Gail Christopher, W.K. Kellogg Foundation

Dr. Gail Christopher is senior advisor and vice president at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. In this role, she leads the foundation’s Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) enterprise and serves on the president’s cabinet that provides overall direction and leadership for the foundation. Since joining the foundation in 2007, Christopher has served as vice president for program strategy with responsibility for multiple areas of programming, including Racial Equity; Food, Health & Well-Being; Community Engagement and Leadership; and place-based programming in New Orleans and New Mexico.

Christopher is a nationally recognized leader in health policy, with particular expertise and experience in the issues related to social determinants of health, health inequities and public policy issues of concern to our nation’s future. Her distinguished career and contributions to public service were honored in 1996 when she was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. In 2011 she was awarded the “Change Agent Award” by the Schott Foundation for Public Education; in 2012 she was the recipient of the Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs (AMCHP) John C. MacQueen Lecture Award for her innovation and leadership in the field of maternal and child health. Most recently in 2015 she was the recipient of the Terrance Keenan award for Grantmakers in Health. She is chair of the board of the Trust for America’s Health.

Charles Goodsell, Virginia Tech

Charles T. Goodsell is Professor Emeritus of Public Administration at Virginia Tech. He was on the founding faculty of Tech’s Center for Public Administration and Policy and taught there for 24 years. Prior faculty positions were at Southern Illinois University and the University of Puerto Rico. He is the author of several books in the field, including Administration of A Revolution (1965), The Case for Bureaucracy (1983, 1985, 1994, 2004), Mission Mystique (2011) and The New Case for Bureaucracy (2014). He is currently preparing Public Servants Studied in Image and Essay: A Fanfare for the Common Bureaucrat. Goodsell first joined ASPA in 1956 while an MPA student at Harvard. He has served on the ASPA National Council, received the Dimock and Waldo awards, founded an ASPA chapter in Southwest Virginia and created MPA programs at VPI and at SIU.