Dr. Bruno is a hybrid doctor. He is double boarded in both family medicine and preventive medicine, focused on providing excellent primary care, while working on public health interventions in the community. Dr. Bruno is active in dozens of community-based organizations to help build collective power and improve community health.
Dr. Bruno earned his MD from the Oregon Health & Science University, School of Medicine in Portland, and completed his residency at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he also earned his MPH. His career spans numerous clinical, academic and research positions, and today he serves as Health Officer of Multnomah County Health Department.
Dr. Lisa Waddell, MD, MPH, is the former chief medical officer (CMO) for the CDC Foundation. She is a board-certified preventive medicine and public health physician with 30 years of local, state and national public health leadership experience. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic response, in her former role as CMO, Dr. Waddell provided leadership for the development of the COVID-19 Corps Nationwide Surge Staffing initiative and the Foundation’s overall COVID-19 response efforts including the development of capacity building initiative to support Community Based Organizations. She serves as the science advisor to the foundation and as a spokesperson for initiatives such as the Million Hearts/”Live to the Beat” campaign.
Prior to the CDC Foundation, she served as the Deputy Commissioner for Health Services in SC, the Chief Program Officer for Community Health at ASTHO, the Senior VP for Maternal and Child Health/Deputy Health Officer for March of Dimes, a district public health director in SC and deputy public health director in Richmond, VA.
Dr. Waddell is an active, long-standing member of ACPM. She has served on the ACPM Finance Committee since 2020 and is currently the Vice Chair. She has supported the College via conference presentations and providing career-related webinar sessions.
Dr. Waddell has a passion for public health and is committed to promoting and protecting the health of populations. She has a special interest in addressing the needs of vulnerable populations, the needs of moms and babies, and those with disparate health outcomes.
Prasad Acharya, MD, MPH, MBA, FACPM is a board-certified preventive medicine physician with experience spanning public health leadership, federal consulting, and digital health strategy. His consulting work has focused on AI integration, startup advising, and systems innovation in healthcare and public health. As Chief of Staff and lead for Population Health, Innovation, and Informatics at Prometheus Federal Services, he co-led enterprise strategy and launched an Innovation Lab and an AI Center of Excellence. His work centers on guiding systems, technology, partnerships, and people through change—supporting thoughtful leadership, collaborative strategy, and innovation across healthcare and public health.
Dr. Acharya’s involvement with ACPM has been defined by his commitment to identifying gaps and developing solutions. He recognized the need for better early career engagement and led a variety of resident and early career engagement initiatives that ultimately culminated in the re-establishment of the medical student, resident, and early career sections. This work earned him the President’s Award, recognizing the impact of his efforts on the College. Dr. Acharya has developed mentoring programs for ACPM and mentored numerous early career leaders to help drive changes the College is working to make together. He works to build relationships across the college to elevate leaders and create opportunities for collaboration, aiming to build an aligned organization that generates value for members and develops the leaders the profession needs.
Dr. Acharya received the Rising Star Award for his contributions to the College and his leadership in digital health focused on reaching vulnerable populations. He has helped position ACPM in artificial intelligence and digital health integration, recently leading the College’s AI workshop at PM25 and contributing to ACPM’s 40-hour AI certification course. He also created the “Transforming the Health Ecosystem: Physician Leadership & Change Management” course for the Population Health Track, as well as another course on Health Information Technology and Innovation with an equity focus.
As Chair of the ACPM Membership Committee, Dr. Acharya focuses on advancing the member experience and strengthening ACPM as a member-centered organization. He has facilitated countless sessions to engage members, create solutions, and build connections across the College. His approach centers on identifying gaps, finding the right people and teams, and empowering leaders with resources to advance shared goals. Recently, he has applied this same approach to developing the Board-approved Communities of Practice framework, creating new pathways for engagement across medical disciplines to build the collective action needed to advance preventive medicine and public health.
Dr. Acharya has worked closely with staff and leadership throughout the college, including current Board members, and multiple past presidents and across initiatives from the Strategy Committee and Visibility Task Force to the Business Development Task Force focused on member growth, professional alignment and financial sustainability. Over the past several years, he has drawn on his experience in innovation and stakeholder alignment to help align the College’s evolving vision. Regular attendance at key meetings, including Board meetings, has deepened his understanding of governance processes and strategic priorities while allowing him to facilitate sessions focused on developing new approaches to member engagement and collaborative problem-solving.
As President of the California Academy of Preventive Medicine, Dr. Acharya helps guide state-level policy advocacy across environmental health, health equity, and healthcare access.
Erica Frank, MD, MPH, FACPM is a physician and Professor in UBC’s School of Population and Public Health and Department of Family Medicine in UBC’s Faculty of Medicine. She is also Affiliate Faculty in Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies, and served two terms as the Tier I Canada Research Chair in Preventive Medicine and Population Health and as a UBC University Sustainability Initiative Fellow. Dr. Frank is an internationally prominent public health researcher, educator, and leader, nominated in 2016 by the Canadian Medical Association and the American College of Preventive Medicine to be the Director-General of the World Health Organization. Her intervention research examines globally scaled educational interventions. Dr. Frank is the Founder/Inventor (in 2001) of NextGenU.org (with learners registered in every country and receiving free education), and the Principal Investigator of the Healthy Doc = Healthy Patient initiative (demonstrating and building on the strong and consistent relationships between physicians’ personal and clinical practices).
She was trained at the Cleveland Clinic (Internship), Yale University (Preventive Medicine Residency), and Stanford University (with a three year long NIH/NHLBI fellowship). She is a lifelong advocate for population health, including serving on the Boards (beginning in 1998) of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Board in the U.S. (including as 2008 President) and Canada (where she stewards the commemorative casting of IPPNW-Canada’s Nobel medal).
Dr. Chris T. Pernell is a dynamic physician leader and social change agent. In her practice, she focuses on health justice, community-based advocacy, and population-wide health promotion and disease prevention. A celebrated visionary and apostle of public health, Dr. Chris recently launched The Esther Group LLC, a public health consulting and health equity strategy firm. As founder and CEO of The Esther Group, she lives the mandate to dare a future where organizations, communities and systems can innovate for a better world and humanity.
Previously, she served as the first Chief Strategic Integration and Health Equity Officer at University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey. Dr. Pernell oversaw a portfolio which included Population Health, Strategic Planning, Community Affairs, and the Human Experience. Her office was responsible for leading health equity strategy development and integrating diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism initiatives across all system operations.
Prior to joining University Hospital, she led the 1199SEIU/League Labor Management Initiatives (LMI) Workplace and Community Health Program. Working with 1199SEIU leaders and frontline workers—the nation’s largest healthcare union—and executive partners across NYC healthcare institutions, her efforts centered on workplace health strategies, worker empowerment, health equity, and health system transformation.
Dr. Chris is a charismatic and leading voice in preventive medicine and public health. Singled out both for her business acumen and public health expertise, her list of honors include: The New Jersey Public Health Association Dr. Ezra Mundy Hunt Award for distinctive leadership in the field; an NJBiz Best 50 Women in Business Award; a ROI-NJ Women in Business Influencer; The American College of Preventive Medicine (ACPM) Ron Davis Special Recognition Award; an NJBiz Public Health Hero Award; and the NAACP NJ State Conference 100 Black People Who Changed the World Honoree.
Dr. Pernell has spearheaded issues such as criminal justice reform, care for justice-impacted populations, evidence-based wellness programs, civic health, and high-quality education. Known for her community work in the Greater Newark, New Jersey area, she serves on the Essex County Civilian Task Force as a medical expert. On Juneteenth 2023, she was tapped to join the New Jersey Reparations Council as a member of their health equity committee. Dr. Pernell is a frequent contributor across television, radio, and print media leveraging her lived experiences and insights as a public health physician and health equity champion. She regularly speaks at professional symposia and social forums and advises community, state, regional, and national leaders on health equity, racial justice, population health, community wellbeing, and faith-based initiatives.
Dr. Pernell graduated cum laude from Princeton University before attending Duke University School of Medicine. She received her Master of Public Health from the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health and completed the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health General Preventive Medicine Residency. Dr. Pernell is a fellow and Regent-at-Large for the American College of Preventive Medicine. She holds an appointment as a Clinical Assistant Professor at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. Previously, she taught as an adjunct associate professor at the NYU College of Global Public Health. She labors as a faith leader in a groundbreaking assembly, BET HaSHEM YHWH Worldwide Ministries, and travels domestically and overseas helping to transform lives through love, truth, creativity, and inspiration.
Dr. Helga Rippen is a seasoned executive with more than 20 years in applied health information technology development, implementation, and evaluation to support clinical and public/population health initiatives. In her current role, she is the Chief Interoperability and Veteran Access Officer with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Dr. Rippen earned her MD from the University of Florida and completed her medical residency at Johns Hopkins University in general preventive medicine, where she also earned her Master’s in Public Health. She has a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University and completed fellowships at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry, University of British Columbia, and at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Deborah Porterfield, MD, MPH, FACPM, is a Senior Advisor and Medical Officer in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In this role, she oversees policy research and evaluation focused on high-priority public health topics.
Before joining HHS, Dr. Porterfield contributed to the COVID-19 response at the North Carolina Division of Public Health. Prior to the pandemic, she served as an Associate Professor at the UNC School of Medicine, where she directed the Preventive Medicine Residency Program for nearly 20 years. During that time, she also conducted public health systems research and evaluations—primarily for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—as a visiting research scientist at RTI International.
Dr. Porterfield earned her medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco, and completed her internal medicine residency at the University of Virginia. She completed her preventive medicine residency at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she also trained in health services research as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar. Early in her career, she provided primary care in two Federally Qualified Health Centers.
Hunter Jackson Smith, MD, MPH, MBE, FACPM is a Major in the U.S. Army Medical Corps and the Focus Area Lead for Antimicrobial Resistant Infections, STI, and Enteric Infections at the Department of Defense Global Emerging Infections Surveillance Branch in Silver Spring, MD. Dr. Smith is an Assistant Professor for the Uniformed Services University in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. MAJ Smith serves on the Editorial Boards of AJPM Focus and the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics.
Dr. Smith is board certified in General Preventive Medicine and Public Health. He graduated from Tulane University with a BA in Philosophy and Religious Studies. He couldn’t stay away from the crawfish etouffee, so lived in New Orleans four more years to earn his MD and MPH in Epidemiology from Tulane University. Dr. Smith completed his intern year at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii where he met his lovely wife, Joy. He went on to complete his residency training in Public Health and General Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the Uniformed Services University, during which time he earned an MBE from the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.