Board of Directors

Board Chair

Barry S. Rabner recently retired as President and CEO of Penn Medicine Princeton Health, a not-for-profit member of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and includes Princeton Medical Center and entities which provide behavioral health, rehabilitation and home care services. Penn Medicine Princeton Health also operates fitness and wellness, surgical, endoscopy, imaging, clinical lab and behavioral health outpatient centers. PMPH has 401 beds, 3,500 employees, has a medical staff of 1300 physicians and 45 residents through an academic affiliation with Rutgers Medical School. The annual operating budget is approximately $600 million and the organization... read more

Chair Emeritus

Rosalyn Cama, FASID, EDAC

CAMA President + Founding Partner, New Haven, CT

Rosalyn Cama, FASID, NCIDQ, EDAC is President and Principal Interior Designer of CAMA in New Haven, Connecticut. CAMA, Inc. is a health design studio and lab that has spearheaded the evidence-based design movement. CAMA’s mission focuses on designing a better LIFE INDOORS where all can thrive and flourish. Contracted primarily by health providers, manufacturers, and architectural consultants, CAMA leads large multidisciplinary teams through the evidence-based design process, empowering clients to make informed decisions that impact the delivery of quality care by reinforcing an organization’s unique missionand values. Rosalyn has been a practicing healthcare designer for over 30 years... read more

President

Debra J. Levin, Hon FASID, EDAC

President and Chief Executive Officer

dlevin@healthdesign.org

Debra’s trailblazing efforts in the field of healthcare facility design research, education and advocacy have propelled The Center for Health Design (CHD) into industry consciousness and the forefront of healthcare design. Under Debra’s leadership, our flagship research initiative, the Pebble Project, has gained international recognition and grown from four participants to more than 80. Debra led the creation of the annual Healthcare Design Expo & Conference and the Environments for Aging Expo & Conference, which are produced by Emerald Expositions, in association with CHD. She has forged successful partnerships with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Institute for Healthcare... read more

Directors

Frederick A. Hessler

Retired Managing Director, Health Care Group, Citigroup, New York, NY

Fred Hessler is a retired Managing Director of Citigroup where he headed its Health Care Group for the not-for-profit sector from 1990 through 2013. He was a senior banker and advisor to many of the most prestigious and highly rated multi-dimensional organizations in the country including health providers and insurers. Fred oversaw strategic advisory, mergers & acquisitions, and banking services to health systems, free-standing hospitals, physician groups, managed care plans and related ancillary companies. He is one of the founders of the nationally recognized AHA/HFMA/Citigroup Healthcare Investor Conference. Fred is currently a member of the Board of Directors of PierianDx and... read more

Thomas M. Jung, M.Arch.

Retired

Tom Jung worked for over 30 years in the healthcare design field, with a primary focus on regulatory compliance and coordination for the New York State Department of Health’s Certificate of Need Program, Tom served in director positions for 16 of those years while overseeing the review and approval of more than $2 billion dollars of new projects annually. He is a founding member of The Center for Health Design’s Environmental Standards Council, and attributes that first and ongoing experience as a major influence on the nature of his communication with the designers and providers seeking state licensure. Tom has also been intimately involved with development of the Guidelines for Design and... read more

Avein Saaty-Tafoya, EDAC

Principal, AST Consulting

Avein Saaty-Tafoya, the 2014 Changemaker Award recipient, is an inspirational leader with 27 years of healthcare experience in primary care, public health, hospitals and health plans, advocating healthcare equality for all. Her mission is to improve the health of the underserved through the patient experience and by addressing the social determinants of health. While President & CEO of Adelante Healthcare for over 13 years, a Federally Qualified Community Health Center in the Greater Phoenix area, she completed several Pebble ambulatory projects including the first LEED Platinum community health center in the nation in Mesa, AZ in 2012. She became EDAC certified and co-chaired the... read more

Frank Weinberg, M.S.

Board Member

Frank has spent over 40 years in the healthcare sector in positions ranging from supporting a wide array of diagnostic and therapeutic technology to the executive oversight of master facilities planning and development activities. For the past 15 years, he has been actively involved in evaluating and promoting the role of the built environment in healthcare, including being a board member (executive director) of the Coalition for Health Environments Research and co-chair of The Center for Health Design’s Research Coalition. In addition to the pursuit of bringing evidence-based practice to hospital design and construction, Frank has worked to increase the awareness and response... read more

Advisory Board

Janet Campbell

Vice President, R&D Relations, Epic

Janet Campbell is a software developer and Vice President of R&D Relations at Epic. In her twenty years at Epic, Janet has led the creation and development of several products: Stork Obstetrics module, Lucy personal health record, MyChart Bedside patient-facing portal for hospitalized patients, and MyChart Care Companion, a personalized wellness assistant. Prior to her current position, she was responsible for Epic’s Patient Experience strategy, which has now reached 160M patients worldwide. She represents Epic in national conversations on interoperability, usability, meaningful use, and patient engagement. She serves as Chair of the of the Electronic Health Record Association’s Social... read more

Paul Cleary

CEO & President, Momentum Textiles & Wallcovering

Paul Cleary is the CEO & President of Momentum Textiles and Wallcoverings. Momentum is recognized as a leader in curated and performance interior products for healthcare, hospitality, and workplace segments. Before Momentum, he was SVP for Healthcare & Senior Living at Mohawk Industries but has also been a CEO/President for Lexmark, Tarkett Hospitality, and Twitchell Fabrics. Born and raised in Ireland with a Business Management degree from Trinity College Dublin and a marketing degree from Technical University Dublin, Paul is now based out of Momentum’s corporate headquarters in Irvine, California. He has been involved in the commercial interiors industry for over 30 years,... read more

Vikram Dendi

General Manager/Chief Product Officer, Microsoft Healthcare/NExT

For nearly two decades, Vikram has worked at interesting intersections - either that existed or more importantly, that needed to be established. These include bringing together foundational research capabilities, cutting edge technology development, design centered product development, empathetic and innovation oriented culture and an appreciation for analog thinking ethos. In that process, Vikram led and contributed to many inventive products and initiatives - harnessing your immune system for early detection of diseases, advanced AI capabilities and their applications like real-time speech translation, developing smart phones and location based services, open source media frameworks and... read more

Susan Dentzer

President and Chief Executive Officer, America's Physician Groups

Susan Dentzer is the President and Chief Executive Officer of America’s Physician Groups, the organization of more than 335 physician practices that provide patient-centered, coordinated, and integrated care for patients while being accountable for cost and quality. APG members provide care to nearly 90 million patients nationwide. Dentzer is a highly respected health and health policy thought leaders and a frequent speaker and commentator and an author of commentaries and analyses in print publications such as Modern Healthcare, NEJM (New England Journal of Medicine)-Catalyst, and the Annals of Internal Medicine. She was also the editor and lead author of the book Health Care Without Walls... read more

Sean Hughes

Vice President Design of CGI

“Successful design is driven by a deep understanding of people—what do they need, what do they want and what do they desire? Our global design efforts are driven by the challenge to answer this apparently simple question and it’s how we deliver innovation to Philips. Solutions that respond to the needs of the patient, the caregiver, the clinician and the administrator are what we strive for. Ease of use, efficiency in workflow and seamless interoperability are the goals we set for ourselves.” As Vice President of Philips Design, Sean leads the global Design Consulting practice; this team is tasked with developing a broad range of solutions for healthcare providers merging products,... read more

Andrew M. Ibrahim, MD, MSc

Vice Chair for Health Services Research, Department of Surgery, University of Michigan

Andrew M. Ibrahim MD, MSc is the Maud T. Lane Research Professor of Surgery, Architecture & Urban Planning and Vice Chair for Health Services Research in the Department of Surgery at the University of Michigan. He also serves Chief Medical Officer and Senior Principal at the global design and architecture firm, HOK. He completed his undergraduate and medical degrees both with Honors at Case Western Reserve University with a year of coursework at University College London and The Bartlett School of Architecture. His research at the interface of healthcare delivery, surgery and architecture is supported by >$10million of extramural funding including R01s from AHRQ and the NIH. In 2023... read more

Hamila Kownacki, RN, MSHA

Chief Executive Officer, Sutter Health California Pacific Medical Center

Hamila Kownacki, RN, serves as CEO of Sutter Health California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC). Prior to becoming CEO in 2023, Kownacki served more than two decades at CMPC – most recently as the medical center’s Chief Operating Officer. Kownacki brings extensive clinical, administrative, and strategic experience to her role at CEO. In addition to her responsibility for operations and outpatient services at CPMC’s three hospital campuses, she has also driven many of the organization’s adult tertiary and quaternary programs and held a variety of leadership positions at CPMC and Sutter Health. Previously, she served as Strategy & Planning Managing Director at Kaiser Permanente. Kownacki has... read more

Vijay Kumar, MS

Professor Emeritus, Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute of Design

vijay@id.iit.edu

Vijay led the Strategic Design Planning and the Design Methods programs (www.id.iit.edu). For more than 12 years he was the chief methodologist at Doblin Inc. (now a member of Deloitte) a leading global innovation firm based in Chicago (www.doblin.com). In the late eighties, Vijay pioneered the early developments in design thinking and spearheaded its widespread growth through powerful processes, methods, and frameworks. He has taught, published, lectured, and consulted throughout the world about how to use structured methods, tools, and frameworks for conceiving reliable human-centered innovations and turning them into strategic ... read more

Dr. Roger Landry

Preventive Medicine Physician, Author

Dr. Roger Landry is a preventive medicine physician, author of award-winning Live Long, Die Short: A Guide to Authentic Health and Successful Aging and President of Masterpiece Living, a group of multi-discipline specialists in aging who partner with communities to assist them in becoming destinations for continued growth. Trained at Tufts University School of Medicine and Harvard University School of Public Health, Dr. Landry specializes in building environments that empower older adults to maximize their unique potential. His book, Live Long, Die Short has been endorsed by AARP, is a 2014 Living Now Book Award Gold Medal Winner and was a 2014 Top Pick in MORE magazine. He is... read more

Mickey McManus

Senior Advisor and Leadership Coach, BCG

Mickey McManus is a senior advisor and leadership coach at BCG and research fellow emeritus at Autodesk’s Office of the CTO. He is a pioneer in pervasive computing, collaborative innovation, human-centered design and education. Mickey holds ten patents in the area of connected products, vehicles and services. He was the president, CEO, and chairman of MAYA Design, a design consultancy and innovation lab. During Mickey’s tenure as CEO at MAYA the company won numerous Consumer Electronic Association (CEA) awards for product innovation, was selected multiple times as a top 20 “best small company to work for” in America by Fortune, Inc, and Entrepreneur magazines and spun-out, launched... read more

Clayton (Mitch) Mitchell, PE, CEM

Executive Consultant, Clayton Mitchell + Partners LLC

Clayton "Mitch" Mitchell is an accomplished Executive Consultant and Corporate Real Estate Executive with a distinguished three-decade career. He's a visionary leader known for optimizing corporate value through executive real estate and facilities expertise, marked by a relentless commitment to excellence, sound vision, and team empowerment. Mitch's multifaceted background spans real estate, facilities, public safety, operations, and sustainability, earning him a respected industry authority status. His specialties include real estate strategy, transformative leadership, healthcare infrastructure, and change management. Mitch transformed real estate, facilities, and public safety at Thomas... read more

Don Orndoff

Retired Senior Vice President, National Facilities Services, Kaiser Permanente

Don Orndoff served as senior vice president of National Facilities Services at Kaiser Permanente, one of America’s leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans, with an annual operating revenue of $85 billion. Often referred to as the model for the future of health care, Kaiser Permanente serves more than 12 million members. Founded in 1945, Kaiser Permanente pioneered the integrated delivery model, which, through a partnership between the health plan, hospitals, and Permanente medical groups, delivers high quality, coordinated care to members. This coordinated care delivery model enables sharp focus on prevention and affordable health care through the use of... read more

Gwen Sandlin

Senior Director, Healthcare Segmented Sales, Mohawk Group

Gwen Sandlin is the Senior Director, Healthcare Segmented Sales for the Mohawk Group. Gwen graduated from Middle Tennessee State University with a degree in Interior Design. From the start, Gwen’s passion has always been healthcare. She held a design position with one of the largest privately held senior living companies and has many years of design experience with one of the top healthcare architectural design firms designing for the largest for-profit healthcare company in the US, all while raising a family in Nashville, TN. After many years of design, Gwen transitioned to the world of interior product sales, her experience as an owner’s representative and a healthcare design... read more

Jim Stelter

Leader, Steelcase Learning, Smith System, Steelcase Health and Steelcase Small and Medium Business

Jim’s vision, enthusiasm and ability to build solid, lasting relationships are part of what make him an excellent Leader for Steelcase Learning, Smith System, Steelcase Health and Steelcase Small and Medium Business. He doesn’t just see a chair or a table — he imagines the user's experience, because he really believes the right products can make a meaningful difference in lives and learning outcomes. Jim began his 26-year career at Steelcase in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He progressed in leadership positions throughout the United States experiencing business in diverse areas of the country. These experiences led to senior leadership positions at... read more

Lynne Sterrett

National Managing Principal – Life Sciences and Health Care Industry

Lynne Sterrett leads Deloitte’s National Life Sciences and Health Care Consulting practice, a $2B business that brings the Future of Health to our clients. With 25+ years of consulting experience, she has successfully delivered client-focused, executable transformation strategies in the provider and health plan vertical. Her clinician background is a key differentiator working alongside provider, health plan and life science clients with a multitude of next generation technologies including: AI/Cognitive, Cloud migration business plans, and human experience digital offerings. Lynne has served as the lead client relationship partner for a Bay Area platinum account, where she brought to life... read more

Director Emeritus

D. Kirk Hamilton, PhD, EDAC, FCCM, Emeritus FAIA & FACHA

Professor Emeritus, Texas A&M University, Founding Co-Editor, Health Environments Research & Design (HERD)

Kirk is the Julie & Craig Beale Endowed Professor of Health Facility Design at Texas A&M University where he has taught healthcare design at the graduate level since 2004. His academic research is about the relationship of evidence-based health facility design to measurable organizational performance. His five-year professional Bachelor of Architecture is from the University of Texas in Austin. His Master’s Degree in Organization Development is from Pepperdine University, and he completed a PhD in Nursing & Healthcare Innovation at Arizona State University, studying nurse movement patterns and interaction with objects in the ICU patient room. A Fellow of the American... read more

Jain Malkin, CID, AAHID, EDAC

Evidence-Based Design Consultant, La Jolla, CA

Jain Malkin, is an evidence-based design consultant in La Jolla, California, specializing in healthcare facilities. A leader in the field of healthcare design, Malkin has lectured widely and written numerous articles on the psychological effects of healthcare environments. She is a former instructor at Harvard University in the Graduate School of Design and is often a keynote speaker at conferences on topics relating to research-based design and creating optimal patient experiences. Jain is the author of Hospital Interior Architecture and Medical and Dental Space Planning: A Comprehensive Guide to Design, Equipment, and Clinical Procedures, both published by John Wiley & Sons and... read more

Roger S. Ulrich, Ph.D., EDAC

Professor, Department of Architecture and Centre for Healthcare Architecture, Chalmers University of Technology

Dr. Ulrich is Professor of Architecture at the Center for Healthcare Building Research at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, and is adjunct professor of architecture at Aalborg University in Denmark. He is the most frequently cited researcher internationally in evidence-based healthcare design. The recipient of many awards, his work has directly impacted the design of billions of dollars of hospital construction, and improved the health outcomes and safety of patients around the world. His recent work has dealt with subjects as varied as the effects of single versus multi-bed patient rooms on infection transmission, the negative impacts of hospital noise on patients and nurses,... read more

Derek Parker, FAIA, RIBA, FACHA *

Board Member, Vice Chair Laguna Honda Hospital

Derek Parker is an internationally recognized expert in the design of healthcare and research facilities, having designed and planned more than 50 major hospitals and bio-medical facilities in 15 countries. He has received more than 75 awards for his work and published numerous papers and given many presentations on healthcare design worldwide. Derek is currently a board member and vice-chair for the Laguna Honda Hospital; a board member for Marin General Hospital; co-founder and chair for The Medicapower Corporation; senior advisor for Aditazz; and a member of the Scientific Committee for the International Academy of Design and Health in Stockholm. He is also a founding editorial board... read more

Robin Orr, MPH

President, The Robin Orr Group, Santa Barbara, CA

Robin Orr is President of The Robin Orr Group, a Santa Barbara, California based consulting firm providing services to healthcare systems, providers, architects, interior designers and manufacturers. She was one of the pioneers of The Planetree Organization, an internationally acclaimed consumer healthcare organization known for its humanistic, patient-oriented approach to healthcare delivery and consumer access to health information. For 12 years Robin was the Executive Director and National Director of Hospital Projects responsible for developing the Planetree Model of Patient-Family Centered Care. Ms Orr has been a hospital administrator and continuing champion of consumer and patient... read more