Dr. Vivek H. Murthy was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in March 2021 to serve as the 21^st Surgeon General of the United States. As the Nation’s Doctor, the Surgeon General’s mission is to help lay the foundation for a healthier country, relying on the best scientific information available to provide clear, consistent, and equitable guidance and resources for the public. And as the Vice Admiral of the U.S. Public Health ServiceCommissioned Corps, Dr. Murthy commands a uniformed service of over 6,000 dedicated public health officers, serving the most underserved and vulnerable populations domestically and abroad. 

While serving as 21^st Surgeon General, Dr. Murthy is focused on drawing attention to and working across government to address a number of critical public health issues, including the growing proliferation of health misinformation, the ongoing youth mental health crisis, well-being and burnout in the health worker community, and social isolation and loneliness. Additionally, he serves as a key advisor to President Biden’s pandemic response operation, and is the host of House Calls with Dr. Vivek Murthy, a podcast highlighting the healing power of conversations. 

During his previous tenure as 19^th Surgeon General, under President Obama, Dr. Murthy created initiatives to tackle our country’s most pressing public health challenges. The first Surgeon General of Indian descent and the youngest active duty flag officer in federal uniformed service, he helped lead the national response to a range of health challenges, including the Ebola andZika viruses, the opioid crisis, and the growing threat of stress and loneliness to Americans' physical and mental wellbeing. Dr. Murthy also continued the office’s legacy on preventing tobacco-related disease, releasing a historic Surgeon General’s report on e-cigarettes and youth. And in 2016, he issued the first Surgeons General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs and Health, in which he challenged the nation to expand access to prevention and treatment,and to recognize addiction as a chronic illness, not a character flaw.  

Prior to his second confirmation, Dr. Murthy co-chaired President-elect Joe Biden's COVID-19Advisory Board from November 2020 to January 2021. Before entering government service, Dr. Murthy co-founded VISIONS, a global HIV/AIDS education organization; the Swasthya Project, a rural health partnership that trained women in South India to become community health workers and educators; TrialNetworks, a technology company dedicated to improving collaboration and efficiency in clinical trials;and Doctors for America, a nonprofit mobilizing physicians and medical students to improve access to affordable care. His scientific research has focused on vaccine development and the participation of women and minorities in clinical trials.  And as an internal medicine doctor at Brigham and Women’sHospital and at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Murthy cared for thousands of patients and trained undergraduates, medical students, and medical residents.   

Raised in Miami, Dr. Murthy received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard, his MD from the Yale School of Medicine, and his Masters in Business Administration from the Yale School of Management. A renowned physician, research scientist, entrepreneur, and author of the bestselling book Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World, Dr. Murthy is today among the most trusted voices in America on matters of public health. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife, Dr. Alice Chen, and their two children. 

Colleen Galambos, Ph.D., LCSW, LCSW-C, ACSW, FGSA, FAASWSW, is professor and the Helen Bader Endowed Chair in Applied Gerontology at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. She is an adjunct professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Dr. Galambos is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.  In 2016, she was named a National Association of Social Workers Pioneer, and in 2020, she was named a Woman of Influence by the Milwaukee Business Journal. Her practice experience includes clinical, administrative, policy, and research positions in a variety of health and long-term care organizations. She currently serves on the  Governing Board for the  Aging and Disabilities Resource Center of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.  She served on the State of Missouri Board of Nursing Home Administrators, from 2004 – 2011 and was Vice President of the Board from 2010 -2011. She is a past member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Social Workers. She is currently a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Board on Health Care Services. She was a member of two Consensus Study Committees with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine - The Health and Medical Dimensions of Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults, from 2018 –2020 and The National Imperative to Improve Nursing Home Quality from 2020 - 2022. She also served on the National Academies of Medicine Vital Directions Project in 2020-2021. Dr. Galambos’ active research areas include care transitions, advance care planning/end of life decision making, aging in place, health and long–term care systems quality improvement, gerontechnology, older adults and behavioral health, practice approaches in work with older adults, family caregiving, and competency-based gerontological education. She is a graduate of Cornell University, University of Maryland at Baltimore, and The Catholic University of America.

Maggie Ratnayake, MS, LPCMH, ATR, NCC is the Executive Director of Lori’s Hands, a nonprofit dedicated to creating mutually beneficial partnerships between community members with chronic illness and college students studying health care. Maggie started with Lori’s Hands in 2017 as the organization's first, and only, full time staff person. Since that time, Lori’s Hands has grown from a single location in Delaware engaging roughly 40 clients and 100 students a year to a three-state operation (Newark, DE, Baltimore, MD, and Metro Detroit, MI) engaging more than 200 clients and 440 students annually. She now leads 4 additional staff in implementing Lori’s Hands’ unique intergenerational service learning model. Prior to her work with Lori’s Hands, Maggie served as the Director of Older Adult Services at a Delaware-based nonprofit and as an outpatient mental health therapist. She has her Master’s Degree in Art Therapy from Eastern Virginia Medical School, where she received the Paul J. Fink, MD Outstanding Art Therapist Award. In 2015, she was named one of Delaware’s top 40 Under 40 young professionals.

I worked at several different jobs before I moved to Newark to be nearer my family.  After I retired, my husband died, I became ill and needed extra help, that's when Lori's Hands came into my life. For the last few years I have enjoyed their weekly visits and help.

Jenna Hopkins is a senior Medical Diagnostics major with a concentration in Pre-Physician Assistant studies and a minor in Forensic Science. She has been volunteering with Lori's Hands for almost 3 years, and has been visiting Pat for 1.5 years now. Jenna will graduate at the end of this month and take a gap year as she applies to PA schools.

My name is Julianna Kolek and I am a graduating senior with a major in exercise science and minors in disability studies and strength and conditioning. I began with Loris Hands in fall 2021 because I was in a course that required it as part of the curriculum. After that course, I decided to stay with Loris Hands because I loved it so much. I’ve been lucky enough to have visits with Pat for the past 2 years and it’s been an amazing experience and is always a highlight of my week. I begin physical therapy school at UD in June to get my Doctorate of Physical Therapy.

Lily Liu is a family caregiver for her mother who has had Parkinson's Disease for almost four decades and is now living with early-stage dementia.  Her parents were refugees escaping the civil war in China in the late 1940s and spent almost five years in a refugee camp in French Indochina (now Vietnam) in the early 1950s.  Lily immigrated from Taiwan as a child and grew up on the East Coast of the United States.  Her career was spent in the non-profit sector in the field of strategic communications and public outreach.  After the death of her father, Lily took a hiatus from the workplace to care for her mother.  She currently engages in consulting work, in particular, delivering speeches about empowering family caregivers at community-education events.  Lily is fluent in speaking Mandarin Chinese and highlights in her presentations the challenges experienced by immigrant family caregivers who face issues of generational trauma in addition to caregiving responsibilities.  Her hobby is literary translation and her translations of the essays of contemporary Chinese women writers have been published in the United States and Asia.