Isaac M. Machado (Chair), Juris Doctor (JD), is an attorney with Epstein, Lipsey & Clifford and manages the firm’s Somerville office. Machado had previously served as the deputy chief counsel for the Massachusetts Highway Department in Boston and was an adjunct professor at Wentworth Institute of Technology.

Machado graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and earned his JD at Seton Hall University School of Law. Machado serves as a board member and immediate past president of the Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers (MAPS), secretary and board member of the Cambridge Portuguese Credit Union, trustee of the Cambridge Health Alliance, and an election commissioner for the City of Somerville.

Steven S. Manos (Vice-Chair) is the former executive vice president of Tufts University. Prior to Tufts, Manos was assistant executive director of the American Bar Association in Chicago and senior administrator of the department of psychiatry of New York Hospital–Cornell University Medical Center in New York City. He also worked as director of management systems for the district attorney of New York County, CEO of the Manhattan Bowery Project, and as a corporate attorney on Wall Street. Since retiring from Tufts University in 2007, Manos has volunteered in the Massachusetts district courts and has served as a trustee of the Cambridge Health Alliance.

Manos holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Minnesota, his Juris Doctor (JD) from New York University School of Law, and a Master of Public Administration from New York University Graduate School of Public Administration. In 2008, Tufts University awarded Manos with an honorary Doctor of Business Administration degree.

Christina Severin is the president of Network Health. She leads our organization’s strategic direction, manages our bottom line, and has overseen our dramatic growth since Massachusetts’ 2006 historic health care reform legislation. Prior to becoming president, Severin served as vice president and chief operating officer (COO) and as director of quality. Previously, Severin served as director of managed care and practice management for Health Services Partnership, practice manager at Codman Square Health Center, and director of community health center services at Boston City Hospital. She has taught classes in health care administration at Tufts Health Care Institute (in collaboration with the World Health Organization) and Boston University’s School of Public Health.

Severin holds a Master of Public Health with a Health Services Concentration from Boston University School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Economy from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Mary Cassesso serves as the dean for administration and finance at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. Responsible for the school’s strategic planning, she has been instrumental in stabilizing its financial position and reaffirming its commitment to discovery. Prior to her position at Harvard, Cassesso served as an assistant cabinet secretary for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ affordable housing program, as deputy director of the Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership, and as city auditor for the city of Somerville.

Cassesso received the Harvard Medical School’s Dean’s Leadership Award for the Advancement of Women in 2005 and the Diversity Award in 2000. She has served as chair and co-chair for the Harvard Medical School/Harvard School of Dental Medicine Joint Council on the Status of Women, and as chair of Cambridge Health Alliance’s board of trustees and managing trustee of the Somerville Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

Cassesso holds a Bachelor of Science with honors and a Master of Public Administration from Northeastern University.

Francis H. Duehay is a three-time mayor of the city of Cambridge and has served numerous nonprofit organizations in the community. He is currently a director of Cambridge Community Foundation, a corporator of Cambridge Homes, and a member of Cambridge Health Alliance’s board of trustees. Duehay has also served as an assistant dean and lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, director of the Lincoln Filene Center at Tufts University, and fellow of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Duehay is a graduate of the Cambridge public school system and holds three degrees from Harvard University.

John Freedman is a principal at Freedman HealthCare, where he advises clients on strategic performance measurement and improvement. He has 20 years of experience in performance measurement and improvement, provider evaluation, performance incentives, and managed care, and has worked with hospitals, providers, and health plans on quality improvement. Freedman has held multiple leadership roles at nationally recognized organizations, including Kaiser Permanente, Tufts Health Plan, and Massachusetts Health Quality Partners. While at Tufts Health Plan, he utilized innovative efforts in provider profiling, pay-for-performance (P4P), tiered network products, public reporting, disease management, and member outreach programs to help the plan achieve a #2 National Committe for Quality Assurance (NCQA) ranking nationwide. He also received a 2004 Innovator's Award from America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) for creating Navigator, a value-based tiered network insurance product. Freedman also practiced internal medicine and geriatrics for 10 years.

Freedman holds a Bachelor of Arts in biology from Harvard University, a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master of Business Administration with a Health Systems focus from the University of Louisville.

Dennis Keefe is Cambridge Health Alliance’s chief executive officer and has more than 30 years of experience in health care settings, including academic teaching facilities and community hospitals. In addition to his role as CEO, Keefe also has experience as a chief operating officer and chief financial officer, and has served as the city of Cambridge’s Commissioner of Public Health since 2002. Keefe is a member of the Healthcare Financial Management Association, the American College of Healthcare Executives, and the HealthCare Management Association. Additionally, he serves on the executive committee of the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems, on the board of the National Public Health and Hospital Institute (NPHHI), and is an officer of the Massachusetts Hospital Association (MHA).

Keefe is a graduate of the health sciences program at Northeastern University, where he was a Dean’s Citation Award recipient. He also holds a Master of Business Administration, with a Health Care Administration focus from Northeastern University.

Carol VanDuesen Lukas is senior investigator and member of the executive team at the Center for Organization, Leadership, and Management Research in the Health Services Research and Development Service of the Department of Veteran Affairs, as well as a clinical associate professor of health policy and management at the Boston University School of Public Health. She leads Boston University’s Safety Net ACTION Partnership, a coalition of researchers and health care service delivery systems that participates in the Agency for Healthcare for Research and Quality’s initiative, Accelerating Change and Transformation in Organizations and Networks. She has also served as assistant commissioner at both the Massachusetts Department of Medical Security and the Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare, and currently serves on the board of trustees of Cambridge Health Alliance.

VanDuesen Lukas holds a Doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Master in Social Psychology from the University of Wisconsin.

George “Russ” Moran is the senior vice president of business development at ProVentive, Inc. He brings more than 30 years of leadership experience in the health care industry, concentrating on network strategy, management of provider contracting, services, operations, and information systems. Prior to ProVentive, Inc., Moran served as executive director of Private Health Care Systems (PHCS), executive director of Tufts Health Plan, and executive director/CEO of Elder Services of Merrimack Valley. Moran also serves as an adjunct faculty member at Northeastern University and has taught graduate and undergraduate courses for Merrimack College, the University of Lowell, and New Hampshire College. He has served as board member and chairman of the planning board for the Town of Andover, and as business advisor to W3Health, Inc. and athenahealth.

Moran holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from St. Anselm College and a Master of Public Administration from the University of New Hampshire, where he received the Alumni Award of Merit in 2001.