THE INSTITUTE FOR INTEGRATIVE HEALTH - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Communications Manager

Job Titles:

• Founder
• Member of the Board of Directors
• President
• President & Founder, Nova Institute for Health
• President of the Nova Institute for Health
• Professor

Dr. Brian Berman is the President of the Nova Institute for Health (formerly The Institute for Integrative Health), which he founded in 2007 to catalyze new ideas in health. He is also Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he was Director of the Center for Integrative Medicine. Trained in family medicine and pain management, as well as complementary medical approaches such as traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, Dr. Berman has dedicated his academic career to evaluating the efficacy, safety, and cost-effectiveness of complementary and integrative medicine. In 1991, he founded the first U.S. academic medical center-based program for integrative medicine. He now continues to conduct his National Institutes of Health-funded research at the University of Maryland, while expanding his focus to understanding and promoting health through his leadership of the Nova Institute for Health. Dr. Berman is one of the most highly funded National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers in the area of integrative and complementary medicine. During his tenure at the University of Maryland, the Center for Integrative Medicine was awarded more than $56 million in research funding and had more than 900 publications. Dr. Berman has been principal investigator of five NIH Center of Excellence, multi-study grants focused on complementary medical interventions for the treatment of arthritis and related disorders and irritable bowel syndrome. Through this work he built collaborations with preeminent institutions in Hong Kong, Australia, Europe, and the United States. In 2004, Dr. Berman's landmark study showing acupuncture to be a safe and effective therapy for osteoarthritis of the knee was published as the lead article in the Annals of Internal Medicine. His research publications include five books and more than 300 articles in leading medical journals focused on traditional Chinese medicine, including acupuncture, herbs, and Qi Gong, as well as other mind-body and integrative medicine approaches for a wide range of chronic health and pain-related disorders. A pioneer in the field of integrative medicine, Dr. Berman was honored with the prestigious Bravewell Leadership Award for Integrative Medicine in 2005. The award "celebrates and supports visionaries who have committed their medical careers to transforming healthcare in America and ushering in a new practice of medicine." In 2018, he was further honored with the Bravewell Service Award for his ongoing commitment to the field. He was chair of the ad hoc advisory committee to the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine when it opened in 1992, as well as the report to the U.S. Congress on alternative medicine. Subsequently, he served on their advisory committee for three other terms through 2014. In 1996, Dr. Berman helped found and now serves as field director for the complementary medicine field of Cochrane, an internationally renowned organization recognized as a leader in evidence-based medicine. He was a panel member of the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine's 2005 report on complementary medicine and was the first chair of the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine & Health, now with over 78 American universities in its membership. Dr. Berman now leads the Nova Institute for Health, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to catalyze new ideas in health, explore the complex network of factors that influence health, and promote the well-being of individuals, communities, and the planet. He serves on the McCormick Science Institute's Advisory Board, the American Pain Society Task Force on Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and the NFL Players Association Player Wellness Pain Advisory Board, and recently participated in the "Contributions of Social and Behavioral Research in Addressing the Opioid Crisis," part of the series of NIH meetings on "Cutting Edge Science to End the Opioid Crisis."

David John Lary, PhD, is an atmospheric scientist whose work focuses on using remote sensing from robotic aerial vehicles and satellites coupled with machine learning to facilitate scientific discovery and decision support. In 2010, he joined University of Texas, Dallas as associate professor and founding director of the Center for Multi-scale Intelligent Integrated Interactive Sensing. He is author of AutoChem, NASA release software that constitutes an automatic computer code generator and documenter for chemically reactive systems. It was designed primarily for modeling atmospheric chemistry and, in particular, for chemical data assimilation. AutoChem has won five NASA awards and has been used to perform long-term chemical data assimilation of atmospheric chemistry and in the validation of observations from the NASA Aura satellite. It has been used in numerous peer-reviewed articles. Dr. Lary completed his education in the United Kingdom. He received a First Class Double Honors BSc in physics and chemistry from King's College London (1987) with the Sambrooke Exhibition Prize in Natural Science, and a PhD in atmospheric chemistry from the University of Cambridge, Churchill College (1991). He then held post-doctoral research assistant and associate positions at Cambridge University until receiving a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 1996 (also at Cambridge). From 1998 to 2000, Dr. Lary held a joint position at Cambridge and the University of Tel-Aviv as a senior lecturer and Alon fellow, the highest award Israel can give a young scientist. In 2000, the chief scientific adviser to the British Prime Minister and head of the British Office of Science and Technology, Professor Sir David King, recommended Dr. Lary to be appointed as a Cambridge University lecturer in chemical informatics. In 2001, David joined UMBC/Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center (GEST) as the first distinguished Goddard fellow in earth science. While at GEST, he authored the award-winning AutoChem software and was involved with NASA Aura validation using probability distribution functions and chemical data assimilation, neural networks for accelerating atmospheric models, the use of Earth Observing Data for health and policy applications, and the optimal design of Earth Observing Systems. Dr. Lary's achievements have been recognized by his peers through invited contributions to the Royal Society, National Academies, and Centers for Disease Control; three prestigious fellowships; five editorial commendations; several million dollars in research funding; seven NASA awards; and more than 60 publications with more than one thousand citations in peer-reviewed literature.

Job Titles:

• Editor - in - Chief
• President Emeritus
• Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians

David Scott Jones, MD, is president emeritus and a member of the board of directors of The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM), where he served as president and director of medical education from 2000 to 2013. His area of expertise within the IFM is the focus on the therapeutic partnership between the patient and the practitioner, and the importance of the transition within primary care to the development of healing relationships. Dr. Jones, a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, is a recognized expert in the areas of functional medicine, the science of nutrition and lifestyle changes for optimal health, and managed care, as well as the daily professional functions consistent with the modern specialty of family practice. He is the recipient of the 1997 Linus Pauling Award in Functional Medicine, and over the last two decades, has helped guide the ongoing development of the educational and clinical applications of functional medicine. IFM provides continuing medical education for physicians and other healthcare professionals. Educational activities focus on assessment and treatment of underlying causes of illness in order to maintain and restore health and improve function using a personalized approach. Dr. Jones has presided over a continuous quality improvement process that has made IFM's educational programs the most sought after in the field of functional integrative medicine. He is the past president of PrimeCare, the Independent Physician Association of Southern Oregon, where he served for seven years representing the majority of the 500+ physicians in the Southern Oregon area. He also served as chief of staff at the Ashland Community Hospital and president of the Southern Oregon Society of Preventive Medicine. Dr. Jones is editor-in-chief and co-author of the Textbook of Functional Medicine, published in 2005 and 2010, and authored Healthy Changes, a patient-centered 16-week workbook that focuses on healthy habits. He was lead author of 21st CENTURY MEDICINE: A New Model for Medical Education and Practice.

Job Titles:

• Communications and Media
• Senior Director of Strategic Communications

Dawn is a public relations professional with more than two decades of communications and advocacy experience who became interested in public health as she learned more about the interconnections between health, equity, and environmental justice. She's worked in the private, nonprofit, and government sectors to lead successful public awareness and policy campaigns around such issues as COVID-19, behavioral health, climate change, sustainable agriculture, pesticides, toxic chemicals, lead paint poisoning, and water and air pollution. Prior to coming to the Institute, she opened and led the Annapolis, Maryland, office of The Hatcher Group, a public relations firm that focuses on nonprofits and foundations working to make social change. She also served as communications director at the Maryland Department of the Environment under Gov. Martin O'Malley's Administration, as deputy director and communications manager at the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, and as publications and electronic communications manager at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. She began her career in book publishing. Dawn earned her BA in English literature and minored in creative writing at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, and she studied abroad at the University of Wales at Swansea in the United Kingdom. Dawn is a 2015 recipient of the Anne Arundel County, Maryland, YWCA Tribute to Women and Industry Award. She serves on the Planning Advisory Board for Anne Arundel County, Maryland, and is an active volunteer with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Board of Directors
• Managing Partner ( Ret. ), the Hickory Ridge Group, LLC

Job Titles:

• Project Coordinator

Gabriela is a health professional who passionately believes in the human's extraordinary ability to transform themselves and create the life they desire with the right tools. She's a Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York, and a licensed Psychologist in her home country, Colombia. Gabriela's background in integrative health enables her to use a variety of tools from making your mind your greatest ally and creating empowering belief systems, to addressing physical health with nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress management, to help others create the optimal environment to thrive and have a heightened sense of well-being. Prior to joining the Nova Institute for Health, Gabriela served as a research fellow at the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Maryland, where she played a key role in the development and implementation of the Culinary Health and Medicine Program as part of the curriculum for medical students and other healthcare professionals in training. She now serves as the Project Coordinator and educator at the Nova Institute for Health, where she contributes to programming utilizing a wide variety of health modalities as powerful tools in the creation of pioneering programs towards the prevention and treatment of physical and mental health disorders across the lifespan. Gabriela is committed to making a difference in the world one person at a time, helping people achieve their best selves and overcoming what's holding them back, as she continuously evolves into the best version of herself possible.

Job Titles:

• Senior Advisor for Scholars & Fellows Program
• Thomas Francis Collegiate Emeritus Professor of Public Health

Professor George A. Kaplan, PhD, is a social epidemiologist whose work on the role of behavioral, social, psychological, and socioeconomic factors in health and health inequalities has been cited more than 63,000 times. A major theme in his work is the complex linkage between "upstream" and "downstream" factors in maintaining health, delaying disease, and improving function, with an emphasis on the social determinants of health. Studies by Dr. Kaplan and colleagues have detailed the cumulative cost of socioeconomic disadvantage on health and functional outcomes in the elderly, the role of socioeconomic status and economic equity on the overall health of populations, the impact of neighborhood and community factors on health, the impact of life-course trajectories on a variety of health outcomes in adulthood, and the role of economic and social policies on health. Dr. Kaplan is the Thomas Francis Collegiate Emeritus Professor of Public Health in the School of Public Health, a research professor at the Institute for Social Research, and director of the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health, all at the University of Michigan. He is a faculty member in the Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan. He was an Associate in the Population Health Program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research until its end. Dr. Kaplan was also the founding Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars Program at the University of Michigan. Among his honors are membership in the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Social Insurance, the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, and election to the Presidency of the Society for Epidemiologic Research. Dr. Kaplan is the first public health scientist to be invited to address the Nobel Forum at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. In addition to being an internationally respected social epidemiologist, Dr. Kaplan is an accomplished fine art photographer. See his images. Dr. Kaplan is currently the Thomas Francis Collegiate Emeritus Professor of Public Health, School of Public Health, University of Michigan. Dr. Kaplan studies why some communities are healthy and others are not. Building bridges between two fields-public health and complex systems science-he's exploring how computer simulations may be used to uncover insight about the factors that shape population health. That insight, in turn, can help inform social policies and programs. Dr. Kaplan's decades-long work has been to develop an expanded view of factors that contribute to population health and health disparities - not only physiological, medical, and behavioral factors, but also socioeconomic, educational, cognitive, emotional/psychosocial, neighborhood-based, work-related, legal, etc.

Job Titles:

• Cited Researcher

Job Titles:

• 2023 Nova Media Fellow
• Freelance Journalist
• Nova Media Fellow

Kate Morgan has been a freelance journalist since 2015. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, National Geographic, BBC, Popular Science, Sierra, and many other publications. She is the producer and host of the Roaring Earth Podcast, and has been featured on other popular podcasts and radio shows. She is a member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America. Kate lives in the Appalachian foothills of Pennsylvania, where hardwood forest meets the anthracite coal fields, with her husband and toddler. Rural life informs her reporting, and helps her tell the nuanced stories of America's overlooked places and people. Her work takes a broad view of health and often focuses on the inherent optimism of those working to repair and restore natural ecosystems and human communities.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Board of Directors
• Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco

Job Titles:

• 2023 Nova Media Fellow
• Journalist

Lela Nargi is a veteran journalist covering the intersection of water poverty and food insecurity in several communities across the country. Formerly, she was an editor at Working Mother magazine, a journalism instructor at Kingsborough Community College, and a reporter for national outlets such as People, Life, and Entertainment Weekly. Lela's work has been recognized by The Aspen Institute and the Society for Environmental Journalists, and reprinted widely. She's also a regular radio guest. She's also the author of 20+ books for children on topics such as bees, birds, space, volcanoes, dinosaurs, ecosystems, and biodiversity. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can find her at lelanargi.com.

Job Titles:

• Accounting & Finance Manager

Mark, Accounting and Finance Manager, has been with the Nova Institute since June 2012. He handles all of the day-to-day accounting and financial activities as well as financial reporting and internal control improvements. Mark has had a diverse business history, working with and serving clients in the non-profit, technology, professional services and publishing industries. For many years he has served at the C-level of several small to mid-sized entities and continues to work with several clients as an outsourced controller. A certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor, he holds a Bachelor of Science degree in accountancy from James Madison University and a MBA in finance from Virginia Tech.

Job Titles:

• Reflections from Our Founder

Job Titles:

• Member of the Board of Directors
• Managing Partner, Pinehurst Advisory Limited

Job Titles:

• Director of the Nova Network

Prof. Susan L. Prescott MD, PhD, is a pediatrician, immunologist, and internationally acclaimed physician scientist, well known for her cutting-edge research into the early environmental determinants of health and disease. At the global level, as the founding president of inVIVO Planetary Health and now Director of the Nova Network, her work focuses on the interconnections between human health and planetary health and promoting holistic value systems for both ecological and social justice. Locally in Western Australia, she is Director of The ORIGINS project, which examines how the environment influences all aspects of physical and mental health throughout life. She was also the founding President of the DOHaD Society (Developmental Origins of Health and Disease) of Australia and New Zealand, and previously served as a Director of the World Allergy Organization. She has over 300 scientific publications. Susan is also an artist and award-winning author of several books including The Allergy Epidemic, The Calling, Origins, and gold medal winning book The Secret Life of Your Microbiome. Her inspiration to study medicine came from her grandmother, one of the few women to study medicine in the 1930s.

Job Titles:

• Chief Operating Officer
• Chief Operating Officer ( COO ) for the Nova Institute for Health
• Development

Rick serves as chief operating officer (COO) for the Nova Institute for Health and works closely with the founders and entire Institute team to conceptualize new programs, build infrastructure, and translate vision into action. As the first employee of the Institute in 2007, he served as chief operating officer until 2013, and then returned in early 2019. In 2013, he was recruited to serve as chief executive officer for Pride of Baltimore, Inc., the non-profit that owns and operates the sailing vessel Pride of Baltimore II, Maryland's goodwill ambassador. During his tenure from 2013-2019, he provided strategy and leadership across all functional areas, forged partnerships regionally and nationally, and stewarded the organization on a path toward long-term financial sustainability. Prior to working at the Institute, Rick managed the education programs at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) from 2001 - 2008, where he played a key role on a five-year NIH/NCCAM education grant to incorporate integrative medicine principles and content into the required and elective curricula at UCSF. While at UCSF (1996-2008), he received numerous awards from the School of Medicine for creativity, innovation, and initiative. Rick's education background includes undergraduate studies in languages and linguistics, graduate coursework in both philosophy/religion and library science, certification in mediation for conflict management, training as a life coach, and advanced studies in mind-body medicine. He has been a student and teacher of contemplative practices and wisdom traditions, and enjoys the exploration of symbols, metaphor, and how our beliefs shape our reality. He has a passion for seeing the health and vitality in people, and encouraging them to awaken to a greater sense of meaning, purpose, and joy in their lives.

Job Titles:

• Executive Director
• Member of the Board of Directors
• Executive Director & Co - Founder, Nova Institute for Health

Job Titles:

• Collegiate Emeritus Professor of Public Health, School of Public Health