#MasterLab 2015 – Dr. Kenneth Moritsugu

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The closing keynote for #MasterLab 2015 was done by Dr. Kenneth Moritsugu. He is the former Vice President for Global Professional Education and Strategic Relations for Johnson & Johnson’s Diabetes Solutions Companies and former Worldwide Chairman of the J&J Diabetes Institutes, a global initiative to provide awareness and training in state-of-the-art science, information, and technology relevant to diabetes prevention, awareness, diagnosis, and treatment. Since its inception, JJDI has provided training and education to over 10,000 health care professionals world-wide to help improve the care and the health of people with diabetes. Dr. Moritsugu served as a career officer in the United States Public Health Service for 37 years, served as Deputy Surgeon General from 1998 to 2007, and twice held the office of our nation’s doctor, serving in 2002 and 2006 as acting Surgeon General of the United States. He’s a devoted husband and father, a person with diabetes, and an active participant in the nonprofit space, serving on the Board of Diabetes Hands Foundation and as chair of the Board of Children With Diabetes.

#MasterLab is a day of advocacy held in conjunction with CWD’s Friend For Life conference in Orlando, Florida every summer. If you’re interested in joining us next summer visit: http://www.diabetesadvocates.org/MasterLab

#MasterLab 2015 – Kim Vlasnik

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Kim Vlasnik is a diabetes rockstar. She is adored in the patient community for her humor, her strength, and her genuine voice. She is known for her widely-read blog Texting My Pancreas, for her clever cartoon artwork, and, since 2011, for the You Can Do This Project – a movement born from an idea that people with diabetes could benefit from the encouragement of our peers. In 2012 and 2014, Kim was selected as an ePatient Scholar at Stanford’s Medicine X Conference. Her powerful 2014 ePatient ignite! Talk at MedX has garnered over 6,000 views on YouTube and is one of the most candid and moving talks on diabetes available on video.

#MasterLab is a day of advocacy held in conjunction with CWD’s Friend For Life conference in Orlando, Florida every summer. If you’re interested in joining us next summer visit: http://www.diabetesadvocates.org/MasterLab

#MasterLab 2015 – Melissa Schooley

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Melissa Schooley serves as one of Medtronic’s senior lobbyists, leading their legislative and corporate strategy. Managing their federal diabetes advocacy, she works closely with the Medtronic diabetes business unit to ensure customers have access to their latest therapy innovations, and collaborates with diabetes stakeholders and advocates on legislative and administrative solutions. Currently, she’s engaged in efforts to expand access to continuous glucose monitoring therapy. Melissa has over 15 years of lobbying experience, ranging from a Fortune 500 government affairs office supporting commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid markets, to serving in the US Senate as a Law Clerk on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight.

#MasterLab is a day of advocacy held in conjunction with CWD’s Friend For Life conference in Orlando, Florida every summer. If you’re interested in joining us next summer visit: http://www.diabetesadvocates.org/MasterLab

#MasterLab 2015 – Andrew Zebrak

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As Executive Director, Government Affairs and Public Policy at Boehringer Ingelheim, Andrew Zebrak’s job is to analyze complex federal and state legislative and regulatory policy and translate it into actionable strategy for the business he serves. Issues of access, reimbursement, coverage – the issues that so many of our grassroots advocates have but a cursory understanding of – these are the topics of his trade at the highest intersections of government and industry. Prior to joining BI almost ten years ago, Andrew consulted with leading pharma and Fortune 500 companies on federal healthcare legislation, regulations, and government programs. In this talk, he lends us his expert analysis as we consider our opportunities to act more locally.

#MasterLab is a day of advocacy held in conjunction with CWD’s Friend For Life conference in Orlando, Florida every summer. If you’re interested in joining us next summer visit: http://www.diabetesadvocates.org/MasterLab

#MasterLab 2015 – Emily Coles

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For the last four years Emily Coles has served Diabetes Hands Foundation as our program manager, and now as Head of Communities, leading the day-to-day operations of our two online communities TuDiabetes.org and EsTuDiabetes.org. Emily is known in our community for her warmth, honesty and grace as well as her talent as a professional ballroom dancer and dance instructor.

Emily was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 3 and has a background in public health and holds degrees in Biology and Epidemiology. She is committed to outreach and actively fundraises for causes related to AIDS, women’s health, and diabetes, having recently ridden her bike from San Francisco to Los Angeles in the AIDS Lifecycle ride to raise money and awareness for HIV/AIDS.

#MasterLab is a day of advocacy held in conjunction with CWD’s Friend For Life conference in Orlando, Florida every summer. If you’re interested in joining us next summer visit: http://www.diabetesadvocates.org/MasterLab

#MasterLab 2015 – Thomas Lee

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The signal to noise ratio in social media is a topic that deserves a lot of attention. The cacophony of voices in the space can be deafening and ineffectual. Fortunately for us, we have Thomas Lee. He is co-founder of Symplur and The Healthcare Hashtag Project and self-proclaimed “curious by nature” analyst. He knows how to separate the wheat from the chaff.

His current passion is the role that social media plays in the evolving healthcare landscape and in the emerging field of healthcare social media analytics. Sifting through the millions of diabetes-related tweets they have captured, his unique insights into how we are advocating in the digital space – and why we should even be concerned with social media – will help us avoid mistakes and use these platforms more intelligently. #MasterLab. #Diabetes. #Advocacy. #GiveItUpForThomasLee.

#MasterLab is a day of advocacy held in conjunction with CWD’s Friend For Life conference in Orlando, Florida every summer. If you’re interested in joining us next summer visit: http://www.diabetesadvocates.org/MasterLab

#MasterLab 2015 – Amy O’Connor

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Amy O’Connor is a health care advocacy leader with tremendous vision and insight about how we leverage the digital space. As Senior Director of Digital and Social Media Communications at Eli Lilly & Company, Amy developed the LillyPad blog, one of the highest quality blogs in the diabetes industry. She also leads the corporate social media strategy with such a clear vision that she revolutionized how the company defines itself online. She is an expert in public policy and she knows social media platforms you haven’t even heard of yet. This is a woman who speaks in 140 character soundbites!

#MasterLab is a day of advocacy held in conjunction with CWD’s Friend For Life conference in Orlando, Florida every summer. If you’re interested in joining us next summer visit: http://www.diabetesadvocates.org/MasterLab

#MasterLab 2015 – Marina Tsaplina

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Marina Tsaplina is a puppeteer, clown and kinesthetic performing artist whose mission of helping us all achieve “joyful health” led to the founding of a unique group, The Betes Organization. They seek to understand the meanings of chronic conditions in our lives through unique, playful, and un-scary methods. This talk comes from an engaging storyteller, a crusader of inner demons, and a person living a complex relationship with her ‘Betes.

#MasterLab is a day of advocacy held in conjunction with CWD’s Friend For Life conference in Orlando, Florida every summer. If you’re interested in joining us next summer visit: http://www.diabetesadvocates.org/MasterLab

#MasterLab 2015 – Stacey Simms

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Stacey Simms is an award-winning broadcaster and speaker, most recently working as the Healthy Living Reporter for Time Warner Cable News Charlotte. For more than a decade, she hosted Charlotte’s Morning News on WBT-AM. She has been named by the Charlotte Business Journal’s Forty under 40, as well as by the Mecklenberg Times as one of their 50 Most Influential Women in Mecklenburg COunty. She is the mom of a child with type 1 diabetes and has blogged in our community since 2007. Her latest endeavor is a new podcast called Diabetes Connections, which has already seen interviews with #ShowMeYourPump Sierra Sandison, Bigfroot Biomedical’s Jeffrey Brewer, and author and advocate Kerri Sparling.

#MasterLab is a day of advocacy held in conjunction with CWD’s Friend For Life conference in Orlando, Florida every summer. If you’re interested in joining us next summer visit: http://www.diabetesadvocates.org/MasterLab

#MasterLab 2015 – Tom Boyer

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Tom Boyer is the Director of Government Affairs at Novo Nordisk but that doesn’t begin to convey the personality and experience he shares in this talk. He is a person with type 1 diabetes, a classic rock aficionado, and has over 25 years experience in advocacy, communications, and government relations. He has authored over 10 federal and 65 state laws and watched many signed into action by heads of state. When Tom speaks, you will always learn something.

#MasterLab is a day of advocacy held in conjunction with CWD’s Friend For Life conference in Orlando, Florida every summer. If you’re interested in joining us next summer visit: http://www.diabetesadvocates.org/MasterLab