Fellows: Class of 2017

Rush University Medical Center
Vice President, Corporate Compliance-Rush University Medical Center, Associate Professor of Medicine, and Assistant Dean, Admissions and Recruitment-Rush Medical College

Dr. Cynthia Boyd is vice president for corporate compliance and chief compliance officer at Rush University Medical Center. She is responsible for the oversight of the compliance program and in providing awareness, education, direction and support to the board of trustees, the audit committee of the board, senior management and Rush staff regarding the resolution and prevention of compliance issues. In addition to many speaking engagements, Boyd has published in peer-reviewed journals on compliance related topics. She is distinguished nationally on various issues in medical education including the admissions process, diversity and inclusion, and professional development. She is a longstanding member of the faculty at Rush Medical College of Rush University and currently serves as the dean for admissions and recruitment. Boyd received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder and her medical degree from the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business with certification in health administration and policy. She is an associate professor in the department of medicine and a fellow of the American College of Physicians.

Hartford HealthCare
President, Central Region

Gina Calder is the president of the central region for Hartford Healthcare, which includes MidState Medical Center and The Hospital of Central Connecticut. Prior to joining Hartford, she was the president of BJC HealthCare hospitals in St. Charles County, Mo. Formerly, Calder served as the administrator at Milford Campus of Bridgeport Hospital and served previously as VP of ambulatory services at Bridgeport Hospital, a member of Yale New Haven Health System. She has had operational, strategic planning, and business development responsibility for 13 inpatient, outpatient, and ambulatory areas totaling $40 million in revenue and 80,000 patient visits annually. She also successfully planned and implemented Park Avenue Medical Center, which opened in spring 2016 and was the first outpatient center for Bridgeport Hospital and the largest for Yale New Haven Health. Calder works to influence policy and healthcare delivery to eliminate disparities in access to quality care and improve health outcomes. She serves on the boards of Optimus Health Care and FitHaven and is the immediate past president and founding member of the Connecticut chapter of the National Association of Health Services Executives. In 2024, Calder was named to the third national cohort of ELEVATE, a leadership development initiative for Black healthcare executives at NAHSE. She was recognized in 2015 as one of the Connecticut NAACP’s 100 Most Influential Blacks in the state. In 2016, she received Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Fairfield County Alumnae Chapter’s Dorothy I. Height Community Service Award and the Connecticut Association of Healthcare Executives Leadership Award. She earned her MPH and undergraduate psychology degrees from Yale University and is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.

President, Johns Hopkins National Capital Region and Interim Senior Vice President, Operations
Johns Hopkins Health System

Carolyn Carpenter is President of the Johns Hopkins National Capital Region and the Interim Senior Vice President, Operations. Previously, she served as corporate VP of Sentara Healthcare and President of Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. Prior to arriving at Sentara, Carpenter held multiple roles at Duke Health including COO of Duke University Hospital, Associate Dean of the Duke School of Medicine and Associate VP of Duke University Health System as lead administrator for the Duke Cancer Institute. She began her administrative career in the Department of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and served at the Medical College of Virginia Hospital, Virginia Commonwealth University as direct support to the CEO. In her more than twenty years of progressive responsibility in academic health centers, Carpenter has distinguished herself by building high performing teams, developing novel organizational models to create value, and planning and executing program growth. Carpenter received her B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania and her MHA from Medical College of Virginia. She has been a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives, an adjunct assistant at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health, and recently joined the Women of Impact leadership network.

Carilion Clinic
Associate Professor of Psychiatry-Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine; Vice President of Medical Staff Affairs, Carilion Medical Center

Dr. Tracey Criss has been practicing psychiatry at Carilion Clinic for 29 years. Criss has significant interest in severe major depression and the prevention of suicide, practices in outpatient psychiatry, and delivers electroconvulsive therapy at Carilion Medical Center. She serves as vice president of medical staff affairs and credentialing at Carilion Medical Center for 1600 credentialed clinicians and oversees governance, policy development, and peer review. She served as the associate dean for clinical science years 3 and 4 at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine from 2013-2023 and is an associate professor in the department of psychiatry. Throughout her time at Carilion Clinic, Criss has been engaged in teaching residents, medical students, and physician assistant students. In 2017 she was awarded the American Psychiatric Association’s Nancy C A Roeske Certificate of Excellence in Medical Student Education. Criss is a graduate of the West Virginia University School of Medicine, completed residency at Akron General Medical Center, and completed a mini-fellowship in electroconvulsive therapy at Long Island Jewish Medical Center-Zucker Hillside Hospital. She is a member of the American Association for Physician Leadership. She, her husband Glenn, and daughter Jordan are all sports fans and enjoy playing golf together as a family.

(Fellowship sponsored by BDC Advisors/University of Miami)
Jackson Health System 
Chief Impact Officer

Barbara Fonte, MHSA, is the chief impact officer for Jackson Health System, one of the largest academic and public health systems in the United States. Fonte manages the $1.5 billion dollar payer contracting strategy that helps subsidize Jackson’s charitable mission to care for the unfunded and most vulnerable populations of the County. Prior to rejoining Jackson in 2018, Fonte expanded her scope with an extensive career in South Florida based healthcare administration, serving a chief administrative officer for the University of Miami Health System, and held leadership positions in physician relations, patient access and multispecialty physician group practice at Miami Children’s Hospital.

John Muir Health
Vice President, Chief Nursing Officer Acute Care Medical Centers

Girlynda Gonzales started her journey at John Muir Health in Walnut Creek over two decades ago as a unit secretary/cardiac monitor technician. She continued to work full time while pursuing her nursing degrees. She has had the opportunity to serve in multiple, progressive leadership roles. She has come to realize that despite differences across the specialties in patient care and nursing practice, nursing leadership is the foundation for success.  She is proud and blessed to be part of an organization whose core values and mission statement are aligned with her own philosophies and guiding principles. She is excited to take the opportunity to continue her pursuit of continuity of care and a seamless and exceptional patient experience. She looks forward to enhancing her skills as a nurse leader and becoming part of a dynamic and innovative group of female executives.

Incyte Corporation
Executive Medical Director for Global Risk Management and Safety Surveillance; AI Strategist in Pharmacovigilance 

Dr. Thomasine Gorry is the executive medical director for Global Risk Management and Safety Surveillance at Incyte Corporation.  She has an additional role as the AI Strategist in Pharmacovigilance. Previously, she served as an associate professor of clinical ophthalmology in the department of ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. She also served as the medical director for quality and safety for Scheie Eye Institute and the department of ophthalmology. Dr. Gorry serves on many health system-wide committees. Through committee work, she leads efforts to improve medical quality, medical communications, electronic medical records, risk reduction, and safety management throughout the health system. She has received numerous honors, including an award for leadership in research and election to the Leadership Academy of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. In addition, she was the recipient of the Penn Medicine Quality and Safety Award.

Vice President of Care Transformation
Ambience Healthcare

Richa Gupta is the vice president of care transformation at Ambience Healthcare. She started her healthcare experience in medical school in India. She received her master’s in health systems administration from University of Michigan and completed administrative fellowship at UNC Chapel Hill and moved to Chicago to be part of the newly created internal consulting team at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. After four years in performance improvement leading multidisciplinary projects in clinical and non-clinical areas, she spent another four years in hospital operations as director of surgical services. She started at Rush in 2011, to launch the performance improvement program. She moved into the chief quality officer role and built and led the improvement arm of the organization, including performance improvement, safety, infection prevention, patient experience, regulatory compliance and clinical resource management. She focused her attention on advancing Rush’s high reliability journey through adoption of a Lean management system. Under her leadership Rush achieved record improvements in quality and also received innumerable external recognitions, including top rank in Vizient Quality and Accountability Study among all AMCs. She led the organization-wide CMS survey with a successful outcome. She was promoted to SVP clinical operations/chief operating officer of the Rush University Medical Group in May 2019. She built operational infrastructure for growth and performance, resulting in over 50% volume growth, development of a plan and execution of off-campus strategy, top quartile patient experience results, and recognition as a top performer in Vizient’s ambulatory quality and accountability study. Richa was asked to lead Rush’s COVID response, which saved thousands of lives and was nationally recognized.

Elimu Informatics
Vice President and Chief Clinical Innovation Officer 

Dr. Tonya Hongsermeier is the VP and Chief Clinical Innovation Officer at Elimu Informatics. She formerly served as chief medical informatics officer at Lahey Health, an integrated healthcare system serving New England. Formerly, she was a principal informatician in clinical informatics research and development at Partners Healthcare System and has served as a team lead on both the Agency for Healthcare Research and quality-funded Clinical Decision Support consortium project and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology-funded Advancing Clinical Decision Support project. Prior to this, she served for five years as senior corporate manager for clinical knowledge management and decision support. In this capacity she built a knowledge management team and led implementation of a collaboration, CDS authoring, and content management platform for enterprise Clinical Decision Support. She also served as a co-chair for the Semantic Web Healthcare-Life sciences Special Interest Group for the World Wide Web Consortium. She received her MD from Boston University and completed her residency in medicine and fellowship in clinical nutrition at the Deaconess Hospital. She received an MBA in healthcare management from BU School of Management in 1995, and has held several positions in industry leading a variety of informatics efforts. Prior to joining Partners Healthcare System, she was vice president for knowledge management solutions and patient safety at Cerner Corporation.

Chief Operating Officer, Ambulatory Network, UCSF Health
UCSF

Chantel Johnson Chief Operating Officer, Ambulatory Network for UCSF Health. Prior to joining UCSF, she was the Pediatric Service Line director at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) in the San Francisco Bay Area. She oversaw operations at all pediatric primary care across 24 clinics. Johnson also worked closely with pediatric urgent care and specialty services. She is known for her ability to foster collaboration, lead complex projects, and provide clinical insight into healthcare operations. Experienced in both ambulatory and acute care, Johnson served in several leadership positions in neonatal intensive care units in the Seattle area prior to joining PAMF. She holds her R.N. degree and Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Washington. Johnson is the committee chair in the Association of California Nurse Leaders (ACNL). She is passionate about improving the health of children in her community.

Chief Information and Technology Officer
Forward Bank in Wisconsin

Jeri Koester is the chief information and technology officer for the Forward Bank of Wisconsin. Prior to her current role she was the CIO of Marshfield Clinic Health System in early 2019. She previously was vice president of IT business management at Marshfield Clinic Information Services (MCIS Inc.). Prior to that role, Koester was the vice president of operations, the IT division and was instrumental in leading Marshfield Clinic’s transition of their IT department into a for-profit subsidiary of the health system. Her experience also includes senior project management for one of the nation’s largest window and door manufacturers completing a restructure of the manufacturing footprint.  Koester earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire and is a certified project manager professional from the Project Management Institute.

Lauderdale and Associates
President

Martha Lauderdale holds a Master of Public Administration and has over 25 years experience in organizational development and operational leadership. Prior to her current role, she served as the administrative director of the UCSF Medical Center.  Before that, she was the vice president of the anesthesia, diagnostic, and pharmacy service line for Sutter Health-Palo Alto Medical Foundation.  At Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Lauderdale facilitated the implementation of annual strategy development, deployment, and goal deployment cycles throughout the organization. In addition, she partnered with physician leaders to drive patient centered process improvement in GI, ambulatory surgery centers, primary care, medical specialties, and clinical lab. Before transitioning to healthcare, Lauderdale specialized in implementing lean operating systems and creating centers of excellence in manufacturing and service organizations.

University of Kansas Health System
Vice President, Cardiac Services

Carey Unger currently serves as the vice president, cardiac services for the University of Kansas Health System. Prior to joining University of Kansas she was the associate vice president for neurosciences and behavioral health for Duke University Health System. Previous responsibilities included managing the outpatient neuroscience portfolio, as well as serving as the vice president for medicine, surgery, and behavioral health for Duke Hospital. Unger received her B.S. in mathematics from Vanderbilt University in 2002 and her master’s in health administration from University of Missouri in 2004. In her free time, Unger is an international volunteer for her sorority, Alpha Omicron Pi, and enjoys traveling with her family.

Henry Ford Health System
Chief Operating Office, HFHS Behavioral Health Services

As vice president of Henry Ford Hospital operations, Wellington is responsible for coordinating, integrating, and implementing all aspects of the continuum of care from admission to discharge including budgeting, regulatory compliance, process design, and staffing oversight in this role. She leads the admission transfer management office, case management, housekeeping, spiritual care, denials/appeals, and utilization review for Henry Ford Hospital. Additionally, Wellington has been serving as the interim senior administrative leader for Henry Ford Health System’s behavioral health services for nearly two years. Wellington has served in a diverse range of positions throughout the Henry Ford Health System since 1996, in both inpatient and outpatient services. Past positions include administrator for internal medicine, pediatrics and urology for the Henry Ford Medical Group; senior site administrator for one of the system’s urban satellites, while also serving as senior administrator for genetics, women’s health and dermatology. Wellington holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing as well as a Master of Business Administration from the University of Windsor. She has participated in numerous nursing and leadership committees throughout her tenure and currently serves on various Henry Ford Health System committees and as faculty for the Physician Leadership Academy.

(Fellowship sponsored by Dartmouth Health)
Medical University of South Carolina
Chief Pharmacy Officer
Senior Associate Dean

Dr. Williams-Lowe serves as chief pharmacy officer, system administrative officer for the Pharmacy ICCE (Integrated Center of Clinical Excellence) for Medical University South Carolina (MUSC) Health, and Senior Associate Dean, Clinical Affairs for the MUSC College of Pharmacy in Charleston, South Carolina. She provides oversight for pharmacy services across the MUSC Health System.

Dr. Williams-Lowe has over 20 years of healthcare executive experience leading and transforming clinical and operational teams, implementing new pharmacy programs, practice models and training students and residents. She has served in ambulatory, retail, and hospital pharmacy roles and most recently in regional and system administrative roles at Dartmouth Health System where she provided oversight for pharmacy hospital and clinic operations in New Hampshire and Vermont.

Dr. Williams-Lowe holds a Doctor of Pharmacy and Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and a Master of Health Administration from Ohio University. In 2021, she earned the status of Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and in 2023 received the Dean Golod Award in appreciation of her dedication and contributions to the Pharmacy Profession. Dr. Williams-Lowe is a recipient of the 2024 Excellence in Diversity Award from the Student National Pharmaceutical Association.