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KEYNOTE speakers
Mark del Monte, JD | CEO of American Academy of Pediatrics & Conference Moderator
Rene Bravo, MD, FAAP | 2026 President of the California Medical Association
Colleen Kraft Grace Lee, MD, MBA, FAAP | 2018 Past President of the American Academy of Pediatrics
Dr. Colleen Kraft is Professor of Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine/University of Southern California and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. She co-directs the resident advocacy track, known as IMPACT (Improving Medicine, Pediatricians and Communities Together) Dr. Kraft received her undergraduate degree at Virginia Tech and her M.D. from Virginia Commonwealth University, and her MBA from the University of Cincinnati. She completed her residency in Pediatrics at Virginia Commonwealth University.
As President of the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2018, Dr. Kraft is best known for her advocacy for humane treatment of migrant children at the US-Mexico border. Her explanation to the public regarding the harm to young children during the “Zero Tolerance” policy that included the separation of children from parents at the border helped to mobilize advocates across the political spectrum to end this policy. She continues to advocate for basic child rights worldwide.
Expert Advocacy speakers
Eli Cahan MD, MSc, FAAP | Story Telling
Dr. Eli Cahan is a neonatal intensive care doctor at Stanford University, having completed his pediatrics training at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He is the director of the Health Media Fellowship at Stanford University, and was the inaugural Journalist-in-Residence at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He has published nearly two dozen studies which have garnered over 600 citations and been featured in NEJM, JAMA, and BMJ, among other publications.
Eli is also an award-winning investigative journalist covering the intersection of child welfare and health policy. His written work has been featured in Rolling Stone, where he is a contributing writer, as well as ProPublica and The Washington Post, among other publications. His multimedia work has appeared on TV via ABC and radio via NPR. Eli’s reporting has won awards from the National Press Club, and elsewhere; he was shortlisted for the Livingston Award in 2025. He has also received reporting fellowships including from the National Press Foundation, and has been a grantee of the Pulitzer Center, among other organizations.
Grace Lee, MD, MPH, FAAP | Equity in Climate Change and Health
Dr. Grace Lee is Chief Quality Officer and Christopher G. Dawes Endowed Director of Quality at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, and Associate Dean for Maternal and Child Health and Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Lee oversees the Center for Pediatric and Maternal Value, which advances quality, safety, patient experience, and health equity across the organization. National service includes membership on multiple Institute of Medicine and National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committees, as well as AHRQ’s Healthcare Safety and Quality Improvement Research Study Section. Leadership roles have included board service for the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, and the National Academy of Medicine Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice. Dr. Lee previously chaired the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Zea Malawa, MD, MPH | Racial Justice in Health Care
Dr. Zea Malawa is a mother, pediatrician and award-winning public health professional. She attended undergrad at Columbia University, med school at UCLA, residency at CHLA, and then, after an 11-year break, she decided to accumulate more student debt by getting a master’s degree in public health from UC Berkeley. In 2017, she founded Expecting Justice, a public health program that uses systems change and justice-oriented approaches to close the racial gap in birth outcomes. In that capacity, Dr. Malawa became a key partner on the drafting and passing of California's Momnibus Act (2021). Also that year, Dr. Malawa and her Expecting Justice team launched the nation's first pregnancy guaranteed income program, the Abundant Birth Project. This pioneering program provides pregnant people facing the greatest risk of disparities, with a monthly cash supplement. To date, has given out nearly $12M to 1013 (and counting!) pregnant people across California.
Tristan Nichols, DO, FAAP | AI Equity
Dr. Tristan Nichols (DO, FAAP, ABPM-CI) is a Clinical Associate Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics. He is board-certified in General Pediatrics, Pediatric Hospital Medicine, and Clinical Informatics. He has given national presentations on the ethics and implementation of generative artificial intelligence tools in medical education, from grand rounds and conference workshops to a guest appearance on the popular pediatric podcast The Cribsiders. He is also one of the co-moderators of the national AAP AI in Pediatrics webinar series. He provides clinical care and directs inpatient pediatric informatics at two Stanford regional sites, John Muir Medical Center and Stanford Tri-Valley Hospital. Past publications include the novel use of nursing flowsheet data to improve equity on family-centered rounds, and his current research focuses on responsible implementation of artificial intelligence in graduate medical education.
Brady Anne Seals, MBA | Climate Change
Brady Seals is the founding Director of Stanford University’s Electrification for Health program, part of the Center for Human and Planetary Health. The mission is to protect human health through clean electric systems that reduce air pollution indoors and outdoors and meet people’s energy needs.
Prior to joining Stanford, Brady spent six years at the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), where she led a team focused on the health and air-quality benefits of highly efficient electric buildings. Earlier in her career, she worked internationally in the nonprofit and private sectors on household energy access across 15 countries. Her work has been cited or featured in more than 100 media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, CBS, and The Samantha Bee Show. Brady holds an MBA from the University of South Dakota and a BA in Globalization Studies from Gettysburg College.
WOrkshop Leaders
Nina Agrawal, MD, FAAP | CATCH Grant Writing
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Lauren Gray | Media Training
Robyn Huey, DNP, CPNP-AC | Turning Your Idea into a Bill
Robyn Huey Lao is a pediatric nurse practitioner (NP) in California and food allergy mother and advocate. She received her Masters in Nursing from UCSF in the Pediatric Acute Care NP program and her Doctorate in Nursing Practice (DNP) degree in Healthcare Leadership from the University of San Francisco. She practiced as a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) nurse at UCSF and started a PICU/transport NP program at UCSF as part of her doctoral project. She was one of the first pediatric critical care and transport nurse practitioners at UCSF. She has been practicing in pediatric surgery for 15 years, and she currently works as an Ambulatory Pediatric Surgery Nurse Practitioner at UCD. She was a past president of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP)- San Francisco chapter and past founding president of the NAPNAP Sacramento Chapter. She has been the Legislative Chair of NAPNAP Sacramento since 2021, and was the Director of Practice and Quality on the national board of the American Pediatric Surgical Nurses Association (APSNA). In the last year, she proposed and co-sponsored California Senate Bill 68 The ADDE (Allergen Disclosure for Dining Experiences) Bill, named after her daughter Addie who suffers from severe food allergies. SB 68 was signed into law Oct 2025- the first in the nation to require allergen labeling on restaurant menus.
Morissa Ladinsky, MD, FAAP | Combating Political Interference
Dr. Morissa Ladinsky is a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford. She developed a passion for advocacy while serving a similar role in Alabama, where state laws threatened her transgender patients' healthcare and the institution's vision around diversity and equity, and now serves on the AAP's National Committee on State Government Affairs. At Stanford, she sees medically complex gender incongruent youth on Stanford Pediatrics’ Gender Team and is a lead faculty attending at Stanford’s Gardner Packard Children’s Health Center training tomorrow’s pediatricians and caring for the area’s multi-cultural, predominantly immigrant young people.
Morgan Leighton, MD, MPH, FAAP | Community Advocacy Roadmap
Dr. Morgan Leighton is a Pediatric Emergency Physician at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals. A native of Oakland, she competed medical training on the East Coast before returning home to California. She is passionate about advocacy, with an MPH in health policy and particular experience in reproductive health, immunization advocacy, disaster preparedness, and community involved research. She is an active member of both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the California Medical Association. In her free time, she enjoys time with her husband and daughter exploring local parks, farmers markets and libraries and planning their next international adventure!
Nikki Webb, MD, FAAP | AAP Resolution Writing
Dr. Nicole Webb is a pediatric hospitalist at Kaiser Permanente Oakland and Program Director of the KP Northern California Pediatric Residency. She completed residency at UCLA, in their Child Health Advocacy Track (CHAT), focused on building foundational skills in child health advocacy and implementing them during training. That experience set the stage for a fulfilling career blending advocacy with medical education, research and quality improvement to promote equitable outcomes for kids and communities.
A proud longtime member of the AAP, Dr. Webb is the immediate past president of AAP–CA 1, and current Secretary of AAP California. Nationally, she serves on the Committee on Hospital Care, Chapter Forum Management Committee, Women in Pediatric Hospital Medicine Steering Committee, and the Community Pediatrics Training Initiative Leadership and Career Development pillar. Advocacy is her north start and antidote to burnout, and sharing that with trainees has been the joy of her career.