Aaron Wernham, M.D., is the director of the Health Impact Project, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, designed to promote the use of health impact assessments (HIAs) and support the growth of the field in the United States.

Dr. Wernham is an HIA expert who has led multiple HIAs at the state and federal levels. He sits on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on HIA, and has conducted HIA trainings for, collaborated with and advised numerous health and environmental regulatory agencies on integrating HIAs into their programs. Prior to joining Pew, Dr. Wernham was a senior policy analyst with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, where he led the first successful efforts in the United States to formally integrate HIAs into the federal environmental impact statement process. Dr. Wernham also directed a collaborative state-tribal-federal working group on HIAs that developed HIA guidance for federal and state environmental regulatory and permitting efforts.

Dr. Wernham received his medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco, and a master’s degree in health and medical sciences from the University of California, Berkeley. Board certified in family medicine, he previously served as clinical faculty in the University of California, Davis, family medicine residency program at Contra Costa Regional Medical Center.

Kara Vonasek is the project manager of the Health Impact Project, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, designed to promote the use of health impact assessments (HIAs) and support the growth of the field in the United States.

Before joining Pew, Ms. Vonasek was a senior policy analyst at the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, where she specialized in childhood obesity and children’s health policy, and managed Healthy Kids, Healthy America, a 15-state grant program designed to prevent childhood obesity through policy and environmental change at the state level. She has held a number of positions in the public health field, serving as a communications associate for the public health and childhood obesity teams at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; a communications consultant for Hill & Knowlton’s Washington, D.C., health policy practice; and a medical writer in the clinical trial field.

Ms. Vonasek has a master’s degree in public health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a concentration in social and behavioral sciences. She earned an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut.

Alex Dery Snider is the communications officer for the Health Impact Project, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, designed to promote the use of health impact assessments (HIAs) and support the growth of the field in the United States.

Ms. Dery Snider joined the Health Impact Project from a position of communications director at the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology. She worked to advance the message that the U.S. must support research, foster innovation and improve math and science education to ensure our economic competitiveness, maintain our scientific leadership and meet a growing need for energy we produce at home. Under Ms. Dery Snider’s leadership, the Committee’s Web site received one of the first-ever Platinum Mouse Awards from the Partnership for a More Perfect Union, which cited it as the #1 Committee Web site in the 111th Congress. 

Prior to that, she worked in a health policy nonprofit and in the health and social marketing practice at the communications firm, Porter Novelli. Her work has often focused on making complex issues more accessible.

Ms. Dery Snider received a bachelor of arts degree in English Writing and Speech and Theatre from St. Lawrence University.

Saqi Maleque Cho is the senior associate of the Health Impact Project, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, designed to promote the use of health impact assessments (HIAs) and support the growth of the field in the United States.

Before joining Pew, Ms. Maleque Cho was a research associate at George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services in the Department of Health Policy. She developed research-based policy briefs and reports for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America, a national Commission focused on the social determinants of health and eliminating health disparities. She also conducted a program evaluation of a District of Columbia Department of the Environment low-income energy assistance "REACH" pilot program targeted to the medically vulnerable; served as an editorial assistant at the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved; and developed a website designed to present salient research on health care disparities in underserved communities. She spent many years working as a social worker, serving victims of intimate partner violence and children with mental health and substance abuse illnesses.

Ms. Maleque Cho is a doctoral candidate in public health with a concentration in health policy at the George Washington University. She received her master of science in public health with a concentration in health services administration from Meharry Medical College and a bachelors of science in biology and psychology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Bethany Rogerson is a senior associate for the Health Impact Project, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, designed to promote the use of health impact assessments (HIAs) and support the growth of the field in the United States.

Ms. Rogerson joined the Health Impact Project after completing her master’s degree. During graduate school, she worked with the Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research, where she developed policy briefs and examined studies on mental health bed capacity. Prior to that, she assisted the policy and development departments at the League of Conservation Voters in Washington, D.C., as well as the Michigan League of Conservation Voters.

Ms. Rogerson received a master’s degree in social policy at the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor of arts in environmental studies from the University of Michigan.

Katie Houghton is the associate for the Health Impact Project, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, designed to promote the use of health impact assessments (HIAs) and support the growth of the field in the United States.

Before joining the Health Impact Project, Ms. Houghton was a consultant to the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization in the department of Gender, Diversity and Human Rights, where she drafted a white paper on Indigenous health disparities in Latin America. Prior to this she was a graduate student at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, where she served as a program facilitator for the Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention in College Students (BASICS) program. During this time she also conducted qualitative research in Honduras using the Photovoice methodology. Her research assessed perceived barriers to healthcare and helped to inform the development of a community health system.

Ms. Houghton also worked as the center coordinator for the Jay Weiss Center for Social Medicine and Health Equity at the University of Miami, and served as an eligibility specialist for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

Ms. Houghton received a bachelor of arts in Social Relations and Spanish from Michigan State University and her master’s in public health from the University of Michigan School of Public Health, Department of Health Behavior and Health Education. She is the recipient of the Department of State Foreign Language Acquisition Studies Fellowship for Quechua, and the School of Public Health Dean’s Award.