Passionate. Unique. Loyal. Resilient. These words are commonly used to describe Sharron S. Rouse. Sharron is an experienced leader with a demonstrated history of working in the education and nonprofit industries. She is skilled in program coordination, leadership, community outreach, and curriculum development. Sharron is a strong educational professional with an Administrator certification focused in Educational Leadership and Administration.
A native of the Washington, DC Metropolitan area, she has dedicated her life to influencing the world as a kidney disease, dialysis, and now transplant survivor. Sharron actively shares her story to bring hope and healing to anyone facing difficult circumstances in life. To expand the scope of her reach, Sharron founded Kindness for Kidneys International, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating, encouraging, and empowering kidney warriors and their families. Sharron lives in Maryland with her husband Shawn and daughter Kyla.
Keisha L. Gibson, MD, is Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics and Chief of Pediatric Nephrology in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also the Vice Chair of Diversity and Inclusion for the Department of Medicine. Dr. Gibson received her medical degree and Masters of Public Health degree in epidemiology from UNC Chapel Hill. She completed a residency in general pediatrics at MUSC in Charleston and fellowship in pediatric nephrology from UNC Chapel Hill. She is board certified in pediatrics and pediatric nephrology. Her research and clinical interests focus on lupus nephritis and other glomerular diseases. In the area of epidemiology, she is interested in ethnic and socioeconomic disparities and their effect on patient outcomes. She has been involved as a co-investigator with large consortium studies such as the Nephrotic Syndrome Network Study (Neptune Study) and the Cure Glomerulonephropathy Network (Cure GN Study). Within the ASN, Dr. Gibson has served in several capacities. She has served as a member of the American Society of Nephrology’s Program Committee and worked as a founding member of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She has been a Cabinet Member for the ASN Foundation Campaign and served on the ASN Glomerular Disease Advisory Group. As an ASN Treks mentor, she provides mentoring for students and residents interested in potential nephrology careers and research.
While going through Northwestern University’s dual MD/PhD program, Bilal Naved wondered why the questions they were being trained to ask patients couldn’t be encoded into more automated, digital systems. Even though medical knowledge is available widely on the internet, navigating it is still difficult, often requiring a medical degree. As a clinical engineer, Bilal is motivated to solve problems that optimize healthcare delivery. The virtual triage systems that he co-created at Clearstep have been deployed in 13+ states to navigate millions of patients. These systems are trusted by blue chip companies (CVS Health, HCA), local health systems (BayCare, Wellforce, Novant), a large multi-specialty provider group (Duly), and the largest population health management organization (Medecision).
Bilal’s work landed him and his co-founder, Adeel Malik, on Crain’s Chicago 20 Businessmen in Their 20’s list for 2020 and Forbes Next 1000. They have been featured in major press outlets including Forbes, Crain’s Chicago Business, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, MATTER, and Becker’s Hospital Review for their contributions to healthcare, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bilal is supported by the NIH’s NIDDK to innovate machine learning technologies and tissue engineering approaches for treating kidney disease. He is an active member of the NIDDK’s (Re)Building-A-Kidney consortium, has co-authored a textbook in Wiley’s Advanced Materials for Stem Cell Research. and has made peer-reviewed contributions to the fields of renal stem cell biology, regenerative material engineering, and transplant surgery among others.
Kevin Longino has been Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Kidney Foundation since 2015. He first became involved with the organization in 2008 as a volunteer advocate, and in 2012 he joined the national Board of Directors. As CEO, Kevin leads a team headquartered in New York, NY, and field offices around the country. NKF is supported by thousands of volunteers nationwide and serves millions of patients and healthcare providers seeking support and education every year.
Before his tenure at NKF, Kevin held executive positions at Compaq Computer Corporation. from 1987-2000. After his own diagnosis with kidney disease, he became an entrepreneur, an angel investor, and mentor to several startup technology companies, including the successful start-up ClearFactr. Kevin served on the Board of Directors for Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores, Inc. and was member of its Audit Committee and Special Committee.
In 2004, Kevin received a life-saving kidney transplant after at-home peritoneal dialysis and is now 17 years “kidney strong”. He readily shares his story and uses his experience to help other kidney disease patients.
Kevin earned a post-graduate diploma in Financial Strategy from Oxford University, England. He holds a BS in Marketing and MBA from Louisiana Tech University. He lives in Greenwich, CT, with his wife.
Jonathan Politzki is a senior at the University of Illinois studying engineering and finance. Growing up, his grandfather suffered from CKD and this left a lasting impression on him. His passion for healthcare and solving problems led him to work in healthcare M&A with SVB Leerink and to ultimately found Nephra, a startup focused on providing peace of mind for patients with CKD. Nephra is an early-stage med-tech startup that is developing predictive, non-invasive electrolyte monitoring software that can be utilized to alert dialysis patients and their physicians about abnormal electrolyte values so that emergency dialysis sessions or appropriate medication intervention can be initiated before it’s too late. By increasing the rate of monitoring of these key electrolytes from once a month to once a day, Nephra will play a vital role in working to reduce cardiac-related mortality for dialysis patients but is also pioneering personalized care and wellness-oriented technology in the dialysis field. Jonathan has also founded an algorithmic trading fund called Quant, which is now partnered with Meta, Robinhood, DE Shaw, and Citadel.
Chet Alan Bennett aka Chef Bennet; Licensed Cosmetologist; School Owner; Salon Owner; Radio Host; Conference Host; Instructor; Motivational Speaker; Author; Executive Producer; and Founder of a non-profit. These are some of the many titles that Mr. Chet A. Bennett has held over the years while being a successful businessman. He is a proud graduate of Morehouse College with a BA in Religion and a Master’s Degree in Educational Administration and Supervision from Howard University. From holding contracts for the Correctional Corporation of America and the DC Department of Corrections, to coordinating conferences, producing the documentary, “Don’t Put Down the Clippers,” writing the book “My Business is the Beauty Business,” and owning 6 salons, two daycare centers, and a beauty school, Mr. Bennett has achieved great heights in all his endeavors. Although he has held a strong role in the beauty industry for over 29 years, C. Alan Bennett has been cooking and catering since 1992.
It wasn’t until he received a kidney transplant that he decided to spend the rest of his life dedicated to the culinary industry. He created The C. Alan Foundation to not only bring awareness to the kidney disease community, but to educate the community on how to create a healthy lifestyle. Under the foundation, The Kidney Kafe’ with Chef Benne’, and the Kidney Conversations Talk Show was created. C. Alan has become a sought-after caterer at the Bennett Career Institute, The Kidney Kafe Pop-ups; a personal Chef; an inspiring Chef host on a progressive cooking show that airs on The Urban Television Network; his YouTube channel, and his website kidney-kafe.com.
He is now partnering with Access Housing Inc., a Southeast DC Veteran’s Service Center catering meals for the homeless, and is set to air his cooking show this spring on DCTV. He also has a book about a healthy eating lifestyle coming out in April “From the Ground to the Gut.” Chef Benne’ started the Kidney Kafe Garden in Washington DC’s most economically challenged community growing spices and sustainable food for the local area. There is much more to come from C. Alan Bennett, as his impact in the culinary community has just begun.
Sathya Elumalai is a healthcare executive with over 15 years of experience working with payers, providers, pharmaceuticals, and patients. At Aidar Health, Inc., Mr. Elumalai has developed a revolutionary tricorder-style health assessment device, MouthLab, which measures 10+ health parameters in 30 seconds, and an AI-enabled enterprise platform, which leverages data science and AI technology, to create a new kind of personalized experience for people with chronic conditions.
In addition to his efforts at Aidar, Mr. Elumalai also serves as an Advisory Board Member at George Washington University, Scientific Merit Reviewer at the National Science Foundation, Executive Member of Forbes Business Council, and an Ambassador & Merit Reviewer at the Patient-Centered Outcome Research Institute.
Mr. Elumalai holds a dual master’s degree, a Master’s in Public Health, and an MBA in Healthcare Management, from the prestigious Johns Hopkins University. He is also a certified professional in healthcare quality and safety with over 10 years of diverse leadership experience at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute.
Mr. Elumalai is a proven leader recognized for building scalable processes, integrating analytics into decision making, improving customer satisfaction, and driving large-scale digital transformations in healthcare.
After spending most of her career as a project manager and management consultant, Shireen decided to change paths and pursue her passion to become a “nutri-prenuer.” While managing her own illness, she realized the importance of cultural nutrition education paired with an empowering, patient-centered care model to close gaps in health equity for minorities. Her startup is called Yumlish, creating an AI-powered, culturally relevant nutrition therapy platform for minorities with diabetes that addresses socioeconomic barriers to dietary adherence.
Dr. Minnie Sarwal is a key opinion leader in clinical and translational research that focuses on native organ diseases and organ transplantation. She was Principal Investigator of the parent R01 grant (R01DK109720) entitled “CD40 Autoantibody and FSGS Recurrence.” Her training and decades-long contribution to clinical and basic science stemmed from her career both at Stanford University, where she was Medical Director of the Pediatric Kidney Transplant Program, and at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), where she is Co-Director of the Kidney-Pancreas Transplant Program and Director of the Precision Transplant Medicine program.
Minnie is also Co-Director of the T32 training grant in Transplant Surgery. Her research has focused on mechanisms and biomarkers for understanding renal transplant injury, and on improving diagnosis and therapies for renal diseases such as diabetes, IgA, and FSGS, with a primary focus on improving diagnostics for solid organ and bone marrow transplantation. To interrogate biological systems, her lab is using multi-omic assays and bioinformatics. Her lab has published in high impact journals such as the NEJM, PNAS, Nature Medicine, Nature Methods, Journal of Immunology, Journal of Experimental Methods, PLOS Medicine, and Science Translational Medicine.