The Advisory Board provides the Department with multi-sector and interdisciplinary expertise to help us achieve our goal of improving the health and wellness of residents in central and southern Illinois. Linda Reneé Baker, PhD Cheryl Austein Casnoff, MPH Wayne Giles, MD, MS Eric Hargan, JD Alana Knudson, PhD Paul Kuehnert, DNP, RN, FAAN Bryan Samuels, MPP Madhu Viswanathan, PhD John Whittington, MD

Dana Suskind is co-director of the TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health at the University of Chicago. A professor of surgery, she is founder and director of the Pediatric Cochlear Implant Program, and founder and director of Thirty Million Words. She received her MD at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine. She completed her residency in otorhinolaryngology, specializing in head and neck surgery, at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and fellowship in pediatric otolaryngology at the Children’s Hospital at the Washington University School of Medicine in

Paul Bloom is Vice President, Process and Chemical Research, at Archer Daniels Midland Company. In that role, he leads research efforts in process development and chemical research to help ADM develop technologies that will improve the company’s cost position and drive new product opportunities. He also works with ADM’s commercial and production teams to move technologies from the laboratory to deployment. Bloom joined ADM in 2001 as a research scientist and, in 2007, was named director, Chemical Technology Strategy; during his time at ADM, he has authored more than 20 patents. He also played

Linda Reneé Baker joined the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute on March 18, 2003, after stepping down as the secretary of Illinois Department of Human Services, a post she held for three years. Her focus at the institute is to expand access to high-quality health care in partnership with the SIU School of Medicine and helping minorities and people with disabilities realize their full potential. She also teaches a course on leadership for SIU Carbondale. During her career in public service, Baker held increasingly responsible positions in a variety of state agencies. As secretary of the

V. Fan Tait is a pediatric neurologist and brings years of experience in child health and wellness, family-centered care in medical homes, children with special needs and health care delivery systems. She is currently the chief medical officer of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) where examples of her leadership and oversight includes disaster preparedness activities, the Julius B. Richmond Center of Excellence (Tobacco Control), CME education, and the Division of Innovation which houses all Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) initiatives. For more than 10 years, she

Wayne H. Giles is Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Prior to joining UIC in September of 2017, he was the Director of the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, in the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He also led the Division of Population Health at CDC, one of CDC’s most diverse divisions with programmatic and research activities in community health promotion, arthritis, aging, health care utilization, and racial and ethnic disparities in health. His

Patrick Gallagher is the Senior Vice President, Health Policy and Finance at the Illinois Health and Hospital Association. Patrick’s department is responsible for assisting members with a wide range of hospital payment and regulatory issues including Medicare and Medicaid payment, health insurance regulations, hospital charity care and tax exemption issues and state and federal regulatory related challenges. Patrick coordinates IHA efforts to assist members to prepare and participate in value based health care delivery and payment programs. He is also directly involved in the review and

Madhu Viswanathan (B.Tech, Mechanical Engineering, IIT, Madras, 1985; Ph.D. (Marketing), University of Minnesota, 1990) Professor of Marketing, College of Business Administration at Loyola Marymount University in 2019 Professor Emeritus, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His research programs are on measurement, and subsistence marketplaces, where he has authored several books including Measurement Error and Research Design (Sage, 2005), Enabling Consumer and Entrepreneurial Literacy in Subsistence Marketplaces (Springer, 2008), Subsistence Marketplaces (2013)

Audrey Soglin is the Executive Director of the Illinois Education Association (IEA). She taught in Evanston, Illinois for 25 years. Ms. Soglin started her career teaching self contained special education students and after eight years, moved to regular education where she taught kindergarten, first, second, fourth and fifth grades. Prior to becoming the Executive Director of the Illinois Education Association, Audrey was the Director of the Center for Education Innovation for IEA and the Executive Director of the Consortium for Educational Change. As Executive Director of the IEA, Ms. Soglin

Bryan Samuels is the Executive Director of Chapin Hall, one of the nation’s leading research and policy centers focused on improving the well-being of children and youth, families and their communities. He has spent his career building the capacity of child-serving systems to produce positive outcomes for children, integrating empirical evidence into public policy and service delivery, streamlining management and operations in government and non-profit agencies, and emphasizing the emergence of a cutting-edge body of scholarship in neuroscience and its potential for innovative contributions to