Paul N. Van de Water
Chair
Paul 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.
Josephine Kalipeni
Vice Chair
Born 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
Treasurer
Merrill 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.
Tracey Gronniger
Secretary
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.
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.
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.
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.
Tricia Neuman
Tricia Neuman is senior vice president of KFF and executive director of its Program on Medicare Policy. She oversees KFF’s policy analysis and research pertaining to Medicare, and health coverage and care for aging Americans and people with disabilities. A widely cited Medicare policy expert, Dr. Neuman focuses on topics such as the health and economic security of older adults; the role of Medicare Advantage plans, Medicare and out-of-pocket spending trends; prescription drug costs, payment and delivery system reforms; and policy options to strengthen Medicare for the future. She has written numerous papers pertaining to Medicare, has been invited several times to present expert testimony before Congressional committees, and has appeared and been quoted as an independent expert by major national media outlets. Dr. Neuman was nominated by President Biden in 2022 to serve as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Medicare, Social Security, and Disability Insurance Trust Funds.
Chad Bolt
Chad Bolt is Senior Vice President for Economic Security at First Focus on Children. He has more than 17 years experience in public policy, both on Capitol Hill and in the non-profit sector. His career has focused on building economic opportunity for children and families through better tax and social insurance policy. Prior to joining First Focus on Children, Chad was a Legislative Assistant to Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH). Handling tax, Social Security, and pension policy, he staffed the Senator on several pieces of legislation that were enacted into law. This included the Social Security Fairness Act, which restored full Social Security benefits for 2.3 million public servants impacted by the former Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset; the Butch Lewis Act, which rescued the pensions and retirement security of one million union workers and retirees; and the American Rescue Plan, which temporarily expanded the Child Tax Credit, cutting chid poverty nearly in half in 2021. As Staff Director of the Finance Committee’s Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy Subcommittee, Chad spearheaded efforts in Congress to reform the Supplemental Security Income program for the first time in four decades. Following the first Congressional hearing on the program in 20 years, he staffed Sen. Brown on the development and introduction of the bipartisan SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act, which would finally raise SSI’s asset limit for the 7 million adults and 1 million children who rely on SSI.
Katherine Hempstead
Katherine Hempstead is a Senior Policy Adviser at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She primarily works on health care issues, mostly those related to health insurance, costs, and access to care. Before joining the Foundation, Katherine worked in New Jersey state government, where she was the Director of the Center for Health Statistics. She received a PhD in Demography and History from the University of Pennsylvania.
Joshua McCabe
Joshua McCabe is the Director of Social Policy at the Niskanen Center. He focuses on issues related to child poverty and household stability. McCabe previously worked as an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Assistant Dean for Social Sciences at Endicott College. McCabe’s work has been featured in the Washington Post, the National Review, the Hill, Newsweek, and more.
Bob Blancato
Bob Blancato is the President of Matz, Blancato and Associates. In that capacity, he also serves as the National Coordinator of the bipartisan 3000-member Elder Justice Coalition, the Executive Director of the National Association of Nutrition and Aging Services Programs and National Coordinator of the Defeat Malnutrition Today coalition. Bob has long been recognized as a national advocate with policy expertise on behalf of older adults. In 2019, he was invited by both the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee to testify on a range of issues. Bob’s prior work history includes 17 years as a staffer in Congress and an appointment by President Clinton to be the Executive Director of the 1995 White House Conference on Aging, one of four he has participated in. He is a member of the Senior Executive Service. As a volunteer, he currently serves on the National Board of AARP and the board of the National Hispanic Council on Aging. In 2019, Bob began a four-year term on the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services, appointed by HHS Secretary Azar.
Stuart Butler
Stuart Butler is a scholar in residence in Economic Studies at The Brookings Institution. Prior to joining Brookings, Butler spent 35 years at The Heritage Foundation as director of the Center for Policy Innovation and earlier as Vice President for Domestic and Economic Policy Studies. He is also a visiting fellow at the Convergence Center for Policy Resolution. Butler is a member of the editorial board of Health Affairs and the board of Briya Public Charter School in the Washington, D.C.-area. He also serves on several advisory councils, including for the Peterson Center on Healthcare. He served as a member of the Advisory Group for the Culture of Health Program and as member of the Board on Health Care Services of the National Academy of Medicine. He also served on the panel of health advisers for the Congressional Budget Office, and on the board of Mary’s Center, a community clinic system. For over 10 years he was an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy and in 2002 he was an Institute of Politics Fellow at Harvard University.