First National Vaccine Law Conference

Loren Milliken, MSW, MPH—Epidemiology, is a Program Associate for the National Coordinating Center for Public Health Training at the National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI). In this role, she assists on projects related to performance improvement, workforce development, data modernization, legal epidemiology, and health equity training. Her interest in public health started as a Social Work graduate student at the University of Georgia. Here, she learned about social work principles and practices related to rapport building, community engagement, and social justice, all concepts instrumental in approaching public health concerns. She writes and edits for numerous public health–related publications within NNPHI. Montrece McNeill Ransom, JD, MPH, currently serves as the Director of the National Coordinating Center for Public Health Training. Ms. Ransom was appointed as a Presidential Management Fellow and worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for almost 20 years. For the last 10 years of her service, Ms. Ransom led the CDC’s public health law–related training and workforce development efforts. She received her law degree from the University of Alabama, her MPH from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, and her Executive Leadership Coaching Certification from Georgetown University. Ms. Ransom is the ABA Health Law Section’s 2019 Champion of Diversity and Inclusion Awardee, and the 2017 recipient of the American Public Health Association Jennifer Robbins Award for the Practice of Public Health Law. She is the President of the American Society for Law, Medicine, and Ethics and serves on the Advisory Committee for the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power and Potential. Devoted to helping people reach their human potential, Ms. Ransom also spends a lot of time working on career pathing and professional development with new public health practitioners and public health lawyers. Alexandra Bhatti is a public health attorney and recognized thought leader in vaccine ecosystem, with over a decade of diverse vaccine programmatic and policy experience across the government and private sector. She is currently Director of U.S. Vaccine Public Policy at Merck & Co. Inc, where she leads U.S. state and federal vaccine policy development and research as well as federal vaccine policy advocacy to advance evidence-based policy solutions that can help achieve and sustain high vaccination rates. She concurrently has served as faculty at Arizona State University in the College of Health Solutions over the last eight years. Prior to Merck, Ms. Bhatti was a public health attorney at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where she led vaccination law research. Her roots are in state public health where she was previously a manager within the Arizona Department of Health, Immunization Program Office as well as a Senior Scientist within the state health departments laboratory. Angela K. Shen, ScD, MPH, is a retired Captain from the U.S. Public Health Service, Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Medicine and Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, and Visiting Scientist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She is a vaccine policy expert and health services researcher with over 25 years of experience, specializing at the intersection of policy and practice in health disparities, quality measurement, access to immunization services, vaccine confidence, and barriers to innovation. During her 22-year federal career Dr. Shen held leadership roles in the U.S. government health infrastructure at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services—including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration, Administration for Children and Families, and Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health—and the Department of State in the U.S. Agency for International Development.