Maternal Child Health Summit 2025
Speakers and Presenters
Leah Brown
With almost 30 years of experience, Leah Brown is a powerful and recognized speaker, coach and facilitator in the fields of leadership, employee engagement, organizational development, and workforce retention. Her energetic approach to learning through experience and storytelling engages audiences, involves them in the learning process and creates opportunities to connect with their teams across roles and functions, building stronger relationships. She is consistently recognized for powerful environments of change, growth, performance and excellence for leaders, teams, and individuals. Her full range of curriculum and coaching is designed to help teams build trust, strengthen relationships and improve collaboration and performance. Leah not only brings out the best in individuals, but she also builds stronger, high-impact teams. Her industry experience includes teaching, training, facilitating improved leadership performance with the military, healthcare, manufacturing, construction, finance, and education.
Leah is a Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator, a Dale Carnegie Trainer, Certified Professional Behavior Analyst, Certified Life Coach, CHCC Career Coach™, and CDC Certified Divorce Coach®. She is a faculty member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Organization Management, and the contributing author to the 2018 book, Staying Power: Why Your Employees Leave & How to Keep Them Longer. Leah was recognized for her professional impact when Louisville’s Business First Magazine included her in their “20 People to Know in Education/Workforce Development” 2015.
Lynn Herr
Lynn Herr is the Director of Clinical and Outreach Divisions at the Vanderburgh County Health Department (VCHD). Before this position, Lynn practiced at St. Vincent for 31 years in the pediatric setting as an educator, pediatric trauma coordinator, and PICU/NICU staff nurse.
Lynn received her ADN in 1984 from the University of Evansville, BSN in 2013 from the University of Southern Indiana, and master’s certificate in Public Health from Indiana University in 2024.
Lynn has held multiple positions and responsibilities since 2016. These include Fetal, Infant, and Child Mortality Coordinator, leadership for immunization and sexual health clinics, health promotions programming, Pre to 3 program coordinator, and public health accreditation coordinator. She was instrumental in the development and implementation of the program.
Charissa Schuetz is the Director of Outreach Services at the Vanderburgh County Health Department (VCHD). In this role, Charissa oversees the Pre to 3 home visiting program and health promotion programming. Charissa has held various positions within the Vanderburgh County Health Department, focusing on maternal/child health, data collection, and analysis. Before her current role, Charissa was the Director of Accreditation and Public Health Expansion. She coordinated with department leadership to prepare for reaccreditation, develop new programs, and expand services to meet Health First Indiana requirements.
Before returning to the Vanderburgh County Health Department, Charissa was a Labor and Delivery nurse working at hospitals in Texas and California. During this time, she was employed at a level 4 maternity center and cared for medically complex patients. Charissa has 7 years of experience in maternal/child health and public health.
Charissa received her BS in Public Health and BS/MS in Health Services Administration from the University of Evansville and her BSN from the University of Southern Indiana.
Sponsors and Partners
Charissa Schuetz
Dr. Loafman is System Chair for Family and Community Medicine at Cook County Health. He received his medical degree from Rush University Medical School, a Master of Public Health at University of Illinois, and Family Medicine residency at Brown University, where he served as Chief Resident and completed a fellowship in Maternal Child Health. Prior to joining the Cook County Health, he was Associate Professor of Family Medicine at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, Chief Clinical Integration Officer at Humboldt Park Health and Chief Medical Officer at Near North federally qualified health center. He was appointed Faculty Chair for the H.R.S.A. Patient Safety and Clinical Pharmacy Services (PSPC) Collaborative, a nation-wide performance improvement learning collaborative focused on safe and effective medication use and has served in faculty roles for numerous national health disparity learning collaboratives in chronic disease, health professions workforce development, perinatal safety and maternal child health.
Dr Loafman began his career as the founding medical director for PCC Wellness, a nationally recognized community health center network in Chicago. He has served as Medical Administrator for the Illinois Department of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, providing leadership and guidance on clinical integration across primary care and mental health; and served as Physician Advisor for national and global health strategy for the Health Futures Group at the National Defense University.
Mark T. Loafman MD, MPH
Dr. Jerome Adams was appointed as a Presidential Fellow and the Executive Director of Purdue's Health Equity Initiatives on October 1, 2021. He is also a Distinguished Professor of Practice in the departments of Pharmacy Practice and Public Health.
As the 20th U.S. Surgeon General and a prior member of the President’s Coronavirus task force, Dr. Adams has been at the forefront of America’s most pressing health challenges. A regular communicator via tv, radio, and in print, Dr. Adams is an expert not just in the science, but also in communicating the science to the lay public, and making it relevant to various audiences.
Dr. Adams is a licensed anesthesiologist with a master’s degree in public health, and ran the Indiana State Department of Health prior to becoming Surgeon General. In the State Health Commissioner role he managed a $350 million dollar budget and over 1000 employees, and led Indiana’s response to Ebola, Zika, and HIV crises. Notably, Dr. Adams helped convince the Governor and State Legislature to legalize syringe service programs in the state, and to prioritize $13 million in funding to combat infant mortality. As Surgeon General, Dr. Adams was the operational head of the 6000 person Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and oversaw responses to 3 back to back category 5 hurricanes, and to a once in a century pandemic.
In addition to his notable COVID19 work, Dr. Adams has partnered with and assisted organizations as they navigate the opioid epidemic, maternal health, rising rates of chronic disease, the impacts of rising suicide rates in our Nation, and how businesses can become better stewards and stakeholders in promoting community health (https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/chep-sgr-business-leaders-digest.pdf)
Jerome Adams, MD, MPH, FASA
Sophie French
Sophie graduated from Austin Peay State University with her BSN in 1992. She has been working in the field of public health for 28 years and has been with the Vanderburgh County Health Department for the past 6 years. She currently serves as the Pre to 3 Program supervisor and has assisted in the program development and implementation since its inception in March of 2018. The Pre to 3 Program is a home-visiting program designed to support families from the beginning of pregnancy to their child’s 3rd birthday, with the ultimate goal of lowering infant mortality rates in Southwest Indiana.
She is currently a member of Families and Communities Embracing Success (FACES), Southwestern Indiana Fetal Infant Mortality Review Committee, Southwestern Indiana Community Action Team, Evansville Promise Neighborhood Partner Committee, My Healthy Baby Advisory Committee, Indiana Public Health Association and Indiana Nurses Association.
Andrea Hays is the Chief Program & Impact Officer for the Welborn Baptist Foundation, a private foundation with a service area comprised of fourteen counties in the Tri-State region. In her role, Andrea develops, leads, aligns, and integrates Welborn’s Impact Strategies across the organization’s focus areas to improve the quality of life for all residents. She also leads the Live Well Goal area for Talent EVV, a regional quality of place initiative.
Previously, Andrea served as the Healthy Communities Program Officer overseeing Welborn’s health initiatives. Andrea was selected as one of the 2020 Junior League of Evansville’s 20 Women in Business. In 2013, she was recognized as a White House Champion of Change for her leadership of the $3M CDC Community Transformation Grant awarded to Welborn on behalf of Southwest Indiana. Andrea has been an adjunct faculty member with the University of Southern Indiana’s Kinney College of Nursing and Health Professions since 2013. She earned her master’s degree in public health from Indiana University and completed the MidAmerica Regional Public Health Leadership Institute fellowship program. Andrea lives in Evansville with her husband Andrew, three children, three rescue dogs, and countless fish.
Tyler is the Executive Director of Talent EVV and Director of Talent for the Evansville Regional Economic Partnership (E-REP), Tyler leads and grows the Evansville Region’s strategic development plan, Talent EVV, while serving as a public ambassador. He collaborates with the United Way of Southwestern Indiana, Welborn Baptist Foundation, Junior Achievement of Southwest Indiana, Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation, Community Foundation Alliance, and other key organizations to align work plans, understand business and community needs, and foster a team approach to advancing Talent EVV's initiatives.
Recently, Tyler has spearheaded several significant projects, including the 2023 Talent EVV Annual Report, a regional roadmap for Industry 4.0 in manufacturing, an economic impact study on the growing health and life sciences sector, and the establishment of E-REP’s Talent Department. This department focuses on training programs for regional manufacturing firms, employer engagement for a modern youth apprenticeship, targeted marketing for talent attraction and retention, and a supplier development program for minority-owned businesses. Additionally, Tyler co-leads E-REP’s Impact Campaign, aiming to build fiscal sustainability over the next five years in partnership with Lloyd Winnecke, E-REP’s CEO.
