consulting firm, as the Managing Vice President for Public Health Applications and Research. In 2005, Dr. Mills rejoined the NIH in the Office of Extramural Research (OER) as the senior advisor to the Deputy Director of OER. In 2009 she was named Director, Office of Extramural Programs (OEP) in OER. Dr. Mills also served as the acting director, Division of Loan Prepayment, OER. Dr. Mills has been recognized with many awards both within government and the private sector for her outstanding contributions to public health interventions, public health policy, mentorship and outreach.
Vice Chair: Rachel Annam, MD, MPH, FACPM
Dr. Rachel Annam serves as an Assistant Professor in both the Departments of General Internal Medicine and Family and Preventive Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine. She holds triple board certifications in Internal Medicine, Preventive Medicine, and Lifestyle Medicine. Dr. Annam completed a combined residency in Internal Medicine and Preventive Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine's Griffin Hospital Program and further specialized with a fellowship in Lifestyle Medicine at Loma Linda University in California.
In addition to her medical training, Dr. Annam earned a Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and completed a post-doctoral research fellowship in Ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where her research focused on diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration. She is an active peer reviewer for several respected journals, including the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, Nutrition and Health Journal, Vascular Medicine Journal, and Journal of Urban Health.
Dr. Annam is currently involved in establishing Emory’s first outpatient Lifestyle Medicine Clinic and is actively engaged in teaching and research at the university. Passionate about integrating Lifestyle Medicine into primary care, she aims to prevent disease, alter the course of chronic conditions, and improve patient outcomes. She is widely published and dedicated to mentoring the next generation of physicians in Preventive Medicine, Internal Medicine, Obesity Medicine, and Lifestyle Medicine.
Advances in the Preventive Medicine Specialty
Chair: Major Terra Forward, MD, MBA, MPH, FACPM
Major (Dr.) Terra Forward currently serves as the chief of epidemiology and disease control and the associate program director, preventive medicine residency program, at Joint Base Lewis McChord, Washington. She has also served as the public health director for Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Dr. Forward earned her Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine at The Ohio University and her Master of Public Health degree at the University of Washington School of Public Health.
Vice Chair: Karla Vega Colon MD, MPH
Lieutenant Coronel (LTC) Karla Vega Colón is the Director of the Department of Public Health at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in Fort Bliss, Texas. She is dual board-certified in Public Health and General Preventative Medicine, as well as Family Medicine. LTC Vega Colón earned her Doctor of Medicine degree from New York Medical College and her Master's of Public Health degree from the University of Washington School of Public Health. As an Army Preventive Medicine physician, she has the privilege to serve as the public health advisor overseeing staff members across seven programs to include Army Hearing Program, Army Public Health Nursing, Armed Forces Wellness Center, Environmental Health, Health Physics, Industrial Hygiene, and Occupational Health. As well as serves as the Public Health Emergency Officer (PHEO) which involves being the lead Public Health subject matter expert for a beneficiary population greater than 130,000 spanning across a training area of 550 square miles ensuring 100% compliance to Army Force Health Protection guidance and mitigation strategies to prevent illness and injury from the physical and mental stress caused by environmental, occupational, operational, and warfare; to include chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats.
Environmental and Global Health
Chair: Michael Jan, MD, MPH, FACPM
Michael Jan is a Clinical Safety Physician at Daiichi Sankyo, Inc., a pharmaceutical company with a strong focus in oncology. In this role he protects the health of patients and the public by ensuring the safety of medicinal products.
Prior to joining Daiichi Sankyo, Dr. Jan worked at Organon & Co. and Otsuka Pharmaceutical Development & Commercialization, Inc. He first joined the pharmaceutical field via the ACPM-Otsuka Pharmacovigilance Physician Program where he and a group of fellow preventive medicine physicians had the unique opportunity to lead evidence-based pandemic response efforts that directly advised Otsuka’s Executive Leadership Team. He also co-founded and co-led the Wellness at Work series at Otsuka, which provided monthly companywide educational engagements to keep colleagues connected through topics of health promotion as the company transitioned through new ways of working.
Dr. Jan earned BAs in Biochemistry and English Literature from Columbia University followed by an MD and a PhD in Pharmacology from Temple University School of Medicine. He then completed Internal Medicine training at Temple University Hospital and Preventive Medicine training at The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He remembers well the epidemiology and biostatistics courses from UCLA Fielding School of Public Health since he applies this knowledge on a near-daily basis.
Vice Chair: Namita Akolkar, MD, MPH
Dr. Namita Akolkar is a Public Health and Preventive Medicine Physician in DC. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she graduated with honors with a BS in Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics and a BA in Economics. After her undergraduate studies, she spent 6 months at the FDA as a Post-Baccalaureate fellow. She went to medical school and did her training in General Surgery at Howard University College of Medicine and Howard University Hospital. She then completed her training in Public Health and General Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University. She has numerous publications in both basic science, and outcomes research. Skilled in trauma, surgical care, occupational health, lifestyle medicine, urgent care and preventive care. Passionate about quality improvement and public health planning and intervention in the areas of health systems, disaster planning, crisis management and global health.
Poster Review Committee
Co-Chair: Kim McDonald, MD, MPH
Since September 2022, Dr. Kim McDonald has been the Chronic Disease and Injury Section Chief for the North Carolina Department of Public Health. She also served as Medical Consultant to the Division through CDC Foundation in support of COVID-19 and monkeypox vaccine distribution in North Carolina. Prior to that, she was Medical Director/Deputy Health and Human Services Director for Wake County Human Services, where she led approximately 500 staff in the Clinic Division, Public Health Division and School Health program with a $50+ million budget for more than eight years, including division level business development and strategic planning. She also supervised the Occupational Health, HIPAA compliance programs and Public Health accreditation programs. Dr. McDonald came to Wake County from a private health information technology company where she served as Physician Consultant and Clinical Education Coordinator.
Co-Chair: Lorraine Yeung, MD, MPH
Dr. Lorraine Yeung is a medical officer at the CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD). Dr. Yeung received her MD from Georgetown University and her MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She completed a combined internal medicine and pediatrics residency at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and a preventive medicine residency at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is board certified in public health and general preventive medicine. Dr. Yeung joined NCBDDD at CDC as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer in 2002. Her current research focuses on folic acid and prevention of neural tube defects. She has been involved in public health preparedness and emergency responses at CDC. She has been a member at ACPM since 1999 and was the Planning Committee Chair for Preventive Medicine 2006.
Liaisons
CME Liaison
COL Michele Soltis, MD, MPH, FACPM
COL Michele Soltis currently serves as the Chief Consultant to The Army Surgeon General in Falls Church, Virginia. As an Army preventive medicine physician, she has had the privilege to serve as the Director of the Public Health Directorate in the Office of The Army Surgeon General, as the Director of the Public Health Residency Program at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington and as a Preventive Medicine Officer with the 10th Mountain Division in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. COL Soltis earned her Doctor of Medicine degree from the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine and her Master's of Public Health degree from the University of Washington School of Public Health.
Technology Engagement Liaison
Jules Bakhos, MD, MSc, MBE
Dr. Jules J. Bakhos is a dedicated medical professional and researcher with a passion for advancing healthcare through research, innovation and personalized clinical practice. As a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Cleveland Clinic’s Heart, Vascular and Thoracic Institute, Dr. Bakhos collaborates with leading experts to produce guideline-setting literature and address critical clinical challenges that enhance patient outcomes. His work spans bench science, clinical trials and public health initiatives, with a focus on healthcare safety, medical innovation, ethics and health equity. In parallel to his tenure at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Bakhos is pursuing a PhD in Clinical Translational Science at Case Western Reserve University. Alongside his MD, he holds advanced Master’s degrees in Research and Biomedical Ethics. He has played a key role in various non-profit healthcare initiatives in both the United States and Lebanon, contributing significantly to public health during humanitarian crises.
Social Engagement Liaison
Aristotle Sun, MD, MPH, FACPM
Member Engagement Liaison
Daniel Carnegie, MD, MPH, MBA
Fundraising and Sponsorship Engagement Liaisons
Lia Kostiuk, MD, MPH, FACPM
Dr. Lia Lombardo Kostiuk is a Senior Director, Clinical Safety Physician at Daiichi Sankyo, where she supports oncology clinical trials, focusing on patient safety. Before joining Daiichi Sankyo, Dr. Kostiuk held senior roles at Kyowa Kirin and Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, supporting drug safety for products in oncology, immunology, and infectious diseases. She has also worked with the World Health Organization (WHO), contributing to global health policies to reduce low birth weight rates and improve vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy.
Dr. Kostiuk earned her MD from the University of Carabobo in Venezuela and her MPH from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she also completed her residency in General Preventive Medicine. She co-chairs the Pharmaceutical Medicine Special Interest Group at the American College of Preventive Medicine, fostering collaboration at the intersection of public health and pharmaceutical medicine.
Lahila Ojeda, MD, MPH, FACPM