OUR PEOPLE
Here are the members of Health Care For All NC’s Board of Directors, including the officers. We are all committed to working towards securing a universal, single-payer health program in the United States within our lifetimes.
EXECUTIVE COMITTEE
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Dr. Howard Eisenson, a 1982 graduate of the Duke Family Medicine Residency Program, has worked in various areas of family medicine since graduating, such as in private practice, as the director of student health at Duke University, and as the director of Duke’s Diet and Fitness Center. Currently, he serves as chief medical officer at Lincoln Community Health Center (LCHC) in Durham, N.C., where he provides cost-effective, high-quality behavioral health and primary care to Durham’s low-income population.
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Dr. Greene earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Medical Technology from Wake Forest University and her Doctor of Medicine and Master of Public Health degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She completed her residency training in Obstetrics and Gynecology at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. She is a member of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and is certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. In January 2011, Governor Beverly Perdue appointed Dr. Greene to the North Carolina Medical Board. She was reappointed to the board by Governor Pat McCrory and became board President in 2016.
Dr. Greene believes strongly in supporting the health of her community and speaks to groups in the Piedmont Triad region and the state about health-related matters. She is active in sounding the voice of physicians supporting affordable, quality health care for all and feels that Medicare for All, or universal, single payor healthcare coverage is the best way to achieve these goals.
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Demetria S. Turner, M.B.A., M.A. is a graduate of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Appalachian State University and University of North Carolina-Pembroke with degrees in Supply Chain Management, Higher Education and Business Administration, respectively. Ms.Turner has worked in Insurance, Supply Chain Management, Non-Profit and Higher Education sectors. In the nonprofit sector, Ms. Turner has spent several years focusing on grant writing, program implementation, financial and nonprofit management, development of communication and media strategies and board governance. She has a passion for education, supply chain management, student success, mentoring young women and volunteering with the Girl Scouts of America.
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Will Cox is a full-time labor organizer with National Nurses United/National Nurses Organizing Committee. For more than 20 years, Will worked as a radiology tech at one of North Carolina’s largest community medical centers while also instructing domestic violence prevention programs at a local nonprofit. Before entering healthcare, Will managed a homeless shelter and organized protests against cuts to anti-poverty programs during the Reagan administration. As a small child, Will was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes which informed his belief that every person has a right to healthcare. It is his experience that fundamental rights such as health care have only been won through collective struggle.
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Conny Morrison is currently a Hospice and Palliative Medicine fellow. She is originally from Hillsborough, NC. She completed her undergraduate degree at Amherst College, attended medical school at the UNC School of Medicine, and completed her Internal Medicine residency at UNC in 2023. She hopes to be a dual general internist and palliative care physician at a safety net hospital in North Carolina. She is passionate about health equity, universal healthcare, refugee health, and climate justice, among other issues. She helped found the UNC SOM chapter of Students for a National Health Program and serves on the board of Healthcare for All NC as the Recording Secretary.
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Amina Sesay is the corresponding secretary and a public health professional with several years of experience enrolling North Carolinians in health insurance through the marketplace, coordinating projects, creating content for social media and managing platforms, and providing 1 on 1 implementation support to organizations across the U.S.
Her experience as a health insurance navigator ignited her passion for a single payer healthcare system. She is an avid believer that everyone should have access to affordable and quality health insurance.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
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Kaitlyn Granda has been interested in affordable healthcare for all for many years. Her journey as a healthcare provider began at the Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center for Women in Philadelphia in 1988 where she volunteered and was later hired to provide health education about birth control options, sexually transmitted disease prevention and treatment as well as options counseling to women with unintended pregnancies. In 1990, she was hired by Planned Parenthood, working in Philadelphia and then eventually in Chapel Hill/Durham, NC, until she entered the Physician Assistant Program at Thomas Jefferson University in the fall of 1998. Ms Granda has worked for Duke University/Lincoln Community Health Center since 2004, providing preventive medicine and chronic disease management to Durham families. Two years ago, she joined the Just for Us Program, now includes home visits to homebound seniors. She is motivated to serve through a deep seeded belief that healthcare is a right not a privilege. Kaitlyn is committed to meeting patients where they are, creatively confronting barriers to care and working with and for institutions that care for underinsured and vulnerable populations.
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Dr. Jonathan Kotch is a physician specializing both in Pediatrics and Preventive Medicine. After 38 years on the faculty of the Department of Maternal and Child Health, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, he retired in June 2016. He is the author of numerous scientific papers and is the editor of the leading textbook in Maternal and Child Health, now in its third edition.
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Beau Blass is a medical student in the Primary Care Leadership Track at Duke. He is originally from Berwick, PA and recently completed his Master’s in Public Health at UNC-Chapel Hill. Beau is passionate about community empowerment, health equity, and primary care. After medical school, he plans to pursue a career in internal medicine and public health.
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Lucy Cummins is a medical student at the Duke University School of Medicine on the Primary Care Leadership Track. Before that, she earned her Bachelor’s in Public Health, Anthropology, and Biology at the University of Richmond. After medical school, she plans to pursue training as a psychiatrist. Lucy is passionate about equitable access to all forms of healthcare for all people, especially primary care and mental healthcare.
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Bendu is currently a second year PA student at Duke. She is dedicated to ensuring that all people have access to holistic, high-quality, affordable healthcare.
She aspires to work in a primary care/integrated mental health setting as a PA providing care to underserved populations and plans to continue volunteerism.
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Dr. George Jackson has been a physician for 55 years since graduation from Case Western Reserve. His work on health promotion in Nicaragua during medical school fixed his path in preventive medicine (general and occupational/environmental). It also provided the opportunity, after internal medicine residency, to serve his military obligation in the Epidemic Intelligence Service, stationed in New York city to study the epidemic of substance abuse. During the next 40 years at Duke School of Medicine he developed and directed a comprehensive occupational health service for the University workforce and a division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine in the medical school.
In addition to promoting healthcare for the workforce of Duke University Jackson has been an advocate of health services for all as a pillar of a progressive society. He began his association with health service provision at the beginning of Medicare/Medicaid that not only altered the availability of health care for millions but also initiated the transition of medical education and training away from using “charity” cases as persons on whom medical students practiced.
Recently retired from Duke, Jackson intends to continue to support organizations representing progressive change in healthcare exploring means to enhance political support.
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Rebecca Cerese is a social justice activist, award-winning documentary filmmaker and a passionate healthcare advocate. As the first ever Health Engagement Coordinator at the NC Justice Center, Rebecca collects stories about people who are uninsured in order to push for policy changes. She is also the co-lead of Healthcare For All, Y'all, and one of the founding members of the NC Medicare For All Coalition, and is excited to be a board member of Health Care For All NC.
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Dr. Peter Kussin was born and raised in New York City where he attended public schools. He graduated from Columbia College in 1972 and then did graduate studies in Special Education at Bank Street College of Education in New York. Dr. Kussin worked as a special educator and then teacher in charge of a program for emotionally handicapped children in East Harlem for eight years. In 1980, in a significant change of career, Dr. Kussin entered Mt. Sinai School of Medicine and graduated in 1985. He then moved to Durham NC where he did his residency in internal medicine and completed a fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. Dr. Kussin joined the Pulmonary and Critical Care Division in 1989 and has remained on the faculty, rising to the rank of Professor. Throughout his working life, Dr. Kussin has focused on care and advocacy for underserved populations in his native New York, in North Carolina and in his Global Health work. He is a passionate and vocal supporter of a single payer national health program.
STAFF
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Kaeden Lutz is a Program Assistant at Health Care for All NC from Charlotte, NC. She earned a BFA in Communications Design with a focus in Graphic Design at Pratt Institute.
FACULTY ADVISORS
DUKE SNaP
Perri Morgan, PhD, MEd, PA-C
UNC SNaP
Jonathan Kotch, MD, MPH
STUDENT LIASONS
DUKE SNaP
Zoe Wohlgenant
Matthew Smith
Jen Hall
Ian Halliday
UNC SNaP
Michael Maizel
Mitchell Kent
Sai Rachakonda
IN MEMORIAM
Gary Greenberg, MD
Miriam Thompson, MSW, M.Ed
Charles van der Horst, MD
Susan Eder, MD
Dr. Carol Kirschenbaum