Town Hall Meeting Speakers

Hospital Support for Breastfeeding
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
12:00 - 1:00 PM EST
Please note time change

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Speakers' Biographies

Thomas O. Forslund, MPA

Director, Wyoming Department of Health

In January 2011, Governor Matthew H. Mead appointed Thomas O. Forslund as director of the Wyoming Department of Health. The state agency appointment continues Forslund’s long career of public service.

After growing up in Forest City, Iowa, Forslund earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Iowa in 1973. He also holds a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia, which was earned in 1977. Forslund served as city administrator in both Richland, Missouri, and Beatrice, Nebraska, before moving to Casper, Wyoming, in 1986 to be the assistant city manager. Forslund was named Casper’s city manager in 1988; a position he held until this year.

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Laurence Grummer-Strawn, PhD, MPA, MA

Nutrition Branch Chief, Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Laurence Grummer-Strawn, PhD, MPA, MA is chief of the Nutrition Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As branch chief, Dr. Grummer-Strawn is responsible for national surveillance of nutrition among low-income children, national breastfeeding support efforts, fruit and vegetable promotion, and international micronutrient deficiency programs.

Having earned his PhD from Princeton University, he has worked at CDC for more than 20 years in the areas of reproductive health and nutrition. He is an epidemiologist who has published more than 100 scientific publications. He is recognized internationally for his work on vitamin and mineral deficiencies, breastfeeding policy, and development of both the CDC and the World Health Organization growth charts. Dr. Grummer-Strawn is widely known in the breastfeeding research and advocacy communities, serving as scientific editor of the Surgeon General’s Call to Action on Breastfeeding, an executive committee member of the International Society for Research on Human Milk and Lactation, and a liaison to the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee. He is also co-chair of the National Fruit and Vegetable Alliance. Internationally, he serves on the executive management team of the Flour Fortification Initiative and the Network for the Sustained Elimination of Iodine Deficiency.

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Jewel Mullen, MD, MPH, MPA

Commissioner, Connecticut Department of Public Health

In December 2010, Governor Dannel P. Malloy announced the appointment of Dr. Jewel Mullen as commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Public Health. As commissioner, Dr. Mullen oversees the state’s leading public health agency whose mission is to protect and improve the health and safety of Connecticut residents.

Prior to joining the department, Dr. Mullen was director of the Bureau of Community Health and Prevention at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. In this role, she lead the department’s divisions of prevention and wellness, violence and injury prevention, and primary care and health access, as well as the Office of Statistics and Evaluation. While there, Dr. Mullen served as the state’s chronic disease director and was the principal investigator for a Chronic Disease Integration Demonstration project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The project’s goals were to demonstrate the role of public health in health reform and build collaboration between chronic disease prevention programs as they partner with and become more effective in communities.

With a professional focus on the intersection of public health and primary care, Dr. Mullen began her clinical career as a member of the National Health Service Corps at Bellevue Hospital in New York. She also is the former medical director of Baystate Mason Square Neighborhood Health Center in Springfield, Massachusetts. As a clinician educator, she served on the medical school faculty at New York University, The University of Virginia, Yale, and Tufts. Recently, she was appointed to the Advisory Committee on Breast Cancer in Young Women, a federal committee established under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Board certified in internal medicine, Dr. Mullen received her Bachelor and Master of Public Health degrees from Yale University, where she also completed a post-doctoral fellowship in psychosocial epidemiology. A graduate of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, she completed her residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She also holds a Master in Public Administration degree from the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government.

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