Board of Directors

David Herrick is Managing Principal of EthicOne, a New York City-based brand consultancy that helps Fortune 1000 companies put ethics and values at the heart of their brands. Herrick has served on the National Board of the American Diabetes Association for three years, having served as chair of the Board Development Committee, chair of the Marketing & Communications Task Force, member of the Finance Committee and member of the Strategic Planning Task Force. He previously served as chair of the ADA’s Greater New York City Community Leadership Board and has been heavily involved as an organizer and participant in the ADA’s Tour de Cure events.

Tracey D. Brown is Chief Executive Officer of the American Diabetes Association (ADA), the nation’s largest voluntary health organization and a global authority on diabetes.

Tracey joined the ADA in June 2018 after her tenure as senior vice president of operations and chief experience officer at Sam's Club, a division of Walmart, Inc., where she was responsible for creating meaningful member experiences, directing member strategy, marketing and branding, go-to-market execution, data and analytics and membership operations. 

Tracey brings more than 25 years of experience in driving global business growth, leveraging data to connect consumers with brands and creating omni-channel experiences to escalate customer loyalty. Prior to joining Sam’s Club, Tracey was chief executive officer and managing director of RAPP Dallas, a data-driven integrated marketing agency. Before RAPP, she served as chief operating officer for direct marketing agency Direct Impact, where she coordinated strategic, tactical and overall company operations.

Previously, Tracey was director of worldwide consumer marketing for Advanced Micro Devices, where she drove global marketing and demand generation activity around the world, including China, India, Russia, France, Spain, Italy and Japan. Early in her career, she served in leadership positions at American Express, Proctor & Gamble and Exxon Mobil.

Tracey earned a master of business administration degree from Columbia Business School in New York and a bachelor of chemical engineering degree from the University of Delaware. 

Tracey, who lives with type 2 diabetes, recently served as a volunteer and fundraiser for the ADA in her local community. She joined the ADA’s National Board of Directors in January 2018, before transitioning to her new role as CEO. She and her family resides in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. 

Gretchen Youssef is program director of the MedStar Diabetes Institute, MedStar Health Youssef has volunteered with the ADA since 1992, serving as vice president of the Montgomery, Maryland chapter in 1994, Chair of the Education Recognition Committee from 2008 to 2009, a member of the Professional Practice Committee from 2010 to 2012, and a member of the national Board of Directors from 2010 to 2012.

Louis H. Philipson is Director of the Kovler Diabetes Center, and was recently named the James C. Tyree Professor of Diabetes Research and Care in the Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Chicago.

A diabetologist and translational scientist with interests in beta cell biology, biophysics and the genetics of diabetes, Dr. Philipson was part of the team that discovered insulin gene mutations causing neonatal diabetes, a novel class of mutations causing diabetes through beta-cell ER stress.  These mutations are now known to be the second most common cause of permanent neonatal diabetes, as well as rare causes of later-onset diabetes. Dr. Philipson, together with his colleagues Drs. Graeme Bell, Siri Atma Greeley and Rochelle Naylor, established the leading United States registry for monogenic diabetes, including neonatal diabetes and Mature Onset Diabetes of the Young (MODY).

Dr. Philipson was named one of America’s Top Doctors by U.S. News and World Report magazine, and Chicago Magazine named him a Top Doctor in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism. His extensive body of work includes more than 180 peer-reviewed publications including letters, reviews, perspectives and chapters. He was also named a 2018 recipient of the Order of Lincoln Award, Illinois’ highest civilian honor, which recognizes public service for the betterment of humanity in the state.

From 1996 to 1999 and again from 2008 to 2012, Dr. Philipson served on the editorial board of Diabetes, one of the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) four scientific journals. He has volunteered with the ADA since 1997, and served on the Community Leadership Board (CLB) for Northern Illinois since 2008, as President of the CLB since 2012, and previously as a member of the national Board of Directors from 2009 to 2012.

Dr. Philipson earned his BA in biochemistry from Harvard College, and his PhD, followed by his MD, from the University of Chicago, where he was also a fellow in the section of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism with Drs. D.F. Steiner, Graeme Bell and Kenneth Polonsky.

Brian Bertha is a Senior Adviser for the Health Information Technology Lab (HitLab) and serves as a consultant for several health care and technology companies. Prior to that he worked in senior management positions at Baxter Healthcare and McKesson. He previously served on the ADA’s Community Leadership Board for the San Francisco area, and served nationally on the Finance Committee, and the Board of Directors.

Umesh Verma is chief executive officer of BLUE LANCE, Inc., a leading developer of cybersecurity governance, assurance, audit, and compliance automation software. He is the founder of Cyber Houston and the Houston Cyber Summit. A national leader in emerging technologies, Verma serves on the Boards of The Center for Houston's Future, University of Houston College of Technology, and the Greater Houston HealthConnect. Verma is passionate about helping improve the lives of people with diabetes and serves on the executive committee of the Houston Diabetes Resource Center. Verma has served the American Diabetes Association as chair of the Houston Community Leadership Board, Chair of the Finance Committee, and as the 2017 secretary/treasurer for the national board of directors.

Mary de Groot, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Acting Director of the Diabetes Translational Research Center at Indiana University. She received her Master of Education degree from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education in 1989 and her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of Rhode Island in 1999. Dr. de Groot is a clinical health psychologist whose research focuses on examining the mechanisms that link diabetes and depression as well as the development of accessible interventions to treat depression among adults and socioeconomically and culturally diverse populations with diabetes. Since 2017, Dr. de Groot is a member of the American Diabetes Association

Robert Eckel is a Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and currently the Charles A. Boettcher II Endowed Chair in Atherosclerosis, Professor of Medicine with appointments in the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes, Division of Cardiology, and professor of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Anschutz Medical Campus, and director of the Lipid Clinic at the University of Colorado Hospital. He also was a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. In addition, he served as President of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity and then president of the American Heart Association.

Martha Parry Clark is a retired CEO with global executive experience that spans the asset management, health non-profit, banking, and strategy consulting industries. For the American Diabetes Association, Clark most recently served the as interim Chief Executive Officer, as Chair of the Finance Committee, and as Chair of the Community Leadership Board for the San Francisco Bay Area. She also serves on the board of Project Redwood, a non-profit that provides grants and consulting services to early-stage social entrepreneurs focusing on extreme poverty.

Janet Brown Friday has been a registered nurse for 34 years and is currently the Clinical Trials Manager of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Diabetes Clinical Trials Unit (DCTU). At Einstein she manages the clinical and administrative operations of both National Institutes of Health and locally funded clinical trials.

From 2002-2009, Friday served as a committee member for the National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP) and was her workgroup's vice chair and chair during that period. From 2009 through 2013, Friday also served on the Operations Committee for NDEP.

From 2005 to 2008, she served as a special government employee and council member for the National Institutes of Health – National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) Advisory Council.

Friday has also served on the Association’s African American Committee from 1995 to 1998.

She currently serves as a volunteer at her church.

Friday holds an MPH in Community Health Education and an MSN in Community Health Nursing from Hunter College in New York, NY.

Robert M. Cuddihy is the vice president, US Medical Affairs, at AMGEN. He has close to two decades of practice experience as a clinical diabetologist at the Mayo Clinic, Harvard & MGH, International Diabetes Center (IDC), and the University of Minnesota. He was actively engaged in diabetes research as an investigator on numerous diabetes-related clinic trials including the DCCT-EDIC and ACCORD trials. A frequent speaker on diabetes-related topics at numerous national and global medical congresses and educator of physicians throughout the world on the treatment of diabetes through the World Health Organization he has dedicated his life to educating and advocating for individuals living with diabetes. Dr. Cuddihy has participated in many American Diabetes Association Expo's in Minneapolis and served as Chair of the New York City ADA Diabetes Expo, as well as other programs outside ADA, such as Taking Care of Your Diabetes (TCOYD).

Sherita Hill Golden, MD, MHS, joins the American Diabetes Association (ADA) Board of Directors in 2018. Dr. Golden is the Hugh P. McCormick Family Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolism and Executive Vice-Chair of the Department of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

A clinical endocrinologist cross-trained as a diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD) epidemiologist, Dr. Golden has devoted her career to studying endocrine risk factors for diabetes and CVD, with a focus on improving the care and outcomes for patients through academic excellence and healthcare delivery. She holds joint appointments in the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research, in the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and in the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. Dr. Golden is also Director of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Inpatient Glucose Management Program.

The author of more than 150 articles, 12 book chapters and 4 monographs, Dr. Golden’s research seeks to understand the risk factors that connect diabetes and CVD; examine the mental health complications of diabetes and the biological, hormonal and behavioral factors that explain these associations; eliminate health disparities in diabetes; and implement and evaluate systemic interventions to improve patient safety and quality of care in hospitalized patients with diabetes. She is the principal investigator of the Johns Hopkins site of the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcome Study and of the Epidemiology and Clinical Research in Diabetes and Endocrinology Training Grant, which supports training for future diabetes physician-scientists. She is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.

Dr. Golden was a member of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) Scientific Sessions Planning Committee and chair of the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Interest Group from 2011 to 2013, and has also been active with the Behavioral Medicine and Psychology Interest Group. From 2011 to 2015, she served as Associate Editor for the ADA’s peer-reviewed, scientific journal Diabetes Care, where she developed a process for editorial screening of meta analyses and systematic reviews in addition to contributing editorials. She was recently appointed to the ADA’s Research Policy Committee.

Dr. Golden earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Maryland, College Park, her Doctor of Medicine from the University of Virginia School of Medicine and a Master of Health Science degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

C. Ronald Kahn is an internationally known diabetes researcher whose focus is understanding the mechanism of insulin action and the insulin resistance of type 2 diabetes and obesity. He currently serves as Mary K. Iacocca Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School; and Chief Academic Officer and Head, Section of Integrative Physiology and Metabolism, at the Joslin Diabetes Center. From 1981 until 2000, Kahn was the Research Director of Joslin and from 2000 to 2007 served as President.  Under his leadership, Joslin research grew more than 20-fold, clinical and educational activity tripled, and new corporate alliances were launched.

He has held memberships on many national commissions and committees, including the Research Policy and Finance Committees of the ADA and chairing the congressionally mandated Diabetes Research Working Group, which developed the strategic plan for diabetes research in the United States.  Dr. Kahn also was the Associate Review Editor of Diabetes Care from 1990-1992.

Dr. Kahn has received more than 70 awards and honors, including election to the National Academy of Science and Institute of Medicine, the Wolf Prize in Medicine, Rolf Luft Award, Allyn Taylor International Prize, Manpei Suzuki and Hamm International Awards, the Helmholtz Research Lifetime Achievement Award, and the highest honors of the American Diabetes Association, EASD, Endocrine Society and the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists.
 
Dr. Kahn holds a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry and a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Louisville in Louisville, KY, as well as honorary doctorates from the University of Paris, Washington University, University of Geneva, University of Copenhagen, Louisiana State University and is an honorary Professor of the Diabetes Center of Peking University School of Medicine.

Otis W. Kirksey currently serves as the Director of Pharmacy Services for Neighborhood Medical Center in Tallahassee, FL. He brings 25 years of experience in academia as a former Professor of Pharmacy Practice at Florida A&M University College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Prior to his faculty appointment he was a clinical pharmacist in Research and Information Services at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center. He served more than 11 years on the board of Neighborhood Medical Center and is currently the director of the Prince Hall Shriners' National Diabetes Initiative. In this role, he has led the organization's effort to fulfill its 10-year, $1 million-dollar commitment to the American Diabetes Association, to support research and outreach efforts in underserved communities – particularly African American and Hispanic.

Cynthia E. Muñoz, PhD, MPH, is Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine of USC (the University of Southern California) in Los Angeles, where she provides clinical care to children, youth and families with diabetes through the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) Center for Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism (CEDM) Embedded Psychology Program and the CHLA Behavioral Health Center.

A licensed psychologist who is bilingual and serves patients in both English and Spanish, Dr. Muñoz co-developed a psychoeducational and skills-based program, TEEN POWER, for adolescents with insulin-treated diabetes, their siblings and their caregivers. TEEN POWER is now offered through the CHLA Behavioral Health Center and the CEDM and targets a diverse population, including adolescents in the foster care system. Dr. Muñoz’s research interests focus on the individual and family-related emotional and behavioral obstacles to adherence to diabetes management plans, with the goal of reduced severity of emotional and behavioral risks, reduced caregiver stress and improved adherence.

Dr. Muñoz has served as the president of the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) Community Leadership Board (CLB) in Los Angeles since 2016, and previously chaired the local Advocacy Committee from 2014 to 2016 and the local Safe at School Subcommittee from 2014 to 2015. She is actively involved in the ADA’s new Mental Health Provider Education Program, launched in 2017 with the American Psychological Association to increase the number of mental health professionals who are trained and knowledgeable about the unique challenges faced by people with diabetes.

Dr. Muñoz earned a PhD in Clinical Psychology, a Master of Public Health in Maternal and Child Health, and Master of Arts degree in Experimental Psychology at Loma Linda University.

Jean O’Connor has spent the past nearly 20 years in public health practice and policy at the state and federal levels. She also is an adjunct faculty member at the Rollins School of Public Health and the University of Georgia, and she is a past-president of the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors. Jean is a member of the State Bar of Georgia and a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives.

Christopher K. Ralston, JD, is a partner and deputy practice coordinator in the New Orleans litigation practice at Phelps Dunbar LLP. Mr. Ralston handles a range of commercial litigation and focuses in the areas of antitrust law, business torts, trade secret litigation and contract disputes, tax litigation, securities litigation and arbitration, direct selling and intellectual property litigation. He also serves as a part of the firm’s appellate practice.

Mr. Ralston’s work in the legal field has received recognition in numerous forms: in 2009, he received the Louisiana State Bar Association’s Friend of Pro Bono Award; in 2012, he was named to the New Orleans City Business Hall of Fame; and in 2016, he received both the Federal Bar Association’s New Orleans Chapter President’s Award and the Louisiana State Bar Association’s President’s Award.

After recognizing the devastating impact of diabetes in New Orleans, Mr. Ralston joined the ADA’s New Orleans Community Leadership Board (CLB) in 2009, and he has served as Chair of the CLB since 2014.

Mr. Ralston earned his Bachelor of Arts from the College of William and Mary, and his JD from Tulane University Law School.

Julio Rosenstock is director of the Dallas Diabetes Research Center at Medical City and clinical professor of medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center located in Dallas. Rosenstock has been the author or co-author of more than 516 publications, including 278 peer-reviewed manuscripts and numerous abstracts. He has also contributed to 13 clinics and book chapters on several topics in the field of diabetes. Rosenstock is currently associate editor of Diabetes Care, an editorial board member of Practical Diabetology and Cardiovascular Diabetology and is an active reviewer for several journals. Rosenstock has chaired or been a featured speaker at multiple lectures and presentations both nationally and internationally.

Glen Tullman is Executive Chairman and Founder of Livongo and is passionately committed to finding a cure for diabetes and other chronic conditions and keeping people healthy until we do. A visionary leader and entrepreneur, he previously ran two public companies that changed the way healthcare is delivered. Tullman is also a co-founder and partner in 7wireVentures, a early stage investment firm focused on healthcare He is the author of On Our Terms: Empowering the New Health Consumer, which proposes new solutions to address the chronic-condition epidemic facing our country.