Fall 2025 Alumni Meeting Speakers

Dr. Palav Babaria was appointed Chief Quality Officer and Deputy Director of Quality and Population Health Management of the California Department of Health Care Services beginning in March 2021. She was formerly the Chief Administrative Officer of Ambulatory Services at Alameda Health System. In that capacity, she operationally and clinically oversaw 26 specialty clinics, four large primary care FQHCs, specialty and integrated behavioral health, and is responsible for all outpatient value-based payment programs. Prior to that role, she served as Medical Director of K6 Adult Medicine Clinic. She also has over a decade of global health experience and her work has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Academic Medicine, Social Science & Medicine, L.A. Times, and New York Times. Her areas of interest include ambulatory transformation in resource-limited settings, shifting to value-based care, and issues of gender in medicine. Babaria received her bachelor’s from Harvard College, as well as her MD and Masters in Health Science from Yale University. She completed her residency training in internal medicine and global health fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Condessa Curley completed her Bachelor of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. She received her Medical Degree from the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine and completed her residency in Family Medicine with a fellowship in Maternal and Children’s Health at the University of Southern California (USC) Keck School of Medicine/CHMC Family Medicine Residency Program. Dr. Curley obtained a Master’s Degree in Public Health from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She is board-certified in Family Medicine and a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians (FAAFP). Dr. Curley is a Cohort 13 Alumna of the California Health Care Foundation Fellowship Program. This program broadens Fellow’s management skills and sharpens their leadership capacity on gaining insights into the trends and challenges facing health care in California. Dr. Curley is a George Mason University 2024 Climate Health Equity Fellow (CHEF). CHEF trains doctors of color to become leaders in climate and health equity, advocacy and policy solutions.

Currently she serves as a Medical Director of Clinic Services for one the nation’s largest public health department and was the departments lead for the COVID 19 Outbreak Management team. Dr. Curley has served as a board member of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) since 2008. AHF is the nation’s largest HIV Care provider currently in 49 states in the United States and 48 countries throughout the world, with over 2,500,000 patients in care.

Dr. Rishi Manchanda is CEO at HealthBegins. He has advanced bold strategies to help health care move upstream and advance health equity for historically marginalized patients and communities throughout his career as physician, executive, and public health champion. Dr. Manchanda served as the founding director of social medicine for a network of community health centers in South-Central Los Angeles, as the first lead primary care physician for homeless veterans at the Greater Los Angeles VA, and as the inaugural chief medical officer for a self-insured employer with a large rural agricultural workforce. In his book—The Upstream Doctors—and TED Talk, he introduced “Upstreamists,” a new model of healthcare professionals who improve outcomes by addressing the social and structural drivers of health equity—patients’ social needs, community-level social determinants of health, and structural determinants of health equity including structural racism.

Dr. Pooja Mittal is the Chief Health Equity Officer (CHEO) for Health Net. She leads the company in developing, implementing, facilitating, and embedding health equity strategic initiatives into Health Net’s programs, services, actions, and outcomes. In addition to her role as CHEO, Dr. Mittal practices primary care at a Federally Qualified Health Center in San Mateo County. As a family physician, teacher and recognized national expert on Perinatal HIV care, she has a unique perspective to design strategic initiatives that improve health outcomes for California’s most vulnerable populations. Dr. Mittal has an expertise in Digital Health and is part of Health Net’s Digital Health Transformation Committee which ensures that the technology used by the company for Medicaid members is equitable. She is also part of the UCSF S.O.L.V.E. Health Tech advisory board which focuses on bridging health equity and innovation to create and adapt products that reach marginalized populations.

Dr. Mittal also dedicates her time to improving health outcomes through teaching the next generation of healthcare workers (Stanford Internal Medicine Residents). She is an Adjunct Associate Professor at UCSF and Stanford University School of Medicine. In addition to her clinical work, she has been published in the areas of well-childcare, group visits, preconception care, health equity and perinatal HIV.

Elizabeth is the CEO of EM Consulting, a company dedicated to enhancing the human connection within health and social care. Her focus areas include developing integrated care systems, implementing trauma-informed practices, and elevating the importance of skillful, empathic communication and relationship-based care practices. 

She is the co-creator of The Lay Counselor Academy (LCA), a course designed to equip individuals without behavioral health degrees or licenses to provide mental health counseling. This initiative aims to expand the behavioral health workforce and ensure that high-quality mental health counseling is accessible to everyone in need.

Elizabeth holds a PhD in Social Psychology, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and possesses a Master's in Addiction Counseling. With more than 30 years of clinical practice, she has extensive experience providing therapy through video, phone, and text-based modalities, maintaining a practical perspective on mental health services.

Dr. Steven C. Moyo (DocMoyo) is a Board Certified Physician and CEO/Founder of Welfie. A company focused on delivering health equity to the families that need it most. He completed his residency training at the Osler Internal Medicine Residency Program at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Attained his medical doctorate from Michigan State University College of Human Medicine and a Bachelor of Science from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

DocMoyo founded Welfie after seeing too many Black and Immigrant people die preventable deaths. Welfie is a ”Wellness Selfie”, giving people a regular snapshot of their health so they can see the big picture of their wellness journey. Guiding them along the way with health education, communities, and resources. He is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha and Gold Humanism Honor medical societies. DocMoyo was awarded the 2019 American College of Preventive Medicine Design Hack and 2020 Blink UX Social Impact Award.

Dr. Tam T. Nguyen is a clinical psychologist and serves as the Director of Ambulatory Mental Health & Addiction Care for Sutter Health. An expert in developing, implementing, and running large-scale mental healthcare projects, she is passionate about identifying needs within communities, creating innovative services, such as digital mental health programs and applications, and executing solutions with an entrepreneurial approach.

She has extensive experience managing integrated mental healthcare and community-directed programs, in both the outpatient and clinical settings, as well as community outreach and preventative services. Prior to her current role, Dr. Nguyen served as Director of Behavioral Health for Palo Alto Medical Foundation. She completed a research fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine and a leadership fellowship at California Health Care Foundation. She also previously served as Director of Behavioral Health for a federally qualified health center and held clinical and research positions with the Palo Alto Veteran Administration.

She was recognized as a Women of Influence by the Silicon Valley Business Journal in 2018 and was featured in Hewlett Packard’s Straight Talk for Real Life, inaugural podcast episode: Angst, A Closer Look at Anxiety.

Richard Pan, MD, MPH, is a pediatrician, educator, health services researcher, and former California legislator who represented the Sacramento region. Richard was a member of Cohort 5, during which he was Associate Professor and Director of the Pediatric Residency Program at UC Davis, Chair of Healthy Kids Health Future, a five county children’s initiative, and led the Sacramento County safety-net coalition. In 2010, voters elected Richard to the State Assembly and the State Senate in 2014, where he served as Health Committee Chair in both houses and Budget Subcommittee Chair for Health and Human Services in the Senate. During his service in the legislature, Californians with health care coverage rose from 86% in 2011 to 95% in 2022 when he termed out. TIME magazine called Richard a “hero of vaccine history” for his public health legislation.

Richard is currently Senior Lecturer of Health Policy and Management at UC Davis and Physician Advisor to Medical Education Governance and Policy at the American Medical Association. He also serves on the California Health Care Affordability Board. He would note that he did not complete his CHIP until over a year after his fellowship graduation.

Dr. Manuel Pastor is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. He currently directs the Equity Research Institute at USC. Pastor holds an economics Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and is the inaugural holder of the Turpanjian Chair in Civil Society and Social Change at USC.

Pastor’s research has generally focused on issues of the economic, environmental and social conditions facing low-income urban communities – and the social movements seeking to change those realities.

As Chief Medical Officer (CMO) at Santa Clara Family Health Plan (SCFHP), Ria Paul, MD, is responsible for ensuring the availability, quality, and delivery of healthcare services to SCFHP members, and the development and implementation of medical policies in support of organizational objectives, compliance, and operational excellence.

Dr. Paul is a Clinical Associate Professor in Primary Care and Population Health at the Stanford School of Medicine and is also a practicing geriatrician. Prior to joining Stanford Health Care, Dr. Paul served as Staff Physician, Medical Director, and CMO at the Indian Health Center of Santa Clara Valley in San José.

She is an experienced health care professional whose focus on culturally-sensitive care aligns with SCFHP’s mission for equitable healthcare services. Dr. Paul has also served as a longstanding member of SCFHP’s Quality Improvement Committee and a member of SCFHP’s Governing Board while working at Stanford Health Care. In 2022, Dr. Paul won the Value Improvement Award from Stanford Health Care for her work in accountable care and value-based care.

Dr. Paul earned her medical degree from Calcutta University in 1994. She completed a residency in internal medicine at St. Luke’s Hospital with Temple University in 2003, and followed her residency with a fellowship in Geriatric Medicine at Stanford in 2004.

Tom Paulsen, M.D. was the Executive Medical Director of HealthCare Partners Medical Group, California from 2008 until his retirement in October 2014. As Executive Medical Director he was responsible for ensuring clinical excellence in care delivery and coordination to HealthCare Partners’ patients including 100,000 seniors in the Medicare Advantage HMO program. He began at HealthCare Partners in 1986 as an anesthesiologist. Dr. Paulsen served on the Medical Executive Committee and was the Regional Medical Director in the South Bay area of Los Angeles for nine years prior. Dr. Paulsen has been the Chair of Credentialing for Optum, Los Angeles/Orange County legacy HealthCare Partners since 2015 and became Chair of Credentialing for Optum, California in 2024 to the present. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry from the University of California, Irvine and Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is Finance Chair of Riviera United Methodist Church, Redondo Beach, CA and is a member of the UCLA Life Sciences Advisory Board.

Dr. Kyu ("Q") Rhee is a mission-driven physician leader, educator, scientist, and innovator who has led and developed transdisciplinary teams across and within the nonprofit, public, and private sectors to make the health system better, especially for underserved populations.

Dr. Rhee serves as the President and CEO of the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC). Since the nation's first Community Health Centers (CHCs) opened in 1965, CHCs have become the best part of our health system, delivering high-quality, affordable, patient-governed primary care for communities across our nation. Employing over 310,000 people and serving at least 32.5 million patients in over 16,000 locations, CHCs provide values-based care to patients – regardless of ability to pay – in every state, U.S. territory, and the District of Columbia.

Prior to joining NACHC, Dr. Rhee held the position of Senior Vice President & Aetna Chief Medical Officer at CVS Health, where he led a team of over 1,500 doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other health professionals in the integration and delivery of clinical and population health solutions to improve health for up to 65 million people. Before CVS Health, Dr. Rhee was the Chief Health Officer of IBM for a decade, where he had global responsibilities for IBM’s efforts to transform health through the use of data, analytics, artificial intelligence, services, and research for providers, health plans, employers, governments, and life science companies across the world. 

During the exciting time of the Affordable Care and Recovery Acts, Dr. Rhee served in the public sector at HHS as Chief Public Health Officer of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which is the primary federal agency for improving access to health care services for people who are uninsured or medically vulnerable. He also held the position of Director of the Office of Innovation and Program Coordination at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the primary federal agency for health research.

Dr. Manisha Sharma is a board-certified family medicine and social medicine physician dedicated to advancing health equity. She works at the nexus of clinical innovation, patient care, and health policy, with a passion for designing care delivery systems that promote health and

well-being for all.

As a leader in local, state, and national initiatives, Dr. Sharma provides strategic guidance on a range of topics, including health equity and policy, and often appears as a guest on major

television and radio networks. 

A co-founder of multiple social impact ventures, she is the Chief Care Innovation Officer for MitoKhon Advisors, a women-led, physician-led, and BIPOC-led social impact design firm. She also co-founded Civic Health Alliance, a non-partisan coalition focused on voter

registration for health professionals and patients, and Centivox Group, which empowers healthcare providers as trusted messengers in public health communication.

Dr. Sharma is an alumna of prestigious fellowships at the California Health Care Foundation and Stanford School of Medicine. Dr. Sharma has a proven track record of mobilizing physicians, notably during her time as the National Director of Leadership Cultivation for Doctors for

America.

Outside of her professional work, she values time with her son, family, and friends.

Wells is a recently retired, bilingual pediatrician who spent the first half of his 50 year career in clinical practice in a farming community where he opened a Level II NICU and launched a hospital-based human lactation center.  He attended in peds in the UCSF-affiliated Natividad Medical Center in Salinas and collaborated extensively with Stanford in regional perinatal care.

The second half of his career expanded to first regional and then statewide leadership roles as medical director, during which he focused on clinical quality improvement in multiple vectors, statewide confrontation of health disparities, and science based response to wasted opportunities and wasted money.  He viewed cross sector collaboration as essential for access, along with workforce innovations and primary care revitalization.  He served as the first medical director for the Medi-Cal managed care plan for Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties and subsequently an embattled regional IPA before he enrolled in the CHCF fellowship.  He authored and published CAPG’s annual “Standards of Excellence” document regarding infrastructure capabilities for 160 healthcare systems serving a total of 18M Californians.  He spent the waning years of his career consulting and coaching NorCal FQHC’s through Stanford’s Clinical Excellence Research Center.

The expanding CHCF alumni organization became an invaluable tool for feedback, organization, troubleshooting, and inspiration for a quarter century.  Wells considers his career a “5 decade residency” for the role of Lead for a county-wide, all sectors, all systems, all disciplines task force for the COVID emergency in 2020.  

Dr. S. Monica Soni (she/her) is the Chief Medical Officer at Covered California, leading the organization’s Health Equity and Quality Transformation division. She is working to improve the health of Covered California enrollees and the quality and affordability of care for all Californians. She is a board-certified internal medicine physician with more than a decade of experience working in both inpatient and outpatient settings and continues to see patients. She is an Associate Professor within the UCLA Department of Medicine and the Charles R. Drew University Department of Internal Medicine. Prior to joining Covered California, Dr. Soni served as Associate Chief Medical Officer within Evolent Health focused on the delivery of high-quality, cost-effective specialty care for the over 16 million supported Medicaid lives across the United States. Dr. Soni also served as the Director of Specialty Care for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, the second-largest municipal health system in the United States. She graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Medical School and completed residency at the University of California, San Francisco.

Sadena Thevarajah is Managing Director and Partner at HealthBegins. In addition to overseeing key firm functions, she provides sponsorship, direction, subject matter expertise, and facilitation to many HealthBegins projects, including our CalAIM portfolio. She has spent nearly 20 years at the intersection of health law, policy, and stakeholder engagement. She led the first external affairs department at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics and shaped patient programs at the American Cancer Society. Previously, she served in the Obama Administration, both in the Office of the HHS Secretary as well as in the White House during the passage and early implementation of the Affordable Care Act. She holds a law degree from Washington University School of Law in St. Louis and a public health degree from The Johns Hopkins University.

Mariana Torres, MSW,  is a senior program officer with CHCF’s People-Centered Care team, which works to ensure that Californians — particularly those enrolled in Medi-Cal — receive responsive, comprehensive, and coordinated care that supports their health and well-being. Her work focuses on optimizing the behavioral health delivery system.

Prior to joining CHCF, Mariana focused on primary care and specialty mental health care delivery. Mariana has 20 years of experience providing services to Alameda and Contra Costa County’s most vulnerable populations.

Jennifer Tuteur, MD serves as the Chief Medical Officer for the County of San Diego’s Health and Human Services Agency, Medical Care Services, supporting access to quality, timely and evidence-based care.

Jennifer is passionate about improving the health of underserved communities.  She earned her BA from Yale University and her MD at the University of Missouri.  She worked as a Program Analyst in the Office of the Surgeon General and completed her residency in  Family and Community Medicine in Minnesota.  

Jennifer braved a change in climate, moving to San Diego to hold leadership roles at Community Health Centers. As Medical Director of the Low Income Health Program, Jennifer piloted mental health integration and expansion of healthcare coverage prior to the ACA. 

Jennifer serves as a Board Member of Mama’s Kitchen and San Diego Wellness Collaborative. She enjoys hiking and skiing with her family. Besides the wilderness, Petco Park is her favorite place to relax.

Fiona Wilson did her internal medicine residency at UCSF, where she practiced primary care for 11 years before becoming a member of Cohort 3.  The fellowship gave her the training and readiness to leave the comfort of UCSF, and move fully into health care administration at Brown & Toland Physicians (a Bay Area IPA). There she was successively Chief of Quality, then Chief of Clinical Transformation where she developed a PCMH, along with an employed primary care model within an IPA (for recruiting and succession planning), and Chief Medical Officer. 

For her later career chapter, she moved to the public sector 5 years ago: joining the City and County of San Francisco as the Chief Physician for CCSF Employees. It has brought a great mix of thinking like a PCP about the health, safety and wellness of 36,000 employees, and included a COVID vaccine requirement. Unfortunately, she does not know them each employee by name!