Appendix B

Committee Member Biosketches

Hortensia de los Angeles Amaro, Ph.D. (Chair), is distinguished university professor and senior scholar on community health at the Wertheim College of Medicine and Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work at Florida International University. Previously, Dr. Amaro served as associate vice-provost and dean’s professor of public health and social work at the University of Southern California. Before that, she was distinguished professor and associate dean at the Northeastern University College of Health Sciences, where she founded the Institute on Urban Health Research, and professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, where she was the first to introduce courses on gender health disparities and on race and ethnicity health disparities in the early 1990s. Dr. Amaro’s scholarship has focused on advancing the understanding of gender and ethnoracial inequities in health, particularly in treatment for substance use disorders and co-occurring disorders in women, HIV prevention, and other urgent public health challenges. She has authored more than 200 scholarly publications and has made landmark contributions to improving behavioral health care in community-based organizations by launching and informing addiction treatment programs around the world. In her distinguished career, Dr. Amaro has received more than 50 national and community awards, including two honorary doctoral degrees in humane letters from Simmons College in 1994 and the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology in 2012. She has served on advisory committees to the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Health Research and Services Administration,

and the U.S. State Department’s Latin America programs in Costa Rica and Venezuela. Dr. Amaro is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and has served on more than ten National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine consensus studies, workshop committees, and boards. She is president-elect of the ASEM Florida. She received her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Heidi Allen, Ph.D., is associate professor at Columbia School of Social Work. Her research focuses on eliminating health disparities through evidence-based health policy, an interest that evolved from her clinical practice in mental health and emergency department social work. She spent several years working in state health policy, focusing on delivery system redesign and coverage expansion. Dr. Allen is currently involved in research examining access and quality of health care for gender and sexual minorities, particularly those enrolled in public insurance. She is a commissioner on the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC), a nonresident fellow at the Urban Institute, and a contributing writer at The Milbank Quarterly. Her recent research is funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Institutes of Health; the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation; and Columbia World Projects. Dr. Allen is a Columbia provost faculty teaching scholar and a Columbia University provost leadership fellow; she was awarded the 2019 Society for Social Work Research Social Policy Researcher Award. She holds an M.S.W. and Ph.D. in social work.

Walter Bockting, Ph.D., LP, is professor of medical psychology (in psychiatry and nursing) at Columbia University and a research scientist with the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI). He is area leader of gender, sexuality, and health at NYSPI/Columbia Psychiatry; director of the Program for the Study of LGBTQ+ Health at Columbia University Irving Medical Center; and director of Columbia Doctor’s Gender and Sexuality Program. Previously, Dr. Bockting led the Transgender Health Services at the University of Minnesota Medical School (1991–2012) and cofounded the school’s Leo Fung Center for Adrenal Hyperplasia and Disorders of Sex Development (2004). He is currently principal investigator for several National Institutes of Health–funded research studies on trans/nonbinary identity development across the lifespan and risk for behavioral cardiovascular disease; quality of life after gender-affirming surgery; and the role of social connectedness in the development of cognitive reserve and resilience among LGBTQ+ adults and their cisgender, heterosexual counterpart; and social connectedness and healthy aging among gender minority people of color. Dr. Bockting is currently serving on a task force for the World Health Organization formulating guidelines for gender-affirming care

among adults. He served on the Institute of Medicine Committee on LGBT Health Issues and Research Gaps and Opportunities (2010–2011); is past president and fellow of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality; and served as the 2009–2011 president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. Dr. Bockting received his Ph.D. in medical psychology from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (1998), and trained extensively in psychology and human sexuality at Utrecht University (1987–1988) and the University of Minnesota (1988–1990).

Don S. Dizon, M.D., is professor of medicine and professor of surgery at Brown University and vice chair of diversity, equity, inclusion, and professional integrity at the SWOG Cancer Research Network, a member of the National Cancer Institute’s National Clinical Trials Network. He also serves as editor-in-chief of CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, the flagship journal of the American Cancer Society. Dr. Dizon is a medical oncologist specializing in ovarian, cervical, and uterine cancer; prevention, particularly as it relates to the human papilloma virus vaccine; sexuality after cancer for men and women; and professional use of social media. He is director of the Pelvic Malignancies Program, Brown University Health; director of medical oncology, Rhode Island Hospital; and associate director of community outreach and engagement, Legorreta Cancer Center at Brown University. Dr. Dizon is also a board member for multiple nonprofits, including the Hope Foundation for Cancer Research and the LGBTQ Cancer Network. He is a founding member of the Collaboration for Outcomes Using Social Media in Oncology. Dr. Dizon received his M.D. from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Scott Hadland, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., is chief of adolescent and young adult medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. His clinical and research interests focus on the health and well-being of adolescents and young adults and, in particular, on mental health and substance use. As part of this work, he has carefully examined health outcomes among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and gender diverse, and queer/questioning youth. Dr. Hadland’s research has been funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and numerous foundations. He was the 2020 recipient of the Emerging Leader Award in Adolescent Health from the American Academy of Pediatrics. In 2023, Dr. Hadland was selected to the Presidential Leadership Scholars program, which brings together national leaders committed to facing critical challenges in partnership with the Clinton Presidential Center and George W. Bush Presidential Center. Dr. Hadland holds triple board certification in general pediatrics, adolescent medicine, and addiction medicine.

He received an M.D. from Washington University in St. Louis, M.P.H. in epidemiology and biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and M.S. in health policy and management from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. He completed his pediatrics residency and chief residency at the Boston Combined Residency Program before pursuing fellowship training in adolescent medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital and completing the Pediatric Health Services Research Fellowship at Harvard Medical School.

Raksha Jain, M.D., is professor of medicine and pulmonary critical care at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She is director of the Cystic Fibrosis and Bronchiectasis Program and leads of a number of multicenter clinical trials for therapeutic drug development for people with cystic fibrosis. Her area of interest focuses on sex and gender disparities in people with cystic fibrosis and bronchiectasis and the role of sex/gonadal hormones in immune response to infection. Dr. Jain is active in the respiratory research community and a fellow of the American Thoracic Society. She completed her B.S. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, M.D. at the University of Texas Houston Health Science Center, internal medicine training at the University of Texas Southwestern, and fellowship training in pulmonary and critical care and M.S. in clinical investigation at Washington University in St. Louis.

Dinushika Mohottige, M.D., M.P.H., is assistant professor in the Institute for Health Equity Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Barbara T. Murphy Division of Nephrology, and a general nephrologist. Dr. Mohottige engages in patient- and community-centered, inequity-focused research around the impact of sociostructural factors and racialized medicine on kidney health and kidney transplantation. As part of this work, she has interrogated the role of race and other sociopolitical variables in clinical algorithms, including kidney function estimation, and considered the role of racism and related sociostructural factors on kidney disease. She has also contributed to multiple perspective pieces regarding considerations for gender-affirming kidney care and inclusive care practices for the LGBTQ+ community, and she has partnered with experts in the application of an intersectional lens to kidney health research. Dr. Mohottige is a member of the National Kidney Foundation Health Equity Taskforce, the National Kidney Foundation Transplant Advisory Committee, the 2022 National Institutes of Health PhenX Social Determinants of Health Committee, the New York City Coalition to end Racism in Clinical Algorithms, and the End-Stage Renal Disease National Coordinating Center Health Equity Committee. She received a B.A. in public policy and a health policy certificate from Duke University in 2006, where she

was a Robertson scholar. Dr. Mohottige then earned an M.P.H. in health behavior/health education from the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health and a medical degree from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, followed by internal medicine/chief residency and nephrology training at Duke University.

Tonia Poteat, Ph.D., is professor in the Duke University School of Nursing, Division of Healthcare in Adult Populations and codirector of the Duke Sexual and Gender Minority Health Program. Her research, teaching, and clinical practice attend to health equity with a specific focus on populations minoritized on the bases of gender, sexual orientation, and/or race. Dr. Poteat is associate editor of the journal LGBT Health, member of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, member of the research committee for the U.S. Professional Association for Transgender Health, and former vice president for education for GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality. She served on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee that authored the report Understanding the Well-Being of LGBTQI+ Populations, published in 2020. Dr. Poteat completed a Ph.D. in international health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, an M.P.H. in behavioral science from Rollins School of Public Health, a master’s in medical science from Emory University, and a bachelor’s in biology from Yale University.

Asa Radix, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., FACP, is Executive Vice President at the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center and clinical associate professor of medicine at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, both in New York City. He has more than two decades of clinical experience with transgender and gender diverse individuals and has coauthored national and international guidelines in transgender health. Dr. Radix’s research focuses predominately on access to care and health outcomes for transgender individuals. He serves on the New York State AIDS Institute’s Medical Clinical Care Committee and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Panel on Antiretroviral Guidelines for Adults and Adolescents; he was also co-chair of the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care 8 Revision Committee. In 2022, Dr. Radix was awarded the 2022 WPATH Gold Medal for major contributions to global trans health. He is associate editor of Transgender Health and the International Journal of Transgender Health. Dr. Radix is board certified in internal medicine and infectious disease and holds a Ph.D. in epidemiology from Columbia University.

Joshua D. Safer, M.D., FACP, FACE, is executive director of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery in New York City and

professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is coauthor of the Endocrine Society guidelines for the medical care of transgender patients, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care Version 8, the gender-affirming hormone treatment sections for UpToDate, the transgender medical care review in the New England Journal of Medicine, and the review of transgender medical care in Annals of Internal Medicine. Dr. Safer was inaugural president of the U.S. Professional Association for Transgender Health (USPATH) and is currently a WPATH board member. He also serves on the Global Education Institute for WPATH and has been a scientific co-chair for multiple WPATH international meetings. Dr. Safer is associate editor of Transgender Health and serves on the editorial board for Endocrine Practice. He also chairs the DSD/Intersex and Transgender Athlete Panel of Experts for World Athletics. Dr. Safer has served as a paid consultant to the American Civil Liberties Union in cases related to transgender athletes in Connecticut, Idaho, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Florida. He received his medical degree from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine.

Loren Schechter, M.D., is professor of surgery and urology and chief of gender-affirmation surgery at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. He serves on the executive committee of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), coauthored the WPATH Standards of Care Version 7 (SOC-7), and served as co-lead for the Surgery and Post-Operative Care section of SOC-8. Dr. Schechter authored the first surgical atlas on gender-affirming surgery, Surgical Management of Transgender Individuals, and is a founding member and president-elect of the Society of Gender Surgeons. He is past president of the Illinois Society of Plastic Surgeons and the Chicago chapter of the American College of Surgeons. Dr. Schechter is associate editor for the International Journal of Transgender Health and serves on the editorial board for Transgender Health. He has served as an expert witness in federal lawsuits in states such as Florida, Idaho, North Carolina, and Washington where he has provided testimony on appropriate gender-affirming surgical interventions. He also often serves as an expert witness in medical malpractice cases providing testimony related to medical liability. Dr. Schechter received the 2013 Illinois State Bar Association Community Service Award for his advocacy efforts for the transgender community, was an invited discussant to the Pentagon in 2017 to discuss military service by transgender individuals and was named a Distinguished Sexual and Gender Health Revolutionary by the University of Minnesota Program in Human Sexuality. Dr. Schechter received his medical degree, with honors, from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, where he was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society and graduated as The Outstanding Student in Surgery. He completed his

residency in general and plastic surgery and a fellowship in reconstructive microsurgery at the University of Chicago Hospitals.

Amy Tishelman, Ph.D., is clinical and research psychologist and research associate professor at Boston College in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience. She, along with colleagues, currently has funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to co-develop a self-advocacy tool for youth and emerging adults with intersex variations, an effort that includes a large and diverse research network of stakeholders throughout the United States. She previously worked at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) for close to three decades, where she last held the position as director of clinical research in the Behavioral Health, Endocrinology, and Urology Program and Gender Multispecialty Service. These programs provide clinical care to youth, young adults, and families related to differences of sex development, intersex variations. She was featured for her work by the Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) office of the NIH in 2022. Dr. Tishelman was also senior attending psychologist at BCH and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. She previously worked extensively in the areas of child maltreatment and trauma. She has been awarded several National Institutes of Health grants as a multiple-principal investigator or coinvestigator, investigating well-being and/or gender development in children and adolescents, and youth/young adults with intersex variations (also referred to with alternative terminology, such as Differences of Sex Development or Variations of Sex Traits). Dr. Tishelman coauthored a clinical report for the American Academy of Pediatrics, which was published in Pediatrics, on fertility and sexual function counseling for at-risk pediatric patients. She was selected by the World Professional Association of Transgender Health to be the international leader in developing new global standards of care for prepubescent children, and by the American Psychological Association to co-chair a national task force on DSD. Dr. Tishelman is on several journal editorial boards and speaks and publishes frequently in her areas of expertise. Dr. Tishelman has also served as an expert witness in lawsuits where she has provided testimony on transgender youth and variations in sex traits. She received her Ph.D. from West Virginia University.

Kathryn Whetten, Ph.D., is professor of public policy and global health at Duke University. They are also director of the Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research, codirector of Duke’s Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) Wellness Program, and the research director of the Hart Fellows Program. As co-lead of the SGM Wellness Program, they work with clinician researchers to understand variations in gender-related laboratory test results when the patient is transgender or nonbinary. As a health policy and

population health researcher, Dr. Whetten has devoted the majority of their research, practice, and training career to understanding how life-course events influence beliefs and behaviors that can put one at risk for HIV and other infectious and chronic diseases, and how these factors influence interactions with health care providers. They examine U.S. and international policies that influence access to health and other care services, including Medicaid and Medicare. The combination of being a health policy expert and population health scientist allows Dr. Whetten a unique view into how national and state-level policies influence health care reception and wellbeing of those who receive, or could receive, these services. As such, they have worked with legislators in both North Carolina and Washington, DC, to provide evidence-based research and findings to inform and change policies, such as eligibility for Medicaid and for Ryan White funds and services. The vast majority of Dr. Whetten’s work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Sexual and Gender Minority Research Office. They previously served on the Institute of Medicine committee dedicated to reviewing the impact and future of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Dr. Whetten received their Ph.D. in health policy and administration and population health sciences from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Selma Feldman Witchel, M.D., is tenured professor emerita of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She chairs the Differences in Sex Development Committee and is immediate past program director for the pediatric endocrinology fellowship training program at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Dr. Witchel is primarily interested in the physiology and genetics of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axes. Her research elucidated the concept of the “manifesting heterozygote” in patients with disorders of steroidogenesis, and her interests extend to the care of patients with variations in sex development and polycystic ovary syndrome and to health care for gender diverse youth. She participates in studies regarding fertility preservation in these patient groups. Dr. Witchel participated the 2018 publication of the International Evidence-Based Guideline for the Assessment and Management of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, and she contributed to the 2023 update of these evidence-based guidelines. She is past chair of the Pediatric Endocrine Society Education subcommittee; she served as co-chair of the 50th-year anniversary annual meeting of the Pediatric Endocrine Society and was elected to its board of directors in 2022. Dr. Witchel is an active member of the Endocrine Society Annual Meeting Steering Committee. She served as the Clinical Program Chair for the 2024 Endocrine Society Annual Meeting. She is also a member of the American Academy

of Pediatrics. Dr. Witchel is currently an Associate Editor for the Journal of the Endocrine Society and past president of the Androgen Excess-Polycystic Ovary Society. She has published more than 200 articles, reviews, and chapters. Dr. Witchel received her B.A. from Oberlin College and M.D. at the University of Pittsburgh, graduating as a member of Alpha Omega Alpha. She completed her pediatric residency at the Children’s Hospital Medical Center, University of Cincinnati, and her pediatric endocrinology fellowship at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh.

Nancy Fugate Woods, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, is emerita professor of nursing at the University of Washington. She has served as an educator and researcher in women’s symptom science and as a leader of initiatives in women’s health, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Advisory Committee on Women’s Health. Dr. Woods led the development of the first NIH-funded Center for Women’s Health Research, established at the University of Washington in 1989. She has conducted NIH-funded research on menstrual cycle–related symptoms, the menopausal transition, and older women’s health since the 1970s. Dr. Woods led the Seattle Midlife Women’s Health Study, a longitudinal study of the menopausal transition, with up to 25 years of follow-up. Her early efforts focusing on sex and gender included publication of the text Human Sexuality in Health and Illness to ensure that health professionals caring for patients were adequately informed about current research about sexuality (1975); she has continued this effort by editing textbooks about women’s health, such as Women’s Health Care in Advanced Practice Nursing. Dr. Woods was elected to the American Academy of Nursing in 1980 and the National Academy of Medicine in 1993 and was awarded the Trailblazer Award by the U.S. Public Health Service. She has served on National Academy of Medicine committees on the health consequences of Gulf War service and environmental health in women. Dr. Woods received her Ph.D. in epidemiology and public health from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

STUDY CONSULTANTS

Patricia M. Owens, M.P.A., is senior disability expert for the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). She has more than 30 years of experience in health- and disability-related programs and policy, and has held executive, policy development, and administrative positions in both the public and private disability sectors. Her experience serves as the basis for in-depth understanding of the multidimensional and interactive nature of health and disability in terms of social policy and risk management. Ms. Owens has consulted with both private- and public-sector organizations on health and disability issues, programs, and products. In addition

to GAO, she has consulted for the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Veterans Health Administration, the Urban Institute, the National Academy of Social Insurance (board member), and the Rutgers Disability Income Studies. She helped UNUM, UK (an insurance company in Great Britain) launch a study of the cost of disability in 2000–2001. Ms. Owens is a member of the board of directors of Village Care of New York, a multimillion-dollar AIDS treatment network and community nursing and rehabilitation services provider for persons with impairment. She was a member of the National Research Council/Institute of Medicine Committee on Veterans’ Compensation for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Ms. Owens serves on the National Academy of Medicine Standing Committee of Medical and Vocational Experts for SSA’s Disability Programs. She earned an M.P.A. from the University of Missouri.

David Wittenburg, Ph.D., is director of health research at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. An expert in interventions to promote employment for people with disabilities, particularly interventions that serve youth as they transition into adulthood, Dr. Wittenburg has two decades of experience in evaluation design and program evaluation for several federal agencies. He leads business development activities related to disability projects and recently worked in senior leadership roles on three Social Security Administration demonstration projects, helping to design and implement experimental and nonexperimental approaches to assess the efficacy of return-to-work interventions for people with disabilities. Dr. Wittenburg, who joined Mathematica in 2005, presents his findings to diverse research and policy audiences, including in congressional testimony, conference presentations, reports, and journal publications. He edited two special journal volumes on employment topics related to people with disabilities for the IZA Journal of Labor Policy and the Journal of Disability Policy Studies. A member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and formerly a senior associate at the Urban Institute and the Lewin Group, Dr. Wittenburg holds a Ph.D. in economics from Syracuse University.