The Importance and Challenges of Disseminating Accurate Information

Max Gomez, PhD

One of TV’s most respected medical journalists, Dr. Max Gomez has produced award-winning health and science segments for network stations in New York and Philadelphia. Dr. Max has reported for “Dateline,” “The Today Show” and “48 Hours.” He is currently the senior medical correspondent for WCBS, the flagship CBS network station in New York. Over nearly four decades, he’s earned nine Emmy® Awards, three New York State Broadcasters Association awards and UPI’s Best Documentary award. Dr. Gomez has served on the national board of directors for the American Heart Association, the Princeton Alumni Weekly, and Partnership for After School Education. He co-authored three books and received an honors AB degree from Princeton University, a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine and was U.S. National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow at Rockefeller University.

Margaret A. “Peggy” Hamburg, MD

Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg is an internationally recognized leader in public health and medicine. Dr. Hamburg just completed her term as Foreign Secretary of the National Academy of Medicine, where she served as senior advisor on international matters and liaison with other Academies of Medicine around the world. She is also the immediate past Chair/President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest scientific membership organization. Dr. Hamburg is a former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where she was known for advancing regulatory science, modernizing regulatory pathways, and globalization of the agency. She currently sits on a number of Boards, including the Lasker Foundation, Commonwealth Fund, the Simons Foundation, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Global Alliance for Vaccines among others. Dr. Hamburg is widely published and has received numerous awards and honorary degrees.

Eric Rubin, MD, PhD

Dr. Eric Rubin joined the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and NEJM Group as editor-in-chief in September 2019 and took on the responsibility for oversight of all editorial content and policies. Dr. Rubin is an associate physician specializing in infectious disease at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is the chair and Irene Heinz Given Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His research focuses on tuberculosis (TB), its pathogenesis, and interventions that can help treat and prevent the disease. Dr. Rubin serves on several scientific advisory boards to groups interested in infectious disease therapeutics, among them the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, the Structure-Guided Drug Development Consortium, and the Sub-Saharan African Network for TB/HIV Research Excellence at the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for TB-HIV.

Michelle A. Williams, ScD

Dr. Michelle A. Williams is Dean of the Faculty, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Angelopoulos Professor in Public Health and International Development, a joint faculty appointment at the Harvard Chan School and Harvard Kennedy School. She is an internationally renowned epidemiologist and public health scientist, an award-winning educator, and a widely recognized academic leader. Prior to becoming Dean, she was Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard Chan School and Program Leader of the Population Health and Health Disparities Research Programs at Harvard’s Clinical and Translational Sciences Center. Dean Williams previously had a distinguished career at the University of Washington School of Public Health. Her scientific work places special emphasis in the areas of reproductive, perinatal, pediatric, and molecular epidemiology. Dean Williams has published over 450 scientific articles. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2016. The Dean has a master’s in civil engineering from Tufts University and master’s and doctoral degrees in epidemiology from the Harvard Chan School.