Paul N. Van de Water
ChairPaul N. Van de Water is a Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. He was Vice President for Health Policy at the National Academy of Social Insurance from 2005 through 2008. Previously, he served as Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Policy at the Social Security Administration (SSA), Associate Commissioner for Research, Evaluation and Statistics at SSA, and Assistant Director for Budget Analysis at the Congressional Budget Office. Mr. Van de Water has written extensively on Social Security, Medicare, and governmental finance and has testified before several Congressional committees. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, he has edited several Academy publications.
Josie Kalipeni
Vice ChairBorn in Malawi, Josephine Kalipeni has seen inequities in one of the poorest countries in the world and in one of the richest. As a social worker, she saw firsthand the systemic challenges families experienced. As a result, she’s committed to transforming systems and policies, including dismantling racism and toxic narratives of individualism, scarcity and “the deserving.” Kalipeni is also committed to fighting the devaluation of care and caregiving, and believes that everyone has dignity and should be able to thrive on their own terms. She leads with the belief that those most impacted by the problems are closest to the solutions, and has worked in policy advocacy, organizing, and strategy development for two decades centering those most marginalized. She is a connector that catches a vision and executes it. Prior to her current position, Kalipeni was the Director of Policy and Partnerships at Caring Across Generations and has worked in advocacy, organizing, and policy research for 15 years. In her roles at Caring Across Generations, InnerChange, and Rock the Red Pump, Kalipeni advocated for and developed policy to achieve health equity and gender and racial justice. Through grassroots legislative campaigns and policy research, she formulated key policy components in direct service of low-income families on Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and unemployment insurance, helping them to navigate public services and health care.
Other previous positions include advocacy and policy work at Families USA, the Illinois Campaign for Better Health Care, and the Illinois NAACP among others. Kalipeni has written several policy papers, including “A Framework for State Solutions” and “The American Care Landscape: Challenges and Solutions for the 21st Century” which were recently published in the Public Policy and Aging Report journal. Josie Kalipeni received her M.A. in social justice and community development from Loyola University-Chicago. She has been a Member of the Academy since 2018.
Merrill Alisa Friedman
TreasurerMerrill Alisa Friedman is Regional Vice President of Inclusive Policy & Advocacy, at Elevance Health, where she leads the strategic planning of advocacy, collaborations, and development of alliances. In this role she informs public policy and health plan approaches for people with disabilities, older adults, children, youth, and young adults in foster care and individuals who are justice-involved, along with drivers of health strategies. She leads a team that engages advocates, families, policy decision-makers, community-based organizations, and providers to inform and design person-centered health care and support services. Ms. Friedman and her team work to ensure that the diverse needs of older adults and people with disabilities are addressed in managed care programs. She also leads the National Advisory Board on Improving Healthcare Services for Older Adults and People with Disabilities (NAB), comprised of distinguished and culturally diverse community advocates, health care experts, and academics who provide guidance and policy recommendations for transforming health care access and long term services and supports.
Friedman led the development of a foster care agency in Michigan (2005-2007), where she had wide-ranging duties, including management and leadership, guidance of clinical and social support services, operations, fundraising, board development, and marketing collaterals. She owned and operated a residential treatment program for at-risk and adjudicated youth (2000-2005) and prior to that she spent many years in direct care, administration and development of programs supporting children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbance and at-risk youth.
Friedman has served on numerous national boards and commissions. She was appointed by President Barack Obama to the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities and by Governor Jennifer Granholm to the MI Statewide Independent Living Council where she also served as Board Chair. Currently, Friedman serves on the board of directors for Rebuilding Together and is a member of the Advancing States MLTSS Institute Advisory Board. Friedman became a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance in 2017. She has a bachelor of arts degree in psychology from Towson State University.
Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin
SecretaryDouglas J. Holtz-Eakin is President of the American Action Forum. During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, he served as John McCain’s Policy Director. Prior to these positions, Dr. Holtz-Eakin served as a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, where he worked on issues of globalization and healthcare policy. From 2003 to 2005, he served as the Director of the Congressional Budget Office. A former senior staff economist for George H.W.Bush and a Senior Economic Advisor for George W. Bush, Dr. Holtz-Eakin is the recipient of the 2006 Morris and Edna Zale Award for Outstanding Achievement in Policy Research and Public Service. In addition to his public service, Dr. Holtz-Eakin has held several appointments at Columbia University, Princeton University and Syracuse University. A member of the National Academy of Social Insurance since 2008, Dr. Holtz-Eakin holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University.
Harry J. Conaway
Harry J. Conaway is Executive Director of Policy Futures Network, an organization working to bring together diverse experts and thought leaders, research, and perspectives to develop alternative, coherent visions of future US retirement, financial security, health and other policy frameworks. From 2015 to early 2018, Conaway was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). Previously (1989-2015), Conaway worked on employee benefits, health, and retirement issues at Mercer, where he was a senior partner and head of Mercer’s Washington Resource Group, which included nearly 55 lawyers, actuaries, accounting experts, librarians, researchers, knowledge managers, and IT/systems professionals. He worked at the Office of Tax Policy in the U.S. Treasury Department from 1983-1988 on US retirement, health, and other employee benefit legislation and regulations. Conaway was also an associate in the law firm of Miller & Chevalier (1980-1983), where he focused on employer-sponsored retirement, health, and other employee benefit programs. Since 2016, Conaway has been a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans. He has a J.D. from The George Washington University Law School (1980) and a Master’s Degree in South Asian Regional Studies from the University of Pennsylvania (1977).
Cecilia A. Conrad
Cecilia A. Conrad is CEO of Lever for Change and a Managing Director at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In addition to her role at Lever for Change, Dr. Conrad oversees the MacArthur Fellows program and MacArthur’s 100&Change. Before joining the Foundation in January 2013, she had a distinguished career as both a professor and an administrator at Pomona College, Claremont, CA. She joined the economics faculty at Pomona College in 1995. She served as Associate Dean of the College (2004-2007), as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College (2009-2012), and as Acting President (Fall 2012). From 2007-2009, she was interim Vice President and Dean of the Faculty at Scripps College. As Associate Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Pomona, Conrad championed the College’s summer undergraduate research program and expanded it to the arts and humanities, led conversations regarding the value and assessment of a liberal arts college education, nurtured collaborations between the arts and the sciences, and worked with academic departments to improve the campus climate for diversity. Her work has appeared in both academic journals and nonacademic publications including The American Prospect and Black Enterprise. In 2002, she was recognized as California’s Carnegie Professor of the Year, a prestigious national award that recognizes faculty members for their achievement as undergraduate professors. Before joining the faculty at Pomona College, Conrad served on the faculties of Barnard College and Duke University. She was also an economist at the Federal Trade Commission and a visiting scholar at The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. Conrad was the director of the American Economic Association’s (AEA’s) Committee on the Status Minority Groups in the Economics Profession (CSMGEP)’s mentoring program. She is a past president of the National Economic Association and of the International Association for Feminist Economics. She serves on the Board of Trustees of Bryn Mawr College and the Poetry Foundation and has been a Member of the National Academy of Social Insurance since 2006. Conrad received her B.A. from Wellesley College and her Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.
Robert Espinoza
Robert Espinoza is the Chief Executive Officer at the National Skills Coalition, which fights for state and federal policies that promote inclusive, high-quality skills training so that more people have access to a better life and more local businesses see sustained growth. In addition, Robert serves as a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and sits on the board of directors for the National Academy of Social Insurance, the FrameWorks Institute, and the American Society on Aging, where he holds the position of Chair Elect. In 2020, Robert was selected for the inaugural CARE100 list, recognizing him as one of the most forward-thinking individuals reshaping the landscape of caregiving in America, and as one of Next Avenue’s 2020 Influencers in Aging. Since 2023, he has hosted A Question of Care, a widely syndicated podcast exploring the many challenges facing our country’s caregiving system.
Jason J. Fichtner
Senior FellowJason J. Fichtner is Executive Director of the Retirement Income Institute, Alliance for Lifetime Income. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center and on the Board of Directors for the FINRA Investor Education Foundation and the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI). Fichtner is a Member of the Puerto Rico Pension Reserve Trust, where he serves on both the Pension Benefits Council and the Pension Reserve Board.
His areas of expertise focus on Social Security, federal tax policy, federal budget policy, retirement security, and policy proposals to increase saving and investment.
Fichtner has significant government experience, having served in several positions at the Social Security Administration, including as Deputy Commissioner of Social Security (acting), Chief Economist, and Associate Commissioner for Retirement Policy. He also served as a senior economist with the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress and as an economist with the Internal Revenue Service. He has held teaching positions at Johns Hopkins University – School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Georgetown University and Virginia Tech.
He has testified on numerous occasions before the United States Congress and his work has been featured in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Investor’s Business Daily, the Los Angeles Times, the Atlantic, the USA Today, and other major media outlets, as well as on broadcasts by C-SPAN, PBS, NBC, NPR, and SiriusXM.
Fichtner earned his BA from the University of Michigan; his MPP from Georgetown University; and his PhD from Virginia Tech.
Fichtner is the author of “The Hidden Cost of Federal Tax Policy” and the editor of “The Economics of Medicaid.”
Connie Garner
Connie Garner is President and CEO of Garner Public Policy Strategies and serves as the Executive Director at Allies for Independence. She brings decades of legislative and public policy expertise across a range of social insurance issues to the Academy’s Board. She is well known for her leadership and advocacy within the disability community, including 17 years as Policy Director for Disability and Special Populations on the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), working under Senators Kennedy, Dodd, and Harkin. She has significantly contributed to a wide array of important legislation, including the CLASS Act; the Mental Health Parity Act of 2008; the 2006 and 2009 reauthorization of the $2 billion Ryan White CARE Act; the Family Opportunity Act of 2006; the 2005 reauthorization of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA); and the 1999 Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act. In addition, at the U.S. Department of Education, Garner served as Director of the Federal Interagency Coordinating Council for Children with Disabilities and as the Secretary of Education’s principal liaison on interagency health care matters.
Tracey Gronniger
Tracey Gronniger is the Managing Director for Justice in Aging’s Economic Security team and is based in the Washington, DC office. She spent nearly ten years as a senior staff attorney at the Federal Trade Commission, in its Bureau of Consumer Protection. While there, she litigated a variety of cases to halt fraudulent and deceptive marketing practices, including actions to stop fake Medicare schemes, government grant scams, and phony business opportunities. She also coordinated the Bureau’s Legal Services Collaboration and Every Community Initiative, which seek to ensure that the agency meets the consumer protection needs of underserved and at risk consumers, including older Americans. In that role she worked with a wide range of legal services organizations and community advocates to identify and address pressing consumer protection issues, and to respond to their needs for relevant training, information, and resources. Tracey received her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and graduated from Harvard University. State Bar Admission: California and Maryland.
Bradley Hardy
Bradley Hardy serves as a Distinguished Professor in the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University; a nonresident senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution; and is a research affiliate of the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty, the Columbia University Center on Poverty and Social Policy, the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research, and the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis. Hardy’s research looks at intra- and inter-generational economic outcomes across three overlapping themes: income and consumption volatility among low-income families, analysis of U.S. income transfer policies and programs for low-income families, and the role of race and place as determinants of economic and policy outcomes. Hardy is also a member of the American Economic Association Committee on Economic Statistics and coeditor of Contemporary Economic Policy.
Aparna Mathur
Aparna Mathur is a Senior Manager in Economics at Amazon. She previously served as a Senior Economist at the Council of Economic Advisers. Prior to joining CEA, she was a resident scholar in economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. She received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2005, and is currently serving on the University of Maryland Economics Leadership Council. At AEI, she directed the AEI-Brookings Project on Paid Family and Medical Leave, for which she was recognized in the Politico 50 list for 2017. Her research has focused on income inequality and mobility, tax policy, labor markets and small businesses. She has published in several top scholarly journals, testified several times before Congress and published numerous articles in the popular press on issues of policy relevance. She has been an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. Mathur became a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance in 2017.
Alaine Perry
Alaine Perry has an extensive background in income security, including Social Security, SSI, and TANF; disability policy; and health policy, particularly Medicare, Medicaid, and long term services and supports. Her most recent position was with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, where she served as a senior advisor on disability and special needs populations and on agency-wide strategic planning. Before moving to CMS, she was a Professional Staff Member for the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security, where she was responsible for legislation and oversight related to the Social Security Disability program and SSA’s administrative budget. She has also worked for the Social Security Administration, where she helped to implement the Ticket to Work Act, as a detailee to the Senate Finance Committee and then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and as a disability advocate. She is a former co-chair of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) Social Security Task Force and was a leading advocate in the development and passage of the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999. A Member of the National Academy of Social Insurance since 2007, Alaine Perry received her B.A. in English Literature from the University of California at Santa Cruz and her M.P.H. in Health Policy and Management from the University of California at Berkeley. She is currently retired and living in Charlottesville, VA.
Earl R. Pomeroy
Earl R. Pomeroy served for 18 years as a member in the U.S. House of Representatives including 10 years on the Committee on Ways and Means. He continues to work with clients on health care, retirement and employee benefit issues as an attorney with Alston & Bird LLP. Since he first arrived in the U.S. Congress, Mr. Pomeroy, who received Social Security survivor benefits as a youth, worked to become to known as one of the House of Representatives most effective champions and staunchest defenders of Social Security. He was appointed to Co-Chair of the House Democratic Social Security Task Force where he worked closely with Robert Ball as Social Security reforms were discussed during the Clinton Administration and he introduced legislation based on a model plan developed in conjunction with Mr. Ball. As a member of the Social Security Subcommittee of Ways & Means, Mr. Pomeroy played a lead role in opposing the creation of private accounts in Social Security in 2005 and 2006. During that time Mr. Pomeroy also started to champion the cause of Social Security Disability beneficiaries waiting for excessive periods of time in order to have a hearing before ALJ. In 2010 Mr. Pomeroy assumed the role of the Chairman of the Social Security Subcommittee. His priorities as Chairman included finding ways to reduce the backlog of Social Security Disability claims, ensuring the program was serving beneficiaries as effectively as possible and protecting the privacy of beneficiaries. Mr. Pomeroy’s professional background also includes 8 years a North Dakota’s Insurance Commissioner regulating employee benefit, workers compensation, and health insurance plans. During that time he was elected President of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners by his fellow regulators. For 8 terms he was the only member of the U.S. House to have served as an Insurance Commissioner. A National Academy of Social Insurance member since 2012, Mr. Pomeroy received his JD from the University of North Dakota.
John E. Slatery
John E. Slatery is the director of worker benefits at the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). He assists in coordinating research on broad benefit policy issues and other activities related to a multitude of benefit programs sponsored, negotiated, or administered by the AFT, including public and private sector health and pension plans, single employer, internal and voluntary member benefit plans. Prior to joining the AFT, he was director of the benefits department at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), he served the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) in the negotiated benefits department and was a Taft-Hartley health insurance underwriter with the Union Labor Life Insurance Company in Washington, D.C. Slatery currently represents the AFT as a trustee on a collectively bargained AFT 401(k) plan and was previously an IBT trustee on the jointly administered IBT-UPS National 401(k) Plan and assisted in administering a multiemployer 401k plan. He was the executive director of four IBT Trust Funds, including a Voluntary Employee Benefit Trust (VEBA), which sponsored various member benefit programs including a Medicare Part D plan with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Slatery aided in managing the Joint Labor Management Committee (JLMC) of the Retail Industry mainly related to benefits policy and education. He is currently active in the AFL-CIO Health Care Task Force. Slatery maintains a designation, CEBS, (Certified Employee Benefit Specialist, co-sponsored with the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the IFEBP) and serves on the CEBS Committee within the International Foundation of the Employee Benefit Plans (IFEBP) which influenced the course curriculum, marketing, and operations of the CEBS program. He is a Board member of the IFEBP and was recently elected Secretary of the IFEBP Executive Committee for 2024 overseeing the operations and serving as a fiduciary on the staff employee benefit plans. Slatery also helped create an annual Trustee Education program at the IBT covering benefit administration/bargaining and Capital Strategies, a role he is continuing at the AFT. He has been a frequent speaker at IFEBP, AFT and other conferences mainly pertaining to the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and legislation on health and retirement reform. Slatery earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania.
Debra Whitman
Debra Whitman is the Executive Vice President of Policy, Strategy and International Affairs at AARP. She formerly served as the Staff Director on the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. Prior to that, Debra was the Specialist in the Economics of Aging at the Congressional Research Service where she also directed CRS’s Aging Initiative. In this capacity she provided members of Congress and their staff with research and advice regarding the economic impacts of current policies affecting older Americans as well as the distributional and intergenerational effects of legislative proposals. Additionally, Debra worked at the Social Security Administration where she conducted research on savings and retirement, helped to establish the Retirement Research Consortium and served as the founding Editor of the Perspectives section of the Social Security Bulletin. She has also served for two years as a Brookings LEGIS Fellow to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where she worked on health policy for Senator Edward M. Kennedy. A member of the National Academy of Social Insurance since 2006, Whitman holds a Masters and Doctorate in economics from Syracuse University.