Sonny Bloom has served as a management consultant for over 40 years, focusing on the private health-care industry and agencies within the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS). His federal-related experience focused on health-care delivery programs supported by HHS and the National Institutes of Health and on national education programs operated by the U.S. Department of Education, including several National Center for Education Statistics initiatives. Mr. Bloom developed and provided technical assistance to hundreds of federal program grantees to improve their operational effectiveness.

For the private sector, Mr. Bloom designed and implemented operational, strategic, and financial strategies and analytical systems for major hospital systems, professional practices, and other service-delivery organizations across the United States.

During his consulting career, he served as chief operating officer at management consulting firms serving numerous federal agencies. He developed, co-owned, and ultimately sold two management services firms serving the health-care payer and provider sectors.

Mr. Bloom also developed and ran national provider and insurer reimbursement enhancement programs representing over a billion dollars annually in provider billings. These supported virtually every type and specialty of health-care provider in every state as well the leading commercial insurers in the United States.

Mr. Bloom has resided in suburban Maryland for the past 40-plus years. He served as president and chair of the Board of the Harvard Business School Club of Washington, DC, for several years during that time.

Jen Covich Bordenick leads Executives for Health Innovation (formerly eHealth Initiative), the preeminent convener of health and technology’s most influential leaders. Jen has shaped EHI into a prominent thought leadership organization that inspires innovative solutions in health.

Ms. Covich Bordenick builds coalitions of senior executives, researchers, and public policy experts to promote best practices; explores complex issues; and develops public policy. She has developed perspectives on health care privacy, security, analytics, virtual care, social determinants of health, health equity, public health, and consumer rights in health care delivery.

During her career, she has held leadership roles in health policy, marketing, product development, health administration, and strategy at for-profit and nonprofit companies. Prior to joining EHI, Ms. Covich Bordenick managed strategic marketing for health security solutions at OpenNetwork Technologies; led pharmaceutical and health care industry relations at MicroStrategy, Inc.; spent four years at the National Committee for Quality Assurance as Director of Policy and Product Development, developing national quality standards for health care organizations; and began her career at the George Washington University Medical Center and Health Plan, working on quality management initiatives, clinical pathways, and health care administration.

Currently, Ms. Covich Bordenick is a Project Investigator for a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant to ensure the privacy and equitable use of consumers’ health-related information. Ms. Covich Bordenick has served as co-chair of the Federal Health Information Technology (HIT) Policy Committee’s Strategy and Innovation Workgroup, a member of the HL7 Board of Directors and Leadership Advisory Council, and a member of the Diabetes Collaborative Stakeholder Panel.

Ms. Covich Bordenick is an adjunct faculty member, is a course director, and teaches students pursuing a Master of Public Health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University (GW). She received her master’s degree in human resource development and completed coursework in the health administration doctoral program at GW. She always looks forward to her next snorkeling adventure, trip to Italy, and glass of wine. She resides in Maryland with her husband, two teens, and always loyal mini goldendoodle.

Ron Dweck is chair of Paley Rothman’s Corporate practice group and a member of the Tax group, the Nonprofits group, and the Science & Technology group. Mr. Dweck acts as general counsel to a number of companies, including large and small corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships, and business organizations in various fields. As such, he knows a great deal about many different practice areas and applies that knowledge to better serve his corporate clients. His corporate work includes preparing and negotiating a wide variety of business contracts, as well as counseling related to executive compensation, corporate governance, and risk and litigation management. He has extensive experience in structuring and negotiating business and financing transactions, including the sale, merging, and acquisition of companies; reorganizations; and private placement funding.

He served as Co-President of Paley Rothman for several years, stepping down in 2013. Prior to joining the firm, he was an attorney with the Tax Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, representing the U.S. government in tax cases before the U.S. Courts of Appeals.

James Scott Jr. graduated with honors from the University of Baltimore with a bachelor’s degree in accounting. He began his career with the U.S. Marine Corps, earning the rank of sergeant. After the Marines, he joined the large international accounting firm Ernst & Young. In 1990, Mr. Scott co-founded Penan & Scott, P.C.

Today, Mr. Scott is a senior principal and managing partner of Penan & Scott, P.C.; he has total responsibility for sophisticated income tax, financial, and business planning for a multitude of diverse clients. Mr. Scott advises government contractors and businesses of all sizes—including Medicaid service providers, real estate investors, and general contractors—on all types of tax and financial issues. He has significant experience with auditing financial statements of closely held companies, structuring complex corporate and individual tax transactions, and negotiating financing for closely held businesses. 

Mr. Scott is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Maryland Association of Certified Public Accountants, the Greater Washington Society of CPAs, the Texas Society of CPAs, and the Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants, as well as a board director at a regional bank. 

In his spare time, he enjoys attending sporting events, gardening, and playing golf. Mr. Scott resides with his wife, Terri, in Ellicott City, Maryland, and is the proud granddad to Josephine.

Prachee J. Devadas has a career marked by more than two decades of success in federal contracting. In 2003, Ms. Devadas founded Synergy Enterprises, Inc. (Synergy), a woman-owned small business and government consulting firm focused on public health and education. She built a nimble, small business with powerful, big business skills and expertise, replete with a deep commitment to critical private and public social initiatives. Synergy employs a staff of more than 100 employees who manage high-profile communications, technical assistance, and research contracts for 12 federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Education, State, Homeland Security, Energy, and Defense.

Synergy has received numerous prestigious awards and has been consistently recognized for outstanding work performance. Under Ms. Devadas’s leadership, Synergy was ranked 14th on Washington Technology’s 2008 List of Top 25 Nationwide 8(a) Firms. Ms. Devadas received several awards, including a “Top 40 New Power Women of DC Tech Recognition Award” in 2017 and a “Minority Business Leader Award” in 2016 by the Washington Business Journal. In 2009, the U.S. Small Business Administration named Ms. Devadas Small Business Person of the Year for the Washington, DC, metropolitan area, and she also was awarded a proclamation from the Montgomery County Council in Maryland, where Synergy is headquartered.

Former President Barack Obama invited Ms. Devadas to the Oval Office for a meeting. Following the meeting, President Obama personally recognized Ms. Devadas during a press conference in the Rose Garden, where he singled out Synergy’s success as representative of the promise of opportunity in America. In 2010, President Obama invited Ms. Devadas to be among a select group of business owners and members of Congress present in the White House as he signed the Small Business Jobs Act. Additionally, in 2010, GovCon named Ms. Devadas one of the top five “Executives of the Year.”

Ms. Devadas serves on the board of directors of The Children’s Inn at NIH, which provides free lodging and support services to seriously ill children, young adults and their families participating in NIH clinical research studies. For the last 13 years, Ms. Devadas has also served on the Board of Directors for So Others Might Eat, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to serve the homeless. In 2019, Ms. Devadas became a Board member for the LastMile4D, a nonprofit whose mission is to provide women in remote areas worldwide with information and resources related to gender-based violence. Since 2016, Ms. Devadas has also served as an Advisory Board Member for the country’s sixth largest bank: Truist Bank. In addition to holding memberships in several professional associations, Ms. Devadas is a speaker for the National Association of Asian American Professionals. She has been featured several times on Executive Leaders Radio.

Janet L. Blank serves as Synergy’s Human Resources Managing Principal, a position she has held since December 2014. Ms. Blank has worked in the employment field for nearly 20 years. She began her career interning at the Department of Labor. Since that time Ms. Blank has held HR leadership positions in various industries including real estate, medical, and not-for-profit. Ms. Blank holds a bachelor’s degree from Barnard College, Columbia University, as well as a law degree from George Washington University where she focused on Employment Law, Gender Identity Law, and ERISA. She has been a member of the Maryland bar since 2001, and a member of the Society of Human Resource Management since 2005.

Erin E. Burns, Ph.D., has 10 years of professional experience in the research and treatment of trauma and substance use disorders. As a clinical researcher, Dr. Burns has published in peer-reviewed journals, presented at national conferences, and supervised students and residents in both research and clinical arenas. She has also participated in program development and evaluation to improve services at a domestic violence shelter and at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Dr. Burns received her doctoral degree from the University of Georgia, where her research focused on identifying mediators to better understand the relationship between childhood trauma and adult psychopathology. Prior to joining Synergy, she worked as a staff psychologist in a residential program serving veterans with co-occurring PTSD and substance use disorders, as well as myriad psychosocial stressors including homelessness, legal issues, domestic violence, and chronic suicidality. More recently, Dr. Burns has expanded her work to program evaluation. She currently serves as the Project Manager for a data management and TA task for the National Center for Homeless Education.

Jessica Freer is a project management professional with extensive experience planning and managing all activities for multiyear, multitask order, multimillion-dollar contracts for various federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, U.S. Department of Treasury, and the Administration for Community Living. She has project management expertise in meeting contractual requirements, developing and reconciling budgets, executing contracts with vendors and consultants, and ensuring high-quality deliverables that are on time and within budget. Ms. Freer is adept at planning scientific meetings of various sizes and levels of complexity. Her international meeting experience includes planning meetings in Beijing, China; Toronto, Canada; and Mumbai, India. She is the recipient of Synergy’s Glen Fischer Achievement Award.

Rob Levenberry, M.S., PMP, leads a technically diverse team of information technology (IT) professionals. As the IT Services Managing Principal at Synergy Enterprises, Inc. (Synergy), he is responsible for aligning technology development and corporate strategy so that Synergy can provide tailored technical solutions for each client. He supports the development of strategic partnerships and incorporates new and emerging technologies. Mr. Levenberry has served as an advisor to numerous senior executives and has successfully managed over $60 million in IT projects across the federal sector. During his 15 years of experience in government contracting and consulting, Mr. Levenberry has led major IT initiatives for federal clients such as the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Justice, and Treasury.

Additionally, Mr. Levenberry is responsible for staffing and budget projections for both IT projects and the company overall. He advises project directors on IT requirements for each contract, including timelines and necessary technology. He develops and maintains policies, guidelines, standards, and procedures for IT operations—from system security to disaster recovery, risk mitigation, security test plans, quality assurance, and configuration management. As a consultant, he designed the proprietary Project Management and Application Development Solutions (Enhanced PMO Delivery System) and the Rapid Assessment and Application Development Solutions, which were leveraged to increase application development and deployment velocity.

Elaine McCarthy (formerly Rahbar) is the Vice President of Strategic Communications at Synergy Enterprises, Inc. (Synergy). She is a seasoned communications strategist with more than 20 years of experience managing federal projects that enhance public health for federal agencies. Ms. McCarthy's managerial experience includes work for multiple Institutes and Offices within the National Institutes of Health (Office of Research on Women’s Health, National Eye Institute, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development); the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Prevention; Administration for Children and Families, Office of Head Start; the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, Real Warriors Campaign; and a range of programs within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She manages a team of graphic designers, Web designers, producers, writers, editors, communications specialists, researchers, consultants, and vendors to meet the needs of public health projects. Ms. McCarthy provides strategic guidance, resource needs and allocation, problem solving, and budget management for complex, multimillion-dollar projects and for diverse teams of employees located around the country. Her areas of subject matter expertise include child health and development, substance misuse prevention, mental health, tobacco and smoking cessation, vaccination programs, and safe schools.

Roy Walker serves as the Senior Managing Principal of Synergy Enterprises, Inc.’s (Synergy) Division of Technical Assistance and Program Implementation Services, providing management oversight to multiple federal projects with combined, cumulative revenue of more than $25 million. For the last 10 years, Mr. Walker has overseen Synergy’s technical assistance/training (TA/T) staff members, who have successfully developed and implemented TA/T and developed culturally relevant materials for diverse audiences. He has overseen research and evaluation staff who have successfully analyzed complex data and created substantive reports for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the U.S. Department of Education. With more than 35 years of working in the substance misuse prevention and treatment fields, Mr. Walker has been instrumental in guiding Synergy’s staff to create useful products and services for constituents and consumers alike.

He has managed and provided technical support for public health and behavioral health contracts for the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, Center for Mental Health Services, NIDA, Health Resources and Services Administration, White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute on Aging, and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Mr. Walker has also worked in similar capacities on projects for the U.S. Department of Transportation. Over the span of his career, he has developed hundreds of TA plans, materials, and tools to increase TA users’ implementation of substance misuse and HIV prevention and treatment strategies. He has presented on numerous health and education topics, including effective models for cultural approaches to prevent substance misuse and HIV at national conferences.

Mr. Walker’s expertise in education is grounded in his experience as a high school science teacher, and encompasses early childhood; students with disabilities; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; afterschool and education of homeless children; and emergency management planning and response.

With 10 years of experience in government contracting, Mr. Zimmerman has a diverse background in contracts administration, pricing strategy, and operations. He has advised senior executives on complex, high-visibility procurements from $50M to over $1B in value. Mr. Zimmerman has led the successful submission of more than 500 cost/price proposals for the U.S. Department of Defense, civil agencies, commercial organizations, international organizations, and international government agencies.

At Synergy Enterprises, Inc., he oversees the financial and contract operations of the firm. He provides strategic guidance on all contractual matters and proposal activities involving a variety of contract types and vehicles. This includes the full contract life cycle management of over 50 public sector contracts including pre-solicitation, solicitation, contract execution, and contract close-out. As a financial leader, Mr. Zimmerman interprets operating results to identify areas of risk or efficiency and implements action. He performs monthly and yearly financial close-out activities, direct and indirect budgeting, billing review and posting, revenue recognition and adjustments, cost pool maintenance, and three-statement financial analysis and projections. He also leads the development of competitive cost/price proposals and partners with senior management and project directors to develop organization and project-level budgets.

Jiro Akiyama has over 2 decades of experience in government contracting in the areas of accounting, finance, enterprise resource planning, project management, performance management, software development, and strategic planning. He started his federal contracting career with a financial migration project at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as a financial subject matter expert but quickly learned that he thoroughly understood the complex relational database structure and SQL. This allowed him to perform many functions outside of his financial data responsibilities, leading to an active program management and IT career. He currently supports Synergy’s diverse project portfolio as thought-leader, project manager, and subject matter expert. 

Maggie Bray has more than 20 years of design experience creating print, Web, and multimedia products for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She was the lead designer for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) flagship periodical, NIDA Notes; NIDA’s peer-reviewed research journal, Addiction Science & Clinical Practice; and the Institute’s Research Report Series. Ms. Bray’s work received the 2011 NIH Plain Language and Clear Communication Award. Under her direction, Synergy’s design group won three American Graphic Design Awards in 2015; one American Package Design Award in 2017; two Communicator Awards from the Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts in 2014; 13 Blue Pencil and Gold Screen Awards from the National Association of Government Communicators in 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2017; and three AVA Digital Awards in 2014.

Dr. McClellan Dumolga is a senior health communication professional and researcher with 15 years of experience in leading health communications efforts to reach a diverse array of audiences, including healthcare providers, grantees, community-based organizations, campaign partners, state and local public health agencies, educators, and lay audiences. She earned her Ph.D. in public health with a concentration in health promotion and behavior at the University of Georgia's College of Public Health. She managed several national federal public health campaigns, including the CDC’s Let’s Stop HIV Together and Act Against AIDS HIV Treatment Works. Her research interests include health communications, health disparities, and maternal and child health. She currently serves as the deputy project manager for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Public Awareness Support contract, developing public-facing campaigns to improve behavioral health.

Candace Moreno Ferguson serves as a training and technical assistance senior research associate for the Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) Technical Assistance (TA) Center and the Title IV, Part A Technical Assistance Center (T4PA Center) where she provides written, in-person, and virtual technical assistance in support of both centers. Mrs. Ferguson has over 22 years of experience in the local, regional, state, federal, and nonprofit sectors, most of which has been spent working on behalf of economically disadvantaged students. Mrs. Ferguson has a wealth of experience working with the U.S. Department of Education and other federal partners to provide support to cohorts of grantees on several important grant-funded initiatives including afterschool, dropout prevention, juvenile justice, educator evaluation, human capital management systems, performance-based compensation, emergency management for schools, school safety and violence prevention, alcohol and drug use prevention, well-rounded educational services, effective use of technology, and mentoring and youth development. Mrs. Ferguson has also been integral in developing and managing several innovative and robust data management systems.

Jesse Goodman is the Assistant Director for Editorial Services in the Communications Division of Synergy Enterprises, Inc. (Synergy). Mr. Goodman is charged with managing Synergy personnel, including copyeditors, graphic design specialists, writers, and Section 508 compliance experts. He maintains employees’ workload schedules, monitors professional performance, and oversees day-to-day editorial operations. Mr. Goodman also conducts substantive copyediting across all Synergy contracts, including the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Additionally, Mr. Goodman updates and copyedits monthly reports and other project progress reports, performs substantive edits and grammar/style edits across all contracts, and proofreads for typographical errors and style issues using myriad contract-specific style guides. He also edits and prepares proposals, corporate marketing materials, and business development materials; updates and edits materials to be used in proposals and presentations; and edits press releases, project descriptions, and other copy needed for posting on Synergy’s intranet. Additionally, Mr. Goodman formats documents and presentations in MS Word and PowerPoint. Mr. Goodman possesses more than 18 years’ experience editing federal contract work.

Sean Grobe has extensive experience managing and coordinating work with multiple federal agencies. As the Project Director for the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) Next Generation Professional Learning Portal, Content Integration, and Technical Assistance project, he works closely with representatives from ED, the National Park Service, NASA, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The project supports interagency agreements among these organizations to provide science, technology, engineering, and mathematics–rich learning experiences to 21st Century Community Learning Centers program grantees. He previously served as Project Director for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Logistical Support contract, for which he coordinated meeting activities between ED, the U.S. Department of Labor, and education departments and ministries from 21 APEC member countries.

With over 20 years of experience in meeting planning for government and private organizations, Ms. Holbrook is a skilled project manager and government meeting planner. She possesses extensive knowledge of the Federal Acquisition Regulation, the Federal Travel Regulation, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ conference request and approval process, and internal agency regulations related to program oversight, planning, logistics coordination, and administration. Ms. Holbrook is adept at planning in-person, virtual, and hybrid scientific meetings of various sizes and levels of complexity.

Mrs. Janelle Williams Hughes serves as Project Director for the Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools Technical Assistance Center. She joined the Synergy team in 2007, and has since supported the work of multiple Federal agencies contracts, including more than six U.S. Department of Education centers, offices, and programs; the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and its Administration for Children and Families, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and several institutes within the National Institutes of Health; the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; U.S. Department of Homeland Security; and U.S. Department of Transportation. In her current role, she directs the creation and implementation of a multi-tiered project management plan that aims to enhance the federal government’s mission to provide technical assistance and training to state, territorial, local, and tribal education and emergency management agencies on key safety and security topics. She oversees content development for and management of various resource types; plans and hosts live and virtual meetings; and leads the development of print, HTML and mobile tools. During her time in this role, the REMS TA Center has been featured in various news outlets and various state-based media sources, sites, blogs. Mrs. Hughes also represents ED and REMS TA Center as a speaker at both virtual and live public-facing events focused on a variety of topics—natural hazards, biological hazards, technological hazards, and adversarial- and human-caused threats—and hosted in collaboration with federal and national partner.

As the chief systems architect for Synergy since 2007, Sippy Joseph offers decades of expertise in diverse operating systems, programming languages, and database applications. With his team of programmers and Web developers, he designs customized information technology for staff members and clients. He helped Synergy win an Authorization to Operate “.Gov” websites for agencies such as the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. His broad expertise allows him to conduct requirements analysis, system and application design, interface development and implementation, cloud architecture development, and migration in AWS and Azure, database development, and design. He has expertise in implementing geospatial mapping technologies and GIS solutions on the web. He also architects and develops mobile applications for iOS and Android devices. 

Rana Kang is a public health attorney with expertise in the regulation of alcohol, cannabis, and other substances. Her 30 years of experience include project management, policy analysis, and report writing. She collaborates with social scientists, website developers, and government agencies to develop cross-jurisdictional data sets that measure the effect of legal policy over time. Ms. Kang currently serves as deputy project director and lead research attorney on the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s Alcohol Policy Information System contract. Ms. Kang has also performed legal research and analyses for the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Report to Congress on Preventing Underage Drinking, Sober Truth on Preventing Underage Drinking Act (STOP Act) contract. 

Prior to working at Synergy, Craig worked for JBS International, where he provided technical assistance to Health Resources and Services Administration grantees under the Rural Communities Opioid Response Program. Before that, Craig worked for the state of Utah for 32 years. He has a Master of Social Work from the University of Utah and worked in adult and youth clinical services for 10 years before working as the Prevention Administrator at the Utah Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health. He was a member of Utah’s first Underage Drinking Prevention Workgroup, helping to develop the Parents Empowered campaign and project. He’s a Certified Substance Abuse Prevention Specialist and several evidence-based prevention programs. Craig is a trained Community That Cares facilitator and has 20 years of experience coaching community engagement techniques. He’s been on several advisory boards, including the boards of research projects such as the Community Youth Development Study and the board of the Center for Prevention Implementation Methodology for Drug Abuse and HIV. Craig has served as President of the National Prevention Network, has served on the CADCA Coalition Advisory Committee, and was a guest member of the Society for Prevention Research’s Board of Directors for 4 years as a liaison between prevention practice and research.

Bronwyn Roberts serves as Project Director for the Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools Technical Assistance Center (REMS TA Center) and the Title IV, Part A Technical Assistance Center (T4PA Center). Overseeing both national centers on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education, Ms. Roberts ensures seamless administration of services to client constituencies, including local education agencies, schools, institutions of higher education, state education agencies, community partners, and the larger education community. Since 2004, Ms. Roberts has been working in the fields of education and public health policy, facilitating training, product development, and systems improvement across a breadth of subject matter, including emergency management for schools, health and mental health service provision, school safety and violence prevention (including threat assessment), alcohol and drug use prevention, well-rounded educational services, effective uses of technology, and the provision of mentoring and other youth-development strategies for populations ranging in age from birth to adult. She leads the development of a wide portfolio of technical assistance tools and resources, including virtual and live training programs, desktop and mobile applications, comprehensive websites, resource libraries, and written publications. Ms. Roberts facilitates the integration of subject matter expertise with practical application that promotes collaboration among state, local, and federal practitioners and the development of critical resources for the field. Ms. Roberts has written and produced numerous training manuals, publications, issue briefs, toolkits, and guidance documents for use nationwide on all aspects of school preparedness, alcohol and drug prevention, technology, community strategic planning, and more.  

Prior to joining Synergy, Cecilia Roe served for 13 years as the Director of Instructional Assessment, Professional Learning, Title IIA, and English Language Arts at the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE). At MSDE, Ms. Roe oversaw several federal grants, including Title II and the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Grant. She also managed multiple projects under the federal State Longitudinal Data Systems Grant Program and three Maryland Race to the Top projects. Ms. Roe coordinated and oversaw the state professional learning rollout of the Maryland State College and Career Readiness Standards to all Maryland schools under Race to the Top. Additionally, she directed the coordination and implementation of statewide professional learning initiatives, instructional assessment, college and career readiness programs, curricular implementation, state assessment development, and Maryland graduation requirements, including College and Career Readiness Standards and the Maryland Bridge Plan for Academic Validation, a project-based alternative assessment system. Ms. Roe also has an extensive background with Baltimore County Public Schools, where she served for 34 years in various roles, including as the Coordinator for the Office of Secondary English Language Arts (ELA), a reading specialist, an ELA teacher, and in school-based leadership positions. Furthermore, she spent 8 years as an adjunct instructor for graduate programs in the Education Division of Goucher College.

Dr. Sparks has more than 10 years’ experience at the nexus of policy and behavioral health research—including designing, implementing, and evaluating studies, programs, and policies—with a particular focus on systems-level change to prevent alcohol misuse and related harms. She has led the development of numerous publications intended for broad public dissemination. These include comprehensive guides on various substance use and mental health topics for community coalitions; the Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health; and many peer-reviewed manuscripts with accompanying infographics to translate the research into practice. Dr. Sparks has experience conducting focus groups and in-depth interviews relevant to policy and behavioral health, engaging technical experts, leading rigorous literature and evidence reviews, and managing quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method data collection and analysis. She received her Ph.D. in Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and her M.P.H. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Gordana Vukovic is a Certified Government Meeting Professional with more than 17 years of proven proficiency in managing multitask, multiyear, multimillion-dollar logistics support contracts for various federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Education (ED), the U.S. Department of State, the National Institutes of Health and other agencies in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Since 2016, she has served as Project Director on numerous ED contracts, with a total value exceeding $10 million. She holds a Virtual Event & Meeting Management certificate and has project management expertise in budget planning and administration, client relations management, cost control, process improvement, and technical/strategic planning and is proficient in applying the Federal Travel Regulation, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and specific meeting guidelines for COVID-19. Since joining Synergy in 2006, she has managed over 200 in-person and virtual meetings, conferences, workshops, and seminars. Her international meeting experience includes managing the G8’s Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative meetings in Qatar, Morocco, Jordan, and Tunisia in 2012. Ms. Vukovic has been the recipient of Synergy’s Employee of the Year Award. 

Prior to rejoining Synergy, Dr. Walton worked at LMCi for 10 years as the project director for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP) Technical Assistance Center contract. Dr. Walton supported OESE as it provided diversity, equity, and choice in public education through the MSAP. In addition, she created a technical assistance center that offered numerous resources and support services to MSAP grantees, the greater magnet school community, and the public. Resources included a dynamic website that housed tools, information, best practices, and strategies to assist grantees and other educators in planning, implementing, and sustaining magnet schools. As a trained researcher, Dr. Walton also planned and conducted needs assessments and other program evaluations to improve services delivered to grantees and to provide a snapshot of how MSAP affected school diversity and student achievement. Dr. Walton received her doctorate in education from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Lori Whitten is an award-winning writer with 20 years of experience reviewing and summarizing biomedical science and health-related research. Dr. Whitten works primarily with federal contracts that address the health of women, behavioral health and wellness, and substance misuse. She currently supports the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH). As a medical writer, she works closely with Dr. Janine Austin Clayton and other senior staff members on publications and presentations. Dr. Clayton invited Dr. Whitten to be second author on a manuscript, “Sex As a Biological Variable (SABV): A Five-Year Progress Report and Call to Action,” published in The Journal of Women’s Health. She also served as an acknowledged medical writer of a manuscript summarizing the literature on the intersection of maternal morbidity and mortality and intimate partner violence in press at Current Women's Health Reviews and a manuscript on black-white disparities in maternal mortality submitted to the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. Demonstrating her plain language skills, Dr. Whitten served as the writer on the award-winning (Gold MarCom and Communications Award of Excellence) ORWH booklet Maternal Morbidity and Mortality: What Do We Know? How Are We Addressing It? She also penned the Guest Blog Intimate Partner Violence: Raising Awareness, Taking Action. Previously, Dr. Whitten wrote content and developed materials for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), garnering praise with a Silver NIH Plain Language/Clear Communication Award. Her work at NIDA contributed to other prestigious awards, including an AVA Digital Award and a National Association of Government Communicators Award. Previously, Dr. Whitten wrote content and developed materials for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), garnering praise with a Silver NIH Plain Language/Clear Communication Award. Her work at NIDA contributed to other prestigious awards, including an AVA Digital Award and a National Association of Government Communicators Award.