Town Hall Meeting Speakers

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Speakers' Biographies

CDR Christopher Jones, PharmD, MPH

Senior Advisor, Office of Public Health Strategy and Analysis, Office of the Commissioner, US Food and Drug Administration

CDR Christopher Jones serves as senior advisor in the Office of Public Health Strategy and Analysis in the Office of the Commissioner at FDA. In this role, he works on a variety of priority public health policy issues. Prior to joining FDA, he was a lead subject matter expert on drug abuse and overdose at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). His CDC work focused on developing and implementing strategic policy, engaging national and state partners, and conducting research to improve policy and clinical practice. Prior to CDC, he completed a one-year detail to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy as Senior Public Health Advisor. During this detail, he co-led development of the Administration’s Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention Plan, released in April 2011. Previously, Jones worked at FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and CDC’s Division of Strategic National Stockpile.

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Gary M. Franklin, MD, MPH

Medical Director, Washington State Department of Labor and Industries

Dr. Gary M. Franklin has served as medical director of the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) since 1988. For more than 25 years, he has developed and administered workers’ compensation healthcare policy and conducted outcomes research. Dr. Franklin is a research professor at the University of Washington (UW), in both the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences and the Department of Medicine (Neurology), and adjunct research professor in the Department of Health Services. He has served as either director or co-director of the NIOSH-funded ERC Occupational Health Services Research training program since its inception.

Dr. Franklin is also director of the Occupational Epidemiology and Health Outcomes Program at UW. This program houses and facilitates primary research, as well as secondary use of workers’ compensation data to improve medical care and reduce disabilities related to occupational injury and illness. His dual role uniquely positions him to conduct meaningful, policy-relevant health services research and leadership. His research includes evaluating L&I quality improvement to reduce worker disability and improve outcomes; identifying predictors of long-term disability among workers with back sprain and carpal tunnel syndrome; evaluating lumbar fusion outcomes; and assessing risks associated with opiate use for chronic pain. Since the opioid death epidemic earlier in the decade, Dr. Franklin has conducted several studies related to opioid prescribing practices, has translated this research directly back into state healthcare policy, and is leading a statewide effort to educate physicians about best practice use of opioids for chronic non-cancer pain.

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Barbara Cimaglio

Deputy Commissioner, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs, Vermont Department of Health

Barbara Cimaglio is deputy commissioner for alcohol and drug abuse programs at the Vermont Department of Health (VDH). She is a nationally recognized leader in alcohol and drug abuse prevention, treatment, and recovery with almost 40 years of service at state and local levels. Before joining VDH in 2004, Cimaglio directed Oregon’s Office of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs (1997–2004) and Illinois’ Department of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse (1994–1997).

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Alexander Y. Walley, MD, MSc

Assistant Professor of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine

Alexander Y. Walley, MD, MSc, is an assistant professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and a general internist and addiction medicine specialist at Boston Medical Center. He does clinical and research-related work on the medical complications of substance use, specifically HIV and overdose. As the program director of the Boston University Addiction Fellowship Program, which trains addiction medicine specialist physicians, he provides primary care and office-based buprenorphine treatment for HIV patients and methadone maintenance treatment at Community Substance Abuse Centers. Walley is also medical director of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s (MDPH’s) Opioid Overdose Prevention Pilot Program. Since 2007, MDPH’s program has trained over 30,000 active opioid users, people in recovery, and their social networks. Walley also serves as medical director for several police and fire department naloxone rescue programs that have documented more than 750 overdose rescues with program naloxone in Massachusetts since 2010.

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