Opening remarks and keynote address

John Auerbach

Senior Vice President for Health at ICF International and 1988 HSM alum - brings over 30 years of public health leadership at the CDC, Trust for America's Health, and as Massachusetts & Boston Health Commissioner.

A nationally recognized voice on health equity, prevention, and innovation, John will share insights shaping the future of healthcare.

Fireside Chat I: Innovation

Nimra Taqi & Rachel Robinson

Nimra Taqi is the Vice President of Business Development & Licensing at Mass General Brigham Innovation, where she leads efforts to commercialize breakthrough technologies across therapeutics, diagnostics, devices, and digital health.
With over a decade of experience in technology transfer and patent analysis, she has helped bring hundreds of academic innovations to market. Nimra previously worked at Global Prior Art, specializing in medical device evaluation.
She holds degrees from Georgia Tech and Johns Hopkins University.

Rachel is a high-energy, connection-driven business development executive who focuses on life sciences technology and robotics engineering. She believes that there are awesome people, ideas, and resources everywhere, and that their dispersion is among the most fundamental challenges faced by people, organizations, and economies. It's her mission to build bridges among these, and craft strategies for doing this in systematic ways.
Her mission and drive to help companies looking to revolutionize this industry is spurred daily by a reminder of the medical technology that saved her own life as a child.
With an infectious optimism and people-first approach, she has established partnerships with associations, including MassMedic, M2D2, and AdvaMed to name a few. She is proud to serve on various committees and spearheads networking events globally.

Networking Lunch

Fireside Chat II: Healthcare Delivery Funding

Jill Batty & Keith Ericson

Jill Batty is the Chief Financial Officer at Cambridge Health Alliance, bringing over 20 years of experience as a strategist and financial executive in healthcare.
She has led major financial transformations, including guiding Cheshire Medical Center's shift from fee-for-service to population health management. A mission-driven leader, Jill actively supports community health initiatives in New Hampshire.
She holds degrees from the University of Illinois and the University of Iowa and is a certified public accountant and HFMA fellow.

Keith Ericson's research has examined health care markets, such as the Massachusetts Health Insurance Exchange and Medicare Part D. He has shown how pricing regulation interacts with imperfect competition, and how health insurers use dynamic pricing strategies. His recent work has studied how product standardization affects choice on insurance exchanges and how mandates to purchase insurance affect behavior.
Professor Ericson has also explored foundations of economic decision-making (behavioral economics), running experiments on limited memory, the endowment effect and expectations about the future, intertemporal choice, and the effect of privacy on truthful disclosure of sexual orientation.
His work has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Economic Review, the Journal of the European Economic Association, Inquiry, and the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, among others. Various media outlets have featured his research, including Slate, The Atlantic, Freakonomics Radio, Time, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.

Fireside Chat III: Vaccines

Patrick Bergstedt & Rena Conti

Patrick Bergstedt is the Senior Vice President and General Manager for Asia and Emerging Markets at Moderna, leading global expansion and access to mRNA vaccines.
With over 20 years in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, he has driven transformative growth across continents. Previously at Merck, he led global vaccine strategy and delivered record performance.

Patrick is known for building high-performing teams and advancing healthcare innovation worldwide.

BU Spotlight: Lightning Round

Closing Remarks

Schedule, topics, and speakers subject to change.Check back for updates!