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Judith Salerno & John Hoffman – Q&A at TEDMED 2012

Surprise Me

About this talk

John Hoffman of HBO Documentary Films and Judith Salerno of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies further discuss why urgent national action is needed to tackle our obesity epidemic.

About John Hoffman

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John Hoffman is vice president of HBO Documentary Films and was named to this position in June 2006. He is also Executive Producer of The Weight of the Nation, a four-part series and large-scale public health campaign presented by HBO and the Institute of Medicine in association with the CDC, NIH, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and Kaiser Permanente. An award-winning television producer, Hoffman has been associated with HBO since 1996, having spearheaded some of the network’s most noteworthy and critically acclaimed documentaries as an independent producer. Hoffman’s HBO credits include: Two-time Emmy® winner The Alzheimer’s Project (series producer, 2009); Addiction, an Emmy® Governors Award winner (produced by, 2007); Emmy® nominee Last Letters Home: Voices of American Troops From the Battlefields of Iraq (executive producer, 2005); A Rape in a Small Town: The Florence Holway Story (executive producer, 2004); Emmy® and Dupont-Columbia Award-winner In Memoriam, New York City, 9/11/01 (producer, 2002), and Academy Award® nominee Lalee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton (supervising producer, 2001). Prior to HBO, Hoffman created and produced the award-winning Nickelodeon series Allegra’s Window from 1993-96. As the executive director of AIDSFILMS from 1987-90 he produced six multi-award winning documentaries, including the PBS special AIDS: Changing the Rules. He is a graduate of Cornell University.

About Judith Salerno

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Judith A. Salerno, M.D., M.S., is the President and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, serving in the past as the Leonard D. Schaeffer Executive Officer of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. As executive officer, Dr. Salerno was the executive director and chief operating officer of the Institute. She was responsible for managing the IOM’s research programs and guiding the Institute’s work on a daily basis. Prior to coming to the IOM, Dr. Salerno was Deputy Director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She oversaw over $1 billion in aging research conducted and supported annually by the Institute, including research on Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases, frailty and function in late life, and the social, behavioral and demographic aspects of aging. As the NIA’s senior geriatrician, Dr. Salerno was vitally interested in improving the health and well-being of older persons, and designed public-private initiatives to address aging stereotypes, novel approaches to support training of new investigators in aging, and award-winning programs to communicate health and research advances to the public. Dr. Salerno also served on numerous boards and national committees concerned with health care issues ranging from the quality of care in long-term care to the future of the geriatric workforce. Before joining the NIA in 2001, Dr. Salerno directed the continuum of Geriatrics and Extended Care programs across the country for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Washington, D.C. While at the VA, she launched widely recognized national initiatives for pain management and improving end-of-life care. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Salerno was Associate Chief of Staff at the VA Medical Center in Washington, D.C. where she developed and implemented innovative approaches to geriatric primary care and coordinated area-wide geriatric medicine training. Dr. Salerno also cofounded the Washington D.C. Area Geriatric Education Center Consortium, a collaboration of more than 160 educational and community organizations within the Baltimore-Washington region. The consortium generates educational opportunities for professionals serving the aging. Earlier in her career, Dr. Salerno was a Senior Clinical Investigator at the NIA, implementing clinical research protocols for patients with Alzheimer’s disease and hypertension. Dr. Salerno earned her M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School in 1985 and a Master of Science degree in Health Policy from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1976. She also holds a Certificate of Added Qualifications in Geriatric Medicine and was Associate Clinical Professor of Health Care Sciences and of Medicine at the George Washington University until 2001.

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