Public Health: Policies, Programs, and Promises

Dr. Rivkees is Professor of Practice and Acting Dean of Education at the Brown University School of Public Health.  Dr. Rivkees is a pediatric endocrinologist and physician-scientist who served as Florida’s State Surgeon General and Secretary of Health from June 2019 to September 2021. As State Surgeon General, Dr. Rivkees also served as State Health Officer for the Florida Department of Health.

Dr. Rivkees graduated from Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He received residency, fellowship, and postdoctoral training and served as faculty at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Before moving to Florida, Dr. Rivkees served as Professor of Pediatrics with tenure at Yale University.  From 2012 to 2019, Dr. Rivkees was Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Florida College of Medicine.  

During his career, Dr. Rivkees has been named “One of America’s Best Doctors,” “One of America's Top Pediatricians," and “One of New York’s Best Doctors.” He is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Connecticut Academy of Science, and Fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Rivkees is recipient of the Pioneer Award from CARES, the Special Service Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Thyroid Association’s Paul Starr Award.  Based on his publication record and citations, in 2026, Scholar GPS ranked him as the #1 Pediatric Endocrinologist in the world. Dr. Rivkees has had more than 35 years of continuous research funding from the National Institutes of Health. He has more than 300 publications. 

He is currently President of the Rhode Island Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.  At Brown University, Dr. Rivkees focuses on pandemic preparedness and response, leadership training, and graduate education. He is a regular contributor to TIME, The Hill, and other media sources about public health-related issues. 

Dr. Bhadelia is the founding director of BU Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases. She is a board-certified infectious diseases physician and an Associate Professor at the BU School of Medicine. She served as the Senior Policy Advisor for Global COVID-19 Response for the White House COVID-19 Response Team in 2022-2023, where she coordinated the interagency programs for global COVID-19 vaccine donations from the United States and was the policy lead for Project NextGen, $5B HHS program aimed at developing next generation vaccines and treatments for pandemic prone coronaviruses. She also served as the interim Testing Coordinator for the White House MPOX Response Team. She is the Founding Director and co-founder of Biothreats Emergence, Analysis and Communications Network (BEACON), an open source outbreak surveillance program. 

Between 2011-2021, Dr. Bhadelia helped develop and then served as the medical director of the Special Pathogens Unit (SPU) at Boston Medical Center, a medical unit designed to care for patients with highly communicable diseases, and a state designated Ebola Treatment Center. She was previously an associate director for BU’s maximum containment research program, the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories. She has provided direct patient care and been part of outbreak response and medical countermeasures research during multiple Ebola virus disease outbreaks in West and East Africa between 2014-2019. She was the clinical lead for a DoD-funded viral hemorrhagic fever clinical research unit in Uganda, entitled Joint Mobile Emerging Disease Intervention Clinical Capability (JMEDICC) program between 2017 and 2022. Currently, she is a co-director of Fogarty funded, BU-University of Liberia Emerging and Epidemic Viruses Research training program. She was a member of the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Technical Advisory Group on Universal Health and Preparedness Review (UHPR).  She currently serves as a member of the National Academies Forum on Microbial Threats and the Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats.  She previously served as the chair of the National Academies Workshop Committee for Potential Research Priorities to Inform Readiness and Response to Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A (H5N1) and member of the Ad Hoc Committee on Current State of Research, Development, and Stockpiling of Smallpox Medical Countermeasures. She is also a member of the Pan American Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group on Epidemic and Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness.

Dr. Bhadelia’s research focuses on operational global health security and pandemic preparedness, including medical countermeasure evaluation and clinical care for emerging infections, diagnostics evaluation and positioning, infection control policy development, and healthcare worker training. She has health system response experience with pathogens such as H1N1, Zika, Lassa fever, Marburg virus disease, and COVID-19 at the state, national, and global levels. 

Dr. Bhadelia has served on state, national, and interagency groups focused on biodefense priority setting, development of clinical care guidelines, and medical countermeasures research. She has served as a subject matter expert to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Defense (DoD), White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and World Bank. She is an adjunct professor at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University since 2016, where she teaches on global health security and emerging pathogens. 

She has publications in Nature, Science, New England Journal of Medicine and other prestigious journals, as well as in press including Washington Post, and The Atlantic and Time magazines. Her work has been featured in documentaries by National Geographic as well as NOVA. She was an NBC/MSNBC medical contributor between 2020-2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Larkin previously served as the Medical Director of Inpatient Infectious Diseases Consultation Services at Rhode Island Hospital. He has also served as the Co-Director of the Pediatric HIV Clinic at Hasbro Children’s Hospital and the Medical Director of the Infectious Disease Clinic at Rhode Island Hospital. Dr. Larkin has authored many abstracts, chapters, and works in peer-reviewed journals and publications and has been recognized with multiple awards and honors. They include the 2022 Steven M. Opal Award for Teaching Excellence and the 2015 Beckwith Family Award for Outstanding Teaching, both from Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School. Dr. Larkin is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases by the American Board of Internal Medicine and in General Pediatrics by the American Board of Pediatrics. He received his medical degree from the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and completed his undergraduate degree at Boston College. 

Linda Hurley is a nationally recognized leader in addiction treatment and behavioral healthcare with more than 40 years of experience. She has been with CODAC Healthcare since 1989 and has served as President and CEO since 2016, leading the organization’s growth as Rhode Island’s largest nonprofit provider of outpatient services for substance use and behavioral health disorders.

A pioneer in the field, Ms. Hurley launched the nation’s first comprehensive Opioid Treatment Program within a state prison and led the implementation of the first DEA-licensed mobile medical unit providing medications for opioid use disorder. She has also been instrumental in advancing tobacco-free treatment environments and integrating Motivational Interviewing into clinical practice.

Ms. Hurley is an active contributor to national policy and research and serves on multiple advisory boards. Her work continues to focus on expanding access to comprehensive, person-centered care and strengthening the behavioral health system nationwide.

Peter Hollmann, MD, oversees population health and value-based care for Brown University Health, an academic medical center and practice groups of the Brown University, Warren Alpert School of Medicine. He was previously the Associate Chief Medical Officer for Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island and had a part time geriatric primary care practice in RI for 40 years. He has over 35 years of quality improvement experience and medical management, including as a medical director of an HMO with a Medicare product, a Medicaid plan, a commercial PPO and a Medicare ACO. He has been a long-term care hospital, nursing home, and home care medical director. He has been active in creating geriatric measures for PQRS and NCQA. He is on the Board of the RI multi-payer PCMH collaborative and is active in state-wide performance measurement, improvement and transformation activities in RI. He is a longtime member of the RI Medical Society Board and a RI delegate to the AMA House of Delegates. He is a past Chair of the CPT Editorial Panel and current member of the RBRVS Update Committee (RUC). He chaired the Council on Graduate Medical Education (COGME). Much of his career has been devoted to quality improvement at the local and national level.