Bay Area Equity Atlas – The Bay Area Equity Atlas team presented their tools to provide a comprehensive data support system to track the state of equity across the region and inform solutions for inclusive prosperity. The Bay Area Equity Atlas is a tool for community leaders seeking to create a more equitable, sustainable, and resilient region. Robust, disaggregated data is critical to informing action strategies for equitable growth. Despite the rich data and technology resources in the Bay Area, community leaders have lacked access to the data they need to drive solutions forward. The Bay Area Equity Atlas aims to fill this gap. Visit https://bayareaequityatlas.org/ for more information.

Henry Abrons Equity in Healthcare Panel Moderated by Henry L. Abrons, MD, MPH. Dr. Abrons co-chairs the Healthcare Team at the Berkeley, Albany, and Emeryville LWV. Dr. Abrons attended Harvard and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and was Associate Professor of Medicine specializing in pulmonary disease and critical care at West Virginia University. He moved to Highland Hospital in Oakland in 2001and retired from clinical practice in 2007. He is currently an advisory board member of Physicians for a National Health Program and past president of the California chapter.

ash karlaAssembly Member Ash Kalra represents California’s 25th Assembly District, which encompasses the majority of San Jose, including downtown and open space areas northeast of Santa Clara County. He was first elected in 2016, becoming the first Indian American to serve in the California Legislature in state history, and was re-elected to his fourth term in 2022. Assemblymember Kalra has established himself as a leader on issues ranging from criminal justice reform to the environment, as well as health care reform and sustainability, housing affordability, growing our transportation infrastructure, and expanding economic opportunity to all Californians.

Susan RodgersDr. Susan Rogers, immediate past president of Physicians for a National Health Program, is a retired general internist and prior director of medical student programs at Stroger Hospital of Cook County. She retired in 2014 and continued as a volunteer attending hospitalist and internist there for several years. She remains an Assistant Professor of medicine at Rush University, where she is an active member of the Committee of Admissions. Dr. Rogers received her medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine and completed her residency at Cook County Hospital. She was Medical Director of the Near North Health Service Corp. Dr. Rogers is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and a member of the National Medical Association.

Dr. RudmanDr. Sarah Rudman is the Santa Clara County Public Health Department's Deputy Health Officer and serves as Director of the Infectious Disease and Response Branch. Sarah joined the SCCPHD in 2016 to serve in the newly created position of STD/HIV Controller and to lead and grow the STD/HIV Prevention and Control Program. She previously worked for the California Dept. of Public Health in outbreak investigation and provided adult infectious disease care at UCSF Medical Center. Dr. Rudman earned her MD from Cornell University and completed an internal medicine residency at Harvard, an infectious disease fellowship at the UCSF, a Master of Public Health at UC Berkeley, and an undergraduate degree at Stanford University.

Transportation Equity Panel Moderated by president-elect, Kathleen Cha.

Alix Bockelman is the Deputy Executive Director of Policy for MTC and the Association of Bay Area Governments and oversees departments responsible for strategic financial planning; state and federal legislative advocacy, public affairs and community outreach; and planning, (Plan Bay Area). Joining MTC in 1998, and after stints as project manager, funding liaison, transportation forecaster and multimodal program manager, she was appointed principal analyst to oversee the region’s $18 billion transit expansion program. In 2008, Ms. Bockelman was promoted to Director of Programming and Allocations and responsible for overseeing MTC’s strategic financial planning and managing the distribution of more than $1 billion annually in federal, state and regional transportation funds.

Laura Brodgesell Laura Tolkoff, SPUR Transportation Policy Director. As SPUR's transportation policy director, Laura Tolkoff provides strategic policy direction, project and process design, transportation policy, and infrastructure planning and delivery She believes that a sustainable transportation system is the scaffolding for a society that cares for the environment, that embraces public life. She is an American Leadership Forum senior fellow and was named to Mass Transit magazine's "Top 40 under 40" in 2019.