Barbara M. Miller, RN, CEC
Barbara is a registered nurse with a very diverse career including travel nursing. In 2008 she attended Royal Roads University in Victoria, BC and obtained her Certified Executive Coach (CEC) certificate. In addition to a private practice, she has been teaching motivational interviewing for five years. Currently, she works for the WVU School of Nursing.
Sam Zizzi, PhD Professor of Sport and Exercise Psychology, WVU
Sam Zizzi, a native of Elkins, WV, is the Pat Fehl Endowed Professor in the College of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences at WVU. He teaching courses in sport and exercise psychology, and conducts research on health behavior change and physical activity promotion. He and his colleagues have collaborated with WV PEIA on their community-based weight management program for the last 10 years.
Clay Marsh, MD Vice President and Executive Dean for Health Sciences, WVU
Clay Marsh, MD, is West Virginia University’s chief health officer, and serves as a member of President E. Gordon Gee’s leadership team. As WVU’s vice president for health sciences, he oversees five health sciences schools and three health campuses, and serves on the governing boards that determine policy and priorities for WVU Medicine and its component organizations. In addition, as executive dean, he is the leader of the WVU School of Medicine.
Considered a national leader in personalized and academic medicine, Dr. Marsh has acquired more than $20 million in National Institutes of Health funding as principal investigator, co-PI, co-investigator and mentor. He has published more than 140 papers in peer-reviewed journals. His clinical interest is in determining how to help individuals stay healthy and defining a person’s biological age using genetic approaches. He is currently focusing on how to create precision health resources for people in West Virginia and beyond as a key strategy for improving health outcomes while reducing healthcare spending.
Drema Mace, PhD, MSP Executive Director, Center for Rural & Community Health, West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine
Dr. Drema Mace is Assistant Professor and Executive Director of the Center for Rural and Community Health at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine. Her prior experience includes 30 years working within the public health system in West Virginia and Tennessee. Dr. Mace holds a Master of Science Degree in Public Service Management and a Doctorate in Human Services with a specialization in Health Care Administration. She is a native West Virginian, born and raised in Ashford, Boone County.
Aila Accad, RN, MSN Executive Director, Future of Nursing WV
Aila Accad is an award-winning international speaker, bestselling author, certified well-being coach and energy healing practitioner with Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in nursing, who specializes in quick ways to release stress and reclaim that energy to live your fullest life and achieve your highest purpose. Bestselling books include “34 Instant Stress-Busters” and “The Call of The Soul”. A member of the National Speakers Association, she is a popular keynote speaker and radio and television guest.
Brooke Nissim-Sabat, MS, MPH, RDN, LD
Associate Professor of Foods and Nutrition, Pierpont Community and Technical College
Brooke Nissim-Sabat is a native of Salt Rock, WV, and now lives in Fairmont with her husband Michael and son, Zeke. She has degrees from both Marshall and WVU and has been a registered dietitian nutritionist for more than 10 years. Brooke loves growing, cooking, preserving, learning about, and (especially!) eating food that nourishes our bodies and souls.
Carol Antonelli-Greco, DO
Wheeling Health Right Clinic
Dr. Carol Antonelli-Greco graduated from WVSOM in 1984. She completed her residency in Family Medicine at Kennedy Health Systems and Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center. Dr. Antonelli-Greco spent 22 years in private practice in Family Medicine and has served as the Medical Director of Valley Hospice, Hospice and Palliative Medicine since 2009. Since 2012 Dr. Antonelli-Greco has volunteered with Wheeling Health Right Clinic with an interest in food as medicine and providing access to healthy foods to the poor and uninsured.
Dino Beckett, MD
CEO & Medical Director, Williamson Health and Wellness
Dr. Donovan "Dino" Beckett, born and raised in Williamson, West Virginia, has practiced family medicine for over 14 years in southern West Virginia. Dr. Beckett graduated from West Virginia University and West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine, having served as Student Government President while attending both institutions. He completed his Osteopathic Internship and Family Practice Residency at West Virginia University – Charleston Area Medical Center. Dr. Beckett returned to Williamson in 2003, established his Family Practice and immediately began applying his holistic approach to community development. As Chairman of the Williamson Redevelopment Authority he helped to launch Williamson Health & Wellness Center, Inc., a non-profit that functions as a Federally Qualified Health Center and the parent organization to the Mingo County Diabetes Coalition, the Williamson Farmer's Market, and Sustainable Williamson. Through his leadership both as public servant and as an entrepreneur, Dr. Beckett has guided and personally invested in the rejuvenation of Williamson’s city center. In addition to being an avid Mountaineer supporter and swimming and spending time with his family, Dr. Beckett enjoys helping to diversify the Mingo County and Tug Valley economy by mentoring local entrepreneurs with business development ideas and outreach strategies. “Dr. Beckett is looking at the future of families in Williamson. He doesn’t just think in terms of their physical health. He’s also concerned about their emotional and economic health. He looks beyond his day-to-day patient work.” – Anne Werum Lambright, Attorney at Law, Williamson Redevelopment Authority Commissioner.
Emma Morton-Eggleston, MD, MPH
Chief of Diabetes and Obesity Prevention, WVU Medicine
Emma Morton-Eggleston, MD, MPH is the chief of diabetes and obesity prevention and co-director of the WVU Center for Diabetes and Metabolic Health in the WVU School of Medicine. In addition to patient care and clinical outreach, Dr. Eggleston serves as the Quad Graphics chair of internal medicine research on WVU’s Eastern campus.
Dr. Eggleston joined WVU Medicine after serving as director of the Brigham and Women’s Endocrinology Pregnancy Program and as a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and Pilgrim Health Care Institute, where she engaged in health services research as a member of the Obesity Prevention Program and Drug Policy Research Program. Dr. Eggleston’s research interests are in diabetes in pregnancy, the impact of health insurance designs and diabetes management programs on diabetes outcomes and inequalities, and innovative uses of electronic health records for health system and public health surveillance of diabetes and its complications.
Gary Taubes, MS
Keynote Speaker
Scientific Journalist and Author
Gary Taubes is an investigative science and health journalist and co-founder of the non-profit Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI.org). He is the author of The Case Against Sugar (2016), Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It (2011) and Good Calories, Bad Calories (2007), published as The Diet Delusion in the UK. Taubes is the recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research, and has won numerous other awards for his journalism. These include the International Health Reporting Award from the Pan American Health Organization and the National Association of Science Writers Science in Society Journalism Award, which he won in 1996, 1999 and 2001. (He is the first print journalist to win this award three times.) Taubes graduated from Harvard College in 1977 with an S.B. degree in applied physics, and received an M.S. degree in engineering from Stanford University (1978) and in journalism from Columbia University (1981).
George Bennett, PhD
Chariman and CEO, Good Measure LLC
For more than 35 years George Bennett has been a successful serial entrepreneur. After earning his MS and PhD degrees in Industrial Administration from Carnegie Mellon University in 1970 and 1971, he joined the Boston Consulting Group. Then, in 1973 he co-founded Bain and Company and in 1976 co-founded Braxton Associates, two very highly regarded international strategy consulting firms. Later, he co-founded Symmetrix, a management consulting firm that specialized in helping large firms translate innovative strategies into cost effective operating practices. In 1997 he co-founded Health Dialog, an international health care services company that was sold in 2008 for $775 million to Bupa, a large British not-for-profit enterprise dedicated to improving world health.
Bennett spent a year in Washington in the early 1980s as a member of the Grace Commission, a commission created by President Ronald Reagan (and headed by Reagan’s Democratic friend Peter Grace) to bring state-of-the-art business practices to the federal government. Bennett has remained active in Washington and has been an active participant in the ongoing debate regarding health reform.
Bennett earned a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from West Virginia University (WVU) in 1967 and received an honorary Doctorate of Science from WVU in 2011. Bennett serves (or has served) on the board of directors of a number of organizations, including the Care Continuum Alliance, Health Forum (a for-profit division of the American Hospital Association), the National Youth Science Foundation, and Urban Improv, a Boston based not-for-profit organization focused on “improving the odds” for Boston’s inner city youth. Bennett has four children and six grandchildren, all of whom live in the Boston area. He and his wife, Mimi, live in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Jamie Jeffrey, MD, FAAP
Associate Professor of Pediatrics, WVU Charleston Division, Charleston Area Medical Center, Director of HealthyKids Wellness & Weight Management, Director of KEYS 4 HealthyKids
Dr. Jeffrey is a pediatrician and Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics at WVU School of Medicine-Charleston Division. She is also the Medical Director of HealthyKids Wellness and Weight Management Program at CAMC. She is very blessed with a wonderful husband and four fantastic children. After noticing escalating weight and BMI in her patients, she has devoted her career to pediatric clinical, research, advocacy and community outreach in the field of childhood obesity. She was the founder of HealthyKids, which is a multidisciplinary, family based treatment program that includes a dietician, psychologist and exercise physiologist, to offer additional support to motivated families.
As project director of KEYS 4 HealthyKids, obesity prevention collaborative, she hopes to not only reverse the childhood obesity epidemic, but focus on policies and the built environment to enable more permanent change. This will hopefully provide the landscape where healthy options are more readily available and the EASY choice once again. She serves as the Team Leader for the Childcare Policy Team for KEYS 4 HealthyKids to shift efforts to our youngest generation of children for a healthy start.
Mark Cucuzzella, MD, FAAFP
Professor of Family Medicine, WVU School of Medicine
Dr. Mark Cucuzzella is a Professor at West Virginia University School of Medicine. He is a LtCol in the US Air Force designing programs to promote health and better fitness in the military with the USAF Efficient Running Project. In his community and medical school he has been a tireless promoter of nutritional interventions in patients with any spectrum of the metabolic syndrome. He is a member of The Nutrition Coalition advocating for scientific scrutiny in nutritional policy.
He was a lead writer of one of the first grants supporting education of Medical Students in nutrition and physical activity. Mark is also the lead on a large USDA grant to double SNAP benefits at Farmers Markets.
He is the race director of Freedom’s Run Race Series in West Virginia and director of the Natural Running Center, an education portal designed to teach healthier running. Mark is also the owner of Two Rivers Treads—A center for Natural Running and Walking in his hometown of Shepherdstown, W.Va.
Richard Crespo, PhD
Professor, Joan C Edwards School of Medicine at Marshall University
Dr. Crespo is involved in community health in West Virginia and overseas. He directs the community medicine rotation for family practice residents, teaches international track residents and advises them in selecting international assignments. Additionally he teaches community medicine to second year medical students. Internationally, he consults overseas three to five times a year in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
The areas in which he works internationally are program design, disease surveillance, training trainers and evaluation. In West Virginia Dr. Crespo directs numerous grants in chronic disease management, diabetes control, school health and children’s mental health. Most of these grants involve rural health centers throughout the state and community-based initiatives.
Treah Haggerty, MD, MS
Assistant Professor of Family Medicine, WVU
Dr. Treah Haggerty is an assistant professor at WVU Department of Family Medicine. She earned her M.D. at West Virginia University School of Medicine. Dr. Haggerty was recently named as a Research Scholar for the WVU Clinical and Translational Science Institute. As a West Virginia native, her research uses novel approaches on improving the state’s health using patient-engaged approaches.