January 2016 Speakers

Tushar Singh, MD, PhD, MS

Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer, Epidemiology Branch, Office on Smoking and Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC

Dr. Tushar Singh is an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer in the Office on Smoking and Health at CDC in Atlanta. His work includes research on marijuana and tobacco among youth and adults. As part of his work as an EIS Officer, Dr. Singh supports national and international CDC emergency response to investigate and assist with disease outbreaks and epidemics, such as Ebola, E. coli, and meningitis.

Before joining CDC, Dr. Singh managed a collaborative project between the University of Pittsburgh and SHARE-India to assess the prevalence and risk factors for disability and chronic disease among older Indians. Prior to that, he worked as a medical officer in different hospitals in India. He maintains a strong research interest in a variety of areas, including infectious and chronic disease, global health, and health care systems.

Dr. Singh holds a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh, an MS in international health from universities in Germany, Norway, and France, an MD with honors from Sechenov Moscow Medical Academy in Moscow, Russia, and a postgraduate diploma in tropical medicine and public health from the Charité Medical University in Berlin, Germany.

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Jeanne Finberg, JD

Deputy Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General of California

Jeanne Finberg is an experienced litigator in the newly formed Bureau of Children’s Justice, housed in the Civil Rights Section, Public Rights Division of the California Attorney General’s Office, where she works on issues affecting children and teens.

Before joining the Children’s Bureau, Finberg served for 10 years in the Tobacco Litigation and Enforcement Section where she specialized in the enforcement of the public health aspects of the Master Settlement Agreement and state and federal tobacco and consumer laws. She enforced laws protecting youth and litigated cases dealing with advertising issues against several major tobacco manufacturers. For example, she sued R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company for using cartoons in its advertising and negotiated an agreement with Santa Fe Natural American Spirit Tobacco requiring them to provide disclaimers on their advertising that organic tobacco does not mean safer tobacco.

Finberg has been monitoring the sales and advertising of electronic cigarettes since they were first introduced in the United States in 2009. Since then, she has been involved in the regulation, oversight, policy work and litigation involving electronic cigarettes and related products. Before joining the Attorney General’s Office, she worked at several nonprofit law firms as a health and poverty law advocate, litigating numerous class action and other precedential cases, as well as drafting key legislation on behalf of low-income residents.

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Robin Koval

President and CEO, Truth Initiative

Robin Koval is the CEO and president of Truth Initiative, a national public health organization dedicated to achieving a culture where all youth and young adults reject tobacco. She is an expert on advertising, media, youth culture and tobacco control and regularly appears on television, contributes commentary to print and online outlets, and speaks at conferences and colloquia for business, government, and media audiences.

Koval is a co-founder and CEO of the Kaplan Thaler Group, an advertising firm that she grew from a fledgling start-up in 1997 to a billion-dollar agency. She led the agency’s integration with Publicis and was named CEO of Publicis Kaplan Thaler, which is New York’s fifth largest advertising agency.

Koval joined the Truth Initiative in 2013. She re-launched its award-winning and lifesaving truth® youth tobacco prevention campaign and refocused its world-class research and activism programs to speak, seek, and spread the truth about tobacco.

She and Linda Kaplan Thaler are co-authors of three best-selling books including The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World with Kindness and From Grit to Great. How Perseverance and Pluck Can Take You From Ordinary to Extraordinary.