Erica Solway is Deputy Director of the National Poll on Healthy Aging and Manager of Signature Initiatives and Partnership at the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation. Previously, Dr. Solway served as a policy advisor with the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging and directed a mental health program for older adults in San Francisco. Erica received her master’s degree in social work and master’s degree in public health as well as a Specialist in Aging certificate from the University of Michigan and doctoral degree in medical sociology from the University of California, San Francisco.

JD is co-founder and chief strategic officer of Strategies for High Impact and its Long COVID Justice project. A queer and trans person living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS),  Long COVID and other complex chronic conditions, he is a longtime health justice strategist for networks of disabled and chronically ill people. He’s been a part of or worked for many pivotal groups, including ACT UP, Coalition for a National HIV/AIDS Strategy, Health GAP, Health Not Prisons Collective, HIV Prevention Justice Alliance, #MEAction, Positive Women’s Network – USA and the U.S. Caucus of People Living with HIV. He also writes and hosts conversations for The Cranky Queer Guide to Chronic Illness, has served as an external advisor to NIH, CDC, and health departments, and is a member of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative. Davids is the lead author of Chronic Injustice: Centering Equitable Health Care and Policies for COVID-19 and Other Chronic Conditions and a contributor to the Long COVID Survival Guide.

My name is Michael Beco, and I grew up in the Bay Area (Oakland). After living in Los Angeles and New York for several years I returned to the Bay Area where I now live and work. I have a BA in Psychology and a master’s in forensic psychology. I have spent the last twenty years working in the mental health field, starting off as a residential counselor in a group home for teens. I have worked with children, teens, and adults with dual diagnoses. I enjoy cooking, anything involving nature, yoga, and listening to music.

Dr. Everett is the Director of the Center for Mental Health Services. In this role, she provides executive leadership for federal efforts to improve the nation’s mental health service systems.

Prior to her arrival at SAMHSA, she served as the Section Chief of The Johns Hopkins Bayview Community and General Psychiatry in Baltimore, Maryland. She was on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Bloomberg School of Public Health. At Hopkins, she directed 22 community psychiatry programs that provide a range of services to individuals from preschool age to older adults and through a range of programs that include intensive acute services as well as recovery support services for persons with Serious Mental Illnesses. More recently at Hopkins, she has been involved with the leadership of health system behavioral health integration into accountable care structures. Earlier in her career, Dr. Everett served as the Senior Medical Advisor to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. There she worked on the promotion of access to quality services and access to medications in the Medicare prescription drug benefit. From 1999 to 2003 she served as the Inspector General to the Office of the Governor in the Department of Mental Health in Virginia. During this time she completed over 80 inspections of Institutions operated and licensed to provide mental health services in Virginia. She received the Patrick Henry award for outspoken advocacy.

Dr. Everett has served on the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Advisory Council. She is active in several professional organizations including the American Psychiatric Association where she has received a commendation for her work in healthcare reform. She is a past president of the Maryland Psychiatric Society and the American Association of Community Psychiatrists. She has been engaged in a number of international projects which have included consultation with the Ministries of Health, Department of Mental Health in Iraq and Afghanistan on the implementation of mental health services in these countries.