James L. Sheets is the CEO and founder of CSI Pharmacy. He has a passion for developing clinical programs that add value to the homecare provided for infusion patients. He earned his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, College of Pharmacy. His pharmacy experience includes practice in community, hospital, nuclear, compounding, and the home infusion settings. Dr. Sheets has over 20 years’ experience working with immunoglobulin (Ig) therapy and administration in the home. He is an active member of NASP, NHIA, and IgNS. He contributes as a member on the Immunoglobulin standards of care and leadership committees for the Immune Globulin National Society (IgNS). He serves as an advisory board member for Octapharma, Evolve Biologics & KORU Medical, as well as on the medical advisory board for the MG Hope Foundation. He is passionate that all patient’s therapies should be individualized to meet their specific needs. James enjoys sharing knowledge and helping others through presentations at local patient support groups. He frequently speaks at local Myositis KIT meetings and Myasthenia Gravis patient meetings in the various regions across the nation. He often remarks that the people he meets at these groups are truly inspirational and motivate him to grow and improve as a person.

Ed has a 15-year history of successfully integrating clinical quality initiatives, digital innovations, health information technology, cost-containment strategies and logistics into health systems, physician practices, startups, pharmacies, businesses and nonprofits to improve patient and financial outcomes and encourage positive change. He received his M.D. from the Medical University of South Carolina where he spent the majority of his clinical career in the ER, and his M.B.A. from the University of Tennessee.  His passions are health equity and value creation for challenging patient populations.  Ed is now Chief Medical Officer for Graham Healthcare and CSI Pharmacy, and is the co-founder of OneWorld Health and the For Others Foundation.

Shameet Luhar brings nearly 2 decades of experience leading and growing payor-focused technology companies. As the grandson and son of two generations of physicians, enabling access to care has been a cornerstone focus of his career. Shameet currently serves as CEO of Vheda Health, a virtual health engagement company dedicated to accelerating health equity for everyone by providing simple access to care from anywhere.

Under Shameet’s leadership, Vheda Health has transformed itself into an industry leader, partnering with the nation’s largest government payors, consistently delivering a 3:1 ROI and
average 20% medical savings by inspiring action in underserved populations.

Prior to Vheda Health, Shameet held senior roles at Anthem, CareFirst BCBS, and Deloitte. Shameet was an early member of Resolution Health, a data analytics company purchased by Anthem. There Shameet was responsible for deploying member care management programsfor Anthem’s 33 million Commercial and Medicare members. Shameet’s work on the Medicare STARS Outbound Call program was recognized by URAC with a 2013 Gold Medal.

Shameet holds an MS in Medical Informatics from Northwestern University and BS inInformation Systems and Supply Chain Management from the University of Maryland – College Park.

Angelo has more than 18 years of experience in health-system pharmacy administration and the pharmaceutical industry. He graduated with as a Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.

Ruston is a clinical pharmacist working as a medical science liaison for AbbVie. Ruston has more than 15 years of clinical pharmacy practice experience in a large quaternary care hospital and at a federally qualified health center in Texas. Treatment and prevention of infectious diseases, including Hepatitis C, have been his primary focus.

Shreela Sharma, PhD, RDN is the founding Director of the Center for Health Equity. She is also Professor & Vice Chair of the Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health. As a trained dietitian and physical therapist, she realized she was treating diseases stemming from poor lifestyles: heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension. Sharma completed her PhD in epidemiology with a minor in biostatistics, health promotion, and behavioral sciences to address the systemic inequities leading to high rates of preventable disease and their devastating repercussions in the community. Her research interests are in health equity, health disparities, and behavioral epidemiology with a focus on food insecurity, diet quality, and chronic disease prevention among low-income, ethnically diverse families and communities using a policy, systems, and environment approach. Sharma is committed to the community. She co-leads the Health Equity Collective, a systems coalition in the Greater Houston region with a singular mission of care coordination for social determinants of health needs using a collective impact approach. She also co-founded Brighter Bites, a nationwide non-profit dedicated to providing fresh produce and nutrition education to low-income children and their families.

Aliya is responsible for the foundation’s efforts to improve childhood health and wellness through proven strategies and partnerships with a broad range of traditional and non-traditional partners. She focuses primarily on increasing the access to and equity of healthy eating and physical activity opportunities, generating demand for healthy options, and supporting healthy behaviors and environments. Also core to her work is the management of the foundation’s investments in the Central Texas medical community.

Aliya completed undergraduate degrees in biology and economics at Swarthmore College, medical school at the University of Illinois at Chicago, pediatrics residency and chief residency at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital, and fellowship training as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, where she also earned a master’s degree in Health Policy Research.

In addition to her work at the foundation, Aliya is a practicing pediatrician at People’s Community Clinic in Austin.

Heidi Hagen McPherson has dedicated two decades to public health and community development service, in local, national, and international roles. Her focus and expertise are in catalyzing collective capacity for improved population health systems and outcomes. This focus on improving the ecosystem to provide a foundation for better health and health equity, led to her current role as Co-Lead of the Health Equity Collective with the UTHealth School of Public Health’s Center for Health Equity. The Health Equity Collective (“Collective”), now 200+ organizations strong, was developed to serve as a long-term, durable driver for improving health outcomes and health equity through collaboratively improving social determinants of health systems, with a singular mission of establishing a sustainable, data-driven, human-centered ecosystem of care that equitably addresses SDoH among residents of the Greater Houston area.

Heidi has extensive experience building collaborations with healthcare, public health, corporate, and community partners in building cultures of health. In addition to co-leading the Health Equity Collective, Heidi serves on several health coalitions, including Houston Business Coalition on Health, Texas Collaborative for Healthy Mothers and Babies (TCHMB), Be Well Acres Homes, Cities Changing Diabetes, and the Greater Houston Partnership.

On a personal note, Heidi enjoys running, tango, birdwatching, reading, and exploring the world and the backyard with her family. Originally from Hawaii, Heidi has enjoyed living in Texas for over 20 years.

Ariel Efergan is the Vice President of Growth at MDI Health. In his role, he is responsible for all go-to-market activities, including running the sales org, marketing, strategy, partnerships, and fundraising. He has unique experience leading complex sales for early-stage startups into healthcare payors and providers. Prior to MDI, Ariel was a strategic advisor to the CEO and c-suite for a national post-acute specialty care provider, helping with go-to-market and sales. Ariel was also the CEO and founder of Pangea Medical, an SDOH-focused healthtech startup working with some of the nation’s leading health systems to manage high-risk patients. Outside of MDI Health, Ariel is a Venture Advisor at Redesign Health, working with their port-cos on designing go-to-market strategy. Outside of the office, Ariel loves traveling, skiing, and hiking. He is still trying to figure out when Generative AI will replace him.

After spending the first half of her working career as a journalist, and nearly 13 years as Executive Director of the ACLU of Texas, Terri Burke is now Executive Director of The
Immunization Partnership. Burke started out as political reporter and then rose to senior newsroom roles at the Dallas Morning News, Austin American-Statesman and Albuquerque
Tribune. She ended her career as Editor of the Abilene (TX) Reporter-News and group editor for E.W. Scripps’ four Texas newspapers.

Burke has served as president of the boards of the Texas, and later New Mexico, Associated Press Managing Editors associations. She was an adjunct professor of journalism at the
University of Texas at Austin and a lecturer at the American Press Institute. She sat on the Greater Houston Partnership Taskforce on Immigration and its Quality of Place Committee. She is a member of the Philosophical Society of Texas.

Burke majored in journalism and political science at the University of Texas at Austin and has completed executive programs in finance at the Wharton Graduate School and an Executive

Nonprofit CEOs program at Stanford Graduate School of Business. A native Houstonian where she now lives, Burke and her husband are the parents of two
daughters and have one “practically perfect” granddaughter.

Stephanie Stewart is the Clinical Pharmacist Lead for MDI Health. She earned her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Wegmans School of Pharmacy at St John Fisher College. Over her 11 years as a pharmacist, she has had the opportunity to practice in a variety of settings including community pharmacy, long-term care, managed care, and population health.