The Health Law & Policy Brief Spring Symposium

March 20, 2025

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The Health Law and Policy Brief, supported by the WCL Health Law and Policy Program, Presents:

Public Health at a Crossroads: Reflecting on Lessons Learned from COVID-19 and Strengthening Pandemic Preparedness

REGISTER HERE – available for in-person and Zoom viewing

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Symposium Description:

March 2025 marks the five-year anniversary of the initial COVID-19 lockdowns in the United States. The pandemic impacted every aspect of daily life, exacerbated inequities in our healthcare landscape, and strained our public health infrastructure. This half-day symposium will consider how lessons learned during COVID-19 will inform future pandemic preparedness amidst rising distrust in public health institutions and challenges facing our healthcare workforce. Lunch will be served.

Agenda Overview:

• 11:30 AM to 12:00 PM – Registration & Lunch
• 12 PM to 12:10 PM – Welcome Remarks
• 12:10 PM to 1:00 PM – Session 1 – Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response
  • Moderator: Celeste Davis, Professorial Lecturer and Director of Public Health Scholars, Dept. of Health Studies, American University
  • Alexandra Bhatti, J.D., MPH – U.S. Commercial Leader, Vaccination Confidence, Equity, and Public Health at Merck
  • Brent Ewig, MHS – Chief Policy and Government Relations Officer, Association of Immunization Managers 
  • Sam Halabi, J.D. – Director of Center for Transformational Health Law at Georgetown University Law Center O’Neill Institute
  • Sam Hurley, MPH, EMPHS, NRP – Senior Deputy Director of Health Systems & Preparedness Administration, DC Health
• 1:10 PM to 2 PM – Session 2 – Lessons from a Workforce in Crisis: Understanding the Pandemic’s Impact on the Healthcare Workforce and the Road Ahead
  • Moderator: Asha Scielzo, Director of the WCL Health Law and Policy Program; President, American Health Law Association
  • Wendy Dean, MD – President and Co-Founder of Moral Injury of Healthcare
  • Karen Drenkard, PhD – President, Drenkard Healthcare Consulting, LLC
  • Rob Niccolini – Shareholder at Ogletree Deakins
  • Moriah Robins, MPH – Research Officer at de Beaumont Foundation
  • Joelle Simpson, MD, MPH – Medical Director of Emergency Preparedness at Children’s National Hospital

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About the Speakers

Session 1 – Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response

Celeste Davis, Professorial Lecturer (Dept. of Health Studies) and Director of Public Health Scholars at American University 

Celeste Davis, JD, MPH, is a public health lawyer, strategist, and educator committed to community engagement, social impact, and collaborative innovation. Their work spans public health education, professional development, and program design across academic and community spaces.  

As Faculty Director of the Public Health Scholars Program at American University, Davis advances community-driven approaches to public health education, integrating innovation and social justice into curricula.  

Beyond academia, Davis was the inaugural Chief Health Policy Officer at the Baltimore City Health Department and an assistant scientist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where they held faculty appointments in the Institute for Health and Social Policy and the Center for Law and the Public’s Health. They also served as a senior fellow at Harvard Law School’s Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation.  

With extensive experience educating and advocating alongside students and practitioners nationwide, Davis has designed advocacy strategies, facilitated stakeholder convenings, and led initiatives that champion thriving communities. Their work is rooted in critical race scholarship, emergent strategy, and design thinking. Davis holds an MPH from the University of Michigan and a JD from Boston University, with formative roots at Bennett College, a women’s HBCU.  

Alexandra Bhatti, J.D., MPH – U.S. Commercial Leader, Vaccination Confidence, Equity, and Public Health at Merck 

Alexandra is a public health attorney with diverse experience in vaccine programs and policy across government and private sectors. She is a US commercial leader at Merck, leading a team focused on vaccine confidence, equity, and public health. She is also a faculty member in the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University.  

Previously, she led vaccine policy development and research as well as federal vaccine policy advocacy on Merck’s US Vaccine Policy and Partnerships team. Prior to working at Merck, Bhatti was a public health attorney at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where she led vaccination law research. Her roots are in state public health; she was previously a manager in the Immunization Program Office of the Arizona Department of Health, as well as a senior public health scientist in the Arizona State Public Health Laboratory.  

Brent Ewig, MHS – Chief Policy and Government Relations Officer, Association of Immunization Managers  

Brent Ewig is an advocate for public health. For close to three decades, he has worked with government agencies, non-profit associations, foundations, and other groups in the global, federal, state, and local health policy arenas. He became the Chief Policy and Government Relations Officer for the Association of Immunization Managers (AIM) in August 2022. He previously worked as a consultant policy advisor to AIM, a consultant to the World Health Organization, and former Director of Policy and Government Affairs at the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP). He also worked for eight years at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO). With Dr. Mike Fraser he is co-author of the book Vaccinating America published by the American Public Health Association Press.  He holds a master’s degree in health policy from Johns Hopkins University and bachelor’s degree in English from Valparaiso University. When not analyzing health policy, he enjoys reading, traveling, skiing, and fishing (not all at the same time), dad jokes, and listening to the music of Bob Dylan.   

Sam Halabi – Director of Center for Transformational Health Law, O’Neill Institute, Georgetown University Law Center 

Sam Halabi is a Professor at Georgetown University’s Department of Health Management and Policy and Director of the Center for Transformational Health Law at the O’Neill Institute. Previously, he held leadership roles at Colorado State University and the University of Missouri. An expert in health law and policy, he has published five books and over 80 manuscripts on topics such as data sharing, vaccine deployment, pandemic preparedness, and public health ethics. His research is supported by institutions like the WHO, USAID, and the Wellcome Trust and appears in leading journals, including JAMA, The Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine. He has advised the WHO, World Bank, and COVAX Facility. A former attorney at Latham & Watkins, he holds a J.D. from Harvard, an M.Phil. from Oxford, and degrees from Kansas State University. Halabi is a member of the WHO’s Working Group on Regulatory Approaches to AI and Health.  

Sam Hurley – Senior Deputy Director, Health Systems & Preparedness Administration, DC Health 

J. Sam Hurley, MPH, EMPS, NRP, currently serves as the Senior Deputy Director of the Health Systems and Preparedness Administration at DC Health. HSPA safeguards the health and well-being of DC residents, visitors, and businesses by regulating health professionals and facilities while coordinating emergency preparedness and response efforts. Through partnerships and a strong regulatory framework, HSPA aims to ensure the quality, safety, and readiness of our healthcare systems for both everyday needs and public health emergencies. 

He returned to DC Health in late 2023, after spending four years in Maine as the State EMS Director. During his time there, he led a multi-year strategic planning process for development of the EMS system in Maine and led the statewide EMS response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to his time in Maine, he served as the EMS Program Manager for the District of Columbia.  

He is currently completing his dissertation for a Doctorate in Public Health (DrPH) in Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and holds master’s degrees in public health and emergency and disaster management from Emory and Georgetown University, respectively. 

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Session 2 – Lessons from a Workforce in Crisis: Understanding the Pandemic’s Impact on the Healthcare Workforce and the Road Ahead 

Asha Scielzo – Director of the WCL Health Law and Policy Program; President of American Health Law Association 

Asha Scielzo, JD serves as the Director of the Health Law and Policy Program and Adjunct Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law. Asha is a passionate leader and educator with substantial expertise in health care transactional, regulatory, and compliance matters. Combining several years of law practice with roles in academia, Asha brings over 25 years of industry experience to the classroom and is deeply committed to mentoring the next generation of health law leaders. Asha’s talents extend to the boardroom as she is uniquely qualified in analyzing risk and distilling complex legal issues into operational takeaways for effective governance and compliance. Asha is privileged to serve as the President of the American Health Law Association, the nation’s largest, nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) educational organization devoted to legal issues in the health care field. Asha is a strategic thinker, skilled at building trust and guiding organizations in implementing governance best practices.

Wendy Dean, MD – Co-Founder and President of Moral Injury of Healthcare 

Wendy Dean, MD is the CEO and co-founder of The Moral Injury of Healthcare, a nonprofit focused on alleviating workforce distress through research, education, advocacy, and consultation. She is widely published in both academic journals and lay media. She is the author of, If I Betray These Words: Moral Injury In Medicine and Why It’s So Hard For Clinicians to Put Patients First, and cohost of the Moral Matters and 43cc podcasts.  

Before co-founding the nonprofit, Dr. Dean practiced as a psychiatrist, worked for the Department of Defense in research innovation, and as an executive for a large international non-profit supporting military medical research.  

Dr. Dean graduated from Smith College and the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She did her residency training at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH. 

Karen Drenkard, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN – President of Drenkard Healthcare Consulting, LLC 

Dr. Karen Drenkard is the President of Drenkard Healthcare Consulting, with expertise in healthcare and nursing strategic planning, academic/practice partnership development, quality management, and project management.

Drenkard served as Chief Nursing Advisor /AARP Public Policy Institute for the Center for Health Equity through Nursing.  She was most recently the associate dean at GW School of Nursing leading the COVID response efforts.  She has ten years of experience as chief nurse at Inova Health System, a multi-hospital system.  She has served as the chief nurse at GetWell, a technology company, and was the executive director at ANCC and the Magnet Recognition® program.

Drenkard is the chair of the Inova Alexandria Hospital Quality and Safety Committee.  She is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and National Academies of Practice.  Drenkard received her PhD in nursing administration, policy and ethics from George Mason University, is a Wharton Nurse Executive Fellow, and a Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellow.     

Robert Niccolini – Shareholder at Ogletree Deakins 

Rob Niccolini is a labor and employment attorney with Ogletree Deakins, co-resident in the firm’s Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland offices.  He served as the co-chair of the firm’s Healthcare Industry Group for almost a decade, and is the only labor and employment lawyer to have served as President of the American Health Law Association (AHLA). He is a Fellow in both the AHLA and the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, and represents management in employment litigation and labor disputes, including all facets of employment discrimination, harassment, wrongful discharge, wage and hour and whistleblower matters, with special experience in the healthcare, technology, insurance, government contracting, and construction industries.  

Moriah Robins, MPH – Research Officer at de Beaumont Foundation 

Moriah Robins, MPH, is a research officer at the de Beaumont Foundation. Her focus is on the Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS), the only nationally representative survey of the state and local government workforce.  

Before coming to the Foundation, Moriah served as a research associate on the PHRASES (Public Health Reaching Across Sectors) project, a partnership between the Foundation and the Aspen Institute. There she designed and managed the PHRASES Fellows, a program aimed at training public health professionals in framing and communicating the value of public health in a way that resonates with decision-makers in other sectors. 

Moriah earned her MPH in Global Health Program Design, Monitoring, and Evaluation from the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. Moriah holds a BS in chemistry from the University of Maryland in College Park, Md.  

Joelle Simpson, MD, MPH – Medical Director of Emergency Preparedness at Children’s National Hospital 

Joelle Simpson, MD, MPH, is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences. She is Chief of Emergency Medicine and Medical Director for Emergency Preparedness at Children’s National Hospital in Washington DC where she provides strategic leadership for disaster preparedness, response, and community outreach efforts. Dr Simpson is a co-principal investigator of the Pediatric Pandemic Network, a federally funded program of the Health Resources and Services Administration. The purpose of the PPN is to coordinate among the Nation’s children’s hospitals and their communities in preparing for and responding to global health threats, including the coordination, preparation, response, and real-time dissemination of research-informed pediatric care for future pandemics and disasters. Dr Simpson is also a member of the National Biodefense Science Board (NBSB) providing guidance to the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response of HHS on scientific, technical, and other matters related to public health emergency preparedness and response. She currently serves on the AAP Board of Directors and has previously been appointed as an executive committee member to the AAP Council on Children and Disasters. 

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