Dr. Sara McEwen is the Executive Director of the Governor’s Institute, a position she has held since 2008. The Governor’s Institute provides innovative substance use disorder related professional education and technical assistance, workforce development, and creates and facilitates extensive collaborations with and among physician groups, universities/ medical schools, community providers, and state and federal agencies to develop and sponsor programs, presentations, conferences, websites, and clinical tools that facilitate resource dissemination and uptake of proven and cost-effective prevention and treatment interventions. Dr. McEwen received her medical degree from Tulane University School of Medicine and her MPH from the University of NC Gillings School of Public Health.

Lawrence Greenblatt, M.D., FACP, is a general internist and currently serves as State Health Director and Chief Medical Officer of North Carolina's Department of Health and Human Services. Here he has a broad portfolio of responsibilities including working with leadership in the Medicaid program, Public Health, State-operated medical health facilities and others. He is currently co-chair of the Governor's Cannibis Advisory Council, tasked with proposing public health measures and regulations around legal cannabis. Dr. Greenblatt holds Professor Emeritus status at Duke University School of Medicine where he was on faculty for nearly 31 years. There, he split his time primarily between patient care, population health leadership particularly focused on the Medicaid program, and clinical teaching. He served as a leader in Duke's Opioid Safety and Addiction Medicine efforts. He served for 9 years as Chair of the NC Medicaid Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee and as Secretary of the NC Medicaid Physician Advisory Group. In these roles he developed and refined policies for the Medicaid program.

James H. Berry, DO is Professor and Chair of the Department of Behavioral Medicine and Psychiatry at West Virginia University School of Medicine's Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute and the Director of Addictions. He is board certified in both General Psychiatry and Addiction Psychiatry. He and his colleagues at WVU have developed innovative community-based treatment models in response to the addiction crisis in Appalachia and are actively engaged in novel neuromodulation research related to substance use disorders through WVU's Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute including the nation's first trial of Deep Brain Stimulation for opioid use disorder. Dr. Berry has been a dedicated clinician and enthusiastic educator in West Virginia since the early days of the addiction epidemic. He is the proud recipient of The Addiction Policy Forum's Pillar of Excellence Award for Addiction Treatment, West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resource's inaugural Medical Provider Award for Advancement of Quality Addiction Care and WVU School of Medicine's Distinguished Teacher Award. Statewide, he serves as a member of the West Virginia Governor's Advisory Council on Substance Use Disorders and the Medical Cannabis Advisory Board. Nationally, He chairs the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology's Addiction Psychiatry Examination Committee, the Academy for Integrating Behavioral Health and Primary Care's National Integrational Academy Council, and the Addiction Policy Forum's Scientific Advisory Board. He has enjoyed advocating on behalf of those suffering from mental illness and addiction before audiences as varied as local town hall meetings to testifying before the United States Senate. Dr. Berry's work and opinions have led to interviews with local, state, and national media sources such as Politico, NPR, Psychology Today and The Doctors television show. He and his patients were featured in the PBS NOVA documentary: Addiction that exposed a national audience to the science behind addiction and the humanity of those who suffer.

Dr. Michael Lynch is an associate professor of Emergency Medicine, Medical Toxicology, and Addiction Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh where he works clinically in several UPMC hospitals. He is currently Senior Medical Director for Quality and Substance Use Disorder Services at UPMC Health Plan. Dr. Lynch previously served as the Medical Director of the PA Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs and was Medical Director of the Pittsburgh Poison Center for 10 years. He is the founder and director of the UPMC Medical Toxicology Telemedicine Bridge Clinic.

Kelly brings over 30 years of experience leading and delivering public services for individuals with mental health and substance use needs, intellectual and developmental disabilities, and traumatic brain injuries. As Director of the NC Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Use Services (DMH/DD/SUS), she oversees North Carolina’s community-based public system supporting individuals, families, and communities across the state. Over the past 13 years, Kelly has held several key leadership roles within NC DHHS in addition to her current role, including Assistant Director of Behavioral Health and Chief Operating Officer at NC Medicaid. A licensed clinical social worker and person with lived experience, Kelly is deeply committed to advancing equitable, person-centered care.

Mary Beth Cox, MPH is the Substance Use Epidemiology Team Lead within the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services' Division of Public Health. Before joining the NC Injury and Violence Prevention Branch in 2016 she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi and worked in communicable disease surveillance in New York and North Carolina. She earned her MPH in Epidemiology from New York Medical College and a BA in Religion from Wake Forest University. In her current position, Mary Beth leads a team monitoring the statewide impacts of alcohol, opioids, and other drugs and is the co-developer of the North Carolina overdose and alcohol data dashboards. She believes that public health saves lives and is passionate about making data accessible, approachable, and actionable.

Jeanette M. Tetrault, MD, FACP FASAM: Dr. Tetrault is a Professor of Medicine and Public Health, Vice-Chief for Education for the Section of General Internal Medicine, Associate Director for Training and Education for the Yale Program in Addiction Medicine, Fellowship Director for Addiction Medicine and Head of Hamburg Advisory House in the Office of Student Affairs at Yale School of Medicine. Her scholarly work focuses on care of patients with addiction and the medical conditions associated with substance use, mainly HIV and Hepatitis C. Dr. Tetrault is a staff physician at the Central Medical Unit which is an integrated addiction and primary care clinic at the APT Foundation. She has been recognized for her teaching accomplishments being awarded the New England Regional Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) Clinician Educator of the Year Award in 2013, The W. Anderson Spickard Award for Excellence in Mentorship by the Association of Multidisciplinary Education and Research in Substance use and Addiction (AMSERSA) in 2018, and the American Society of Addiction Medicine Training Directors Award in 2021 and the John P. McGovern Award for Excellence in Education by AMERSA in 2023. She serves as past-president of the board of directors of the American College of Academic Addiction Medicine. In 2017, she was recognized as a Macy Foundation Faculty Scholar. She has authored over 100 papers and chapters in the peer-reviewed literature and is an associate editor for the 7th and 8th Editions of the textbook, The ASAM Principles of Addiction Medicine.

Keith Humphreys is the Esther Ting Memorial Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. He is also a Senior Research Career Scientist at the VA Health Services Research Center in Palo Alto and an Honorary Professor of Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London. His research addresses the prevention and treatment of addictive disorders, the formation of public policy and the extent to which subjects in medical research differ from patients seen in everyday clinical practice. For his work in the multinational humanitarian effort to rebuild the psychiatric care system of Iraq and in the national redesign of the VA health system's mental health services for Iraq war veterans, he won the 2009 American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Public Interest. He and the authors of "Drug Policy and the Public Good" won the 2010 British Medical Association's Award for Public Health Book of the Year. He currently co-chairs the Stanford Network on Addiction Policy and leads the Stanford Lancet Commission on the North American Opioid Crisis.

Genevieve Verrastro, MD, is a Family Medicine Physician and an Addiction Medicine Specialist. Her areas of interest include perinatal substance use disorders, care of people with HIV, and the LGBTQ community.

Dr. Bossenbroek Fedoriw is a board-certified family medicine physician with clinical expertise in treating substance abuse disorder and chronic pain. She has been treating patients with opioid use disorder with buprenorphine since 2006 and currently holds an appointment as Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. She has taught students, residents, faculty and community prescribers about chronic pain, safe opioid prescribing, and buprenorphine treatment through lectures, discussions, book chapters and journal articles. In addition, Dr. Bossenbroek Fedoriw is currently the medical director for the UNC ECHO for Medication Assisted Treatment of opioid use disorder.

Dr. Hillary Tamar is board-certified in both Family and Addiction Medicine. She has dedicated her career to improving care for people who use drugs, with a particular focus on expanding access to medications for opioid use disorder through opioid treatment programs. Her work emphasizes the advancement of clinical practices that prioritize safety, accessibility, and dignity for all those affected by substance use. She serves as a Territory Medical Director for Community Medical Services, providing leadership and oversight across Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin. In this role, she helps guide clinical care and promote best practices across the country.

Olivia Caron is a clinical pharmacist practitioner at Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC), Residency Program Director for MAHEC’s PGY2 in Ambulatory Care, and an Assistant Professor at UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. She received her Bachelors of Science in Chemical Engineering and Bachelors of Art in Spanish from Virginia Tech in 2015. She graduated in 2019 from Virginia Commonwealth University with her Doctorate of Pharmacy and Certificate in Aging. She completed two years of residency at MAHEC with a focus in Ambulatory Care and Academia. Olivia is fluent in French and Spanish and splits her professional time between family medicine, substance use disorders, precepting, teaching, and research.

Logan Adams, MD is a board-certified addiction medicine physician and internist. He is the Medical Director at McLeod Centers for Wellbeing, a non-profit addiction treatment program that serves 8 counties in the Piedmont region of the North Carolina. He is passionate about bringing evidence-based care and harm reduction paradigm to clinical interactions. His research and clinical interests are in creating innovative care models to address communities most deeply impacted by the opioid overdose crisis. He completed internal medicine residency and addiction medicine fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is from West Texas, where he attended medical school at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.

David H. Ryan MD, FASAM, FACOG is the Division Chief of ECU Addiction Medicine, and is a Clinical Assistant Professor with both the ECU Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine and the Department of OB/GYN. He is board certified in both OB/GYN and Addiction Medicine and treats patients with addictions in both the inpatient and outpatient settings. In addition to his role as Division Chief, he is also the future ECU Addiction Medicine Fellowship Director, and is the founding clinician of ECU IMPACT, eastern North Carolina’s first and only integrated perinatal addiction clinic. Other than his family and his work, his passions include his faith, food, CrossFit, nonfiction, and Ted Lasso.

Olivia Caron is a clinical pharmacist practitioner at Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC), Residency Program Director for MAHEC’s PGY2 in Ambulatory Care, and an Assistant Professor at UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. She received her Bachelors of Science in Chemical Engineering and Bachelors of Art in Spanish from Virginia Tech in 2015. She graduated in 2019 from Virginia Commonwealth University with her Doctorate of Pharmacy and Certificate in Aging. She completed two years of residency at MAHEC with a focus in Ambulatory Care and Academia. Olivia is fluent in French and Spanish and splits her professional time between family medicine, substance use disorders, precepting, teaching, and research.