SPEAKER BIOS

JudyAnn Bigby, M.D.

Secretary of Health and Human Services, Dr. JudyAnn Bigby, oversees 17 state agencies and serves in the Cabinet of Governor Deval Patrick. Her broad range of experience — as a primary care physician, professor, researcher and health policy expert — gives her unique insights into how the state can best serve the people of the Commonwealth. 

One of Secretary Bigby’s top priorities is ensuring the state delivers high-quality and accessible services to Massachusetts residents. Some of the program areas she oversees include health care including the state’s Medicaid program; child welfare; public health; disabilities; veterans affairs; and elder affairs. Since her appointment, Secretary Bigby has successfully implemented many aspects of Massachusetts’ highly successful health care reform law. The state has adopted its first Olmstead Plan to address the long term needs of elders and persons with disabilities in community settings and she championed the creation of the Office of the Child Advocate to improve the state’s child welfare system.

Until her appointment, Dr. Bigby was the Medical Director of Community Health Programs at Brigham & Women's Hospital. She was also Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of the school’s Center of Excellence in Women’s Health.

Prior to her appointment she served on many boards and expert panels including the Boston Public Health Commission, the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Assuring the Health of the Public in the 21st Century, and the Minority Women’s Health Panel of Experts for the US Department of Health and Human Services. She was President of the Society of General Internal Medicine, the only national organization representing primary care internal medicine doctors, from 2003 to 2004.

Dr. Bigby holds a B.A. from Wellesley College and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School. She lives in Jamaica Plain.

David Chin, M.D.

David Chin, M.D. is both a national partner in the US Healthcare Industries Advisory Practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and the managing partner of PwC’s Global Healthcare Research Institute. He leads major strategic planning and operations improvement engagements for academic medical centers and payers around the world. Dr. Chin is a physician executive with more than 25 years of senior management experience in academic medical centers, managed care payers, and large medical group practices.

Before joining PricewaterhouseCoopers David was the President of the Novalis Corporation, a privately held company that franchised HMO’s on a turnkey basis, and served on the Board of Baxter International, Inc.

Prior to those positions, he was the President and Medical Director of the Health Centers Division of the Harvard Community Health Plan, a staff model HMO providing health care to residents in Eastern Massachusetts.

David holds a BA from Harvard College, a MD from Harvard Medical School, and a MBA from Stanford Business School, as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar. He is an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a member of the Advisory Council for the Health Policy Program at Harvard Medical School.  

Michael Collins, M.D.

Michael Collins, M.D., a nationally respected education and health care policy advocate and leader of not for profit health care was appointed Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Medical School by the Board of Trustees of the University of Massachusetts on September 26, 2008. From June 2007 to September 2008, Dr. Collins served as the medical school’s interim chancellor.

Also in June 2007, Dr. Collins was appointed Senior Vice President for Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts. Dr. Collins currently directs the University of Massachusetts system-wide health sciences efforts, charged with leading strategic initiatives to further the university's efforts in the Commonwealth's critical life sciences industry.

As Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Dr. Collins, a Clinical Professor of Medicine, provides critical direction and leadership to the campus' continuing efforts to distinguish itself as a premier academic health sciences center of national distinction. Dr. Collins directs the campus' institutional advancement, fundraising and external outreach efforts, focusing on expanding and enhancing relationships with the University Board; the UMass Memorial Health System, of which he is also a member of the Board of Trustees; the community; the legislature; and, the philanthropic community. In addition, he provides administrative oversight and leadership for UMass Medical School enterprise operations, including Commonwealth Medicine and the Massachusetts Biologic Laboratories, which generate over $705 million in revenue and $194 million in annual research awards.

Dr. Collins was appointed Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Boston in 2005. In this role, he was charged with overseeing an institution renowned for its access to excellence and its diversity. The most diverse university in New England, the campus boasts a student population of more than 14,000, speaking over 90 languages. Chancellor Collins managed a university budget of $225 million and led an academic community of more than 800 full and part-time faculty. In the two years Chancellor Collins led UMass Boston, he initiated campus efforts to complete a strategic and master planning effort to increase enrollment, research support and philanthropic giving to garner local and national recognition for the UMass Boston programs; and, began much needed physical improvements to the campus.

Prior to joining UMass Boston, Dr. Collins served as president and chief executive officer of Caritas Christi Health Care System from 1994 to 2004. Under his leadership, Caritas Christi became the second-largest health care system in New England, generating more than $1.1 billion in annual revenues from six acute care hospitals, physician group practices, several extended care facilities and other health care entities, all located in eastern Massachusetts. From 1994 to 2001, Dr. Collins also served as president of St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Brighton, a university academic medical center affiliated with Tufts University School of Medicine.

A board certified physician in internal medicine, and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, Dr. Collins has held a number of faculty and academic leadership positions over the course of his career, first at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, where his posts included Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Assistant Dean for Patient Care Resources, and at Tufts University, where he served as Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine and Associate Dean of Government and Medical Affairs in the School of Medicine and as a senior fellow, Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service. In that capacity, Dr. Collins conducted research on active citizenship opportunities for medical students, faculty and alumni of the School of Medicine, reviewed active citizenship and leadership qualities of medical school applicants, discussed curricular offerings and innovation, and charted a course for enhanced efforts in active citizenship and leadership.

Dr. Collins is actively engaged in service to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and has amassed vast experience in governance of not for profit and educational entities. Currently, he serves a member on the boards of the New England Healthcare Institute, Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives, the Colleges of Worcester Consortium and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Collaborative. Previously, Dr. Collins has served on numerous boards, including those of Jobs for Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Hospital Association, and the Massachusetts Business Roundtable. On the national level, he has served as the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Catholic Health Association of the United States; as a member of the Administrative Board, Council of Teaching Hospitals of the Association of American Medical Colleges; and, as a Delegate for the American Medical Association, among others.