Kate W. Gilliard, JD is director of Health Policy & Payment within APTA's Public Affairs Unit. Kate advocates to federal regulators and private insurers on policy issues affecting PT, and communicates important policy updates to members. Before joining APTA in 2018, she was a regulatory analyst with Centene Corporation, focusing on Affordable Care Act-compliant health care products. Prior to that, she was the ACA officer at the Illinois Department of Insurance, where she assisted the director in creating and implementing policies. She received her bachelor’s degree in English from Oklahoma State University and her law degree from DePaul University College of Law. She is a member of the Illinois Bar.

Andrew Amari, JD is a specialist within APTA's Health Policy and Payment Unit, advocating on regulatory policy issues affecting physical therapists in a variety of practice settings. Before joining the association in March 2022, Andrew was a regulatory analyst at the Association of American Medical Colleges, focusing on hospital payment and graduate medical education policy issues. Andrew received a bachelor's degree in Psychology from Wake Forest University and a JD from the University of Wisconsin School of Law. He is a member of the Wisconsin Bar.

Rachel Miller, MPH is a health policy and payment specialist within APTA's Health Policy and Payment Unit as of August 2022. Rachel advocates to federal regulators on policy issues that affect the physical therapy profession. Before joining the association, she was working towards her master's degree in health policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While continuing her education, Rachel showed community members how to obtain health insurance as Certified Application Counselor in a student-run clinic. Before that, she helped stop the spread of COVID-19 as a case investigator at a local health department. She obtained her bachelor's degree in public health from the University of South Florida.

Wanda K. Evans, PT, DPT, MHS, is a senior payment specialist at APTA. Her responsibilities include communicating with members and insurers on inquiries regarding third-party, billing, CPT coding, and payment policies; providing resources in policy development; monitoring trends; and assisting in association efforts to advance payment policies. She remains a treating clinician in the outpatient setting. Before joining APTA, she was the clinical documentation and utilization review coordinator for Medstar National Rehabilitation Hospital Network. Prior to that she was the supervisor of physical therapist and occupational therapist services for Kaiser Permanente Mid Atlantic. She has been an APTA member since she was a student. She received her bachelor of physical therapy and doctor of physical therapy degrees from Howard University, and a master of health science degree in orthopedic and sports physical therapy from the University of Indianapolis. She also is a certified kinesio taping practitioner. 

Alice is on staff as senior payment specialist in the Payment and Practice Management Department of the APTA. She received a bachelor’s degree in physical therapy from Northeastern University in Boston, MA and a doctor of physical therapy degree from the University of Montana. Her specialties include integrated care delivery models, post-acute care, and long-term care. A board-certified clinical specialist in geriatric physical therapy, she has lectured and written many articles on topics related to physical therapy and the older adult. She has spent the majority of her career in post-acute care and long-term care settings and has more than 36 years of experience as a physical therapist. Her professional activities include serving as a member of the National Quality Partnership Opioid Stewardship Steering Committee, co-leader of the NQF Opioid Stewardship Member Workgroup, APTA appointee to the NDHI Opioid Crisis Workgroup, APTA appointee to the National Quality Partnership Opioid Stewardship Action Team, Member of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Technical Expert Panel for Skilled Nursing Alternative Payment Systems, Appointee to the National Quality Forum (NQF) for Long Term Care Quality Measures, Member of the Steering Committee for NQF's National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Nursing Home Project, and representative of the Coalition of Rehab Therapy Organizations’ Joint Commission’s Long Term Care Professional and Technical Advisory Committee.

Kate W. Gilliard, JD is director of Health Policy & Payment within APTA's Public Affairs Unit. Kate advocates to federal regulators and private insurers on policy issues affecting PT, and communicates important policy updates to members. Before joining APTA in 2018, she was a regulatory analyst with Centene Corporation, focusing on Affordable Care Act-compliant health care products. Prior to that, she was the ACA officer at the Illinois Department of Insurance, where she assisted the director in creating and implementing policies. She received her bachelor’s degree in English from Oklahoma State University and her law degree from DePaul University College of Law. She is a member of the Illinois Bar.

Andrew Amari, JD is a specialist within APTA's Health Policy and Payment Unit, advocating on regulatory policy issues affecting physical therapists in a variety of practice settings. Before joining the association in March 2022, Andrew was a regulatory analyst at the Association of American Medical Colleges, focusing on hospital payment and graduate medical education policy issues. Andrew received a bachelor's degree in Psychology from Wake Forest University and a JD from the University of Wisconsin School of Law. He is a member of the Wisconsin Bar.

Rachel Miller, MPH is a health policy and payment specialist within APTA's Health Policy and Payment Unit as of August 2022. Rachel advocates to federal regulators on policy issues that affect the physical therapy profession. Before joining the association, she was working towards her master's degree in health policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While continuing her education, Rachel showed community members how to obtain health insurance as Certified Application Counselor in a student-run clinic. Before that, she helped stop the spread of COVID-19 as a case investigator at a local health department. She obtained her bachelor's degree in public health from the University of South Florida.

Wanda K. Evans, PT, DPT, MHS, is a senior payment specialist at APTA. Her responsibilities include communicating with members and insurers on inquiries regarding third-party, billing, CPT coding, and payment policies; providing resources in policy development; monitoring trends; and assisting in association efforts to advance payment policies. She remains a treating clinician in the outpatient setting. Before joining APTA, she was the clinical documentation and utilization review coordinator for Medstar National Rehabilitation Hospital Network. Prior to that she was the supervisor of physical therapist and occupational therapist services for Kaiser Permanente Mid Atlantic. She has been an APTA member since she was a student. She received her bachelor of physical therapy and doctor of physical therapy degrees from Howard University, and a master of health science degree in orthopedic and sports physical therapy from the University of Indianapolis. She also is a certified kinesio taping practitioner. 

Alice is on staff as senior payment specialist in the Payment and Practice Management Department of the APTA. She received a bachelor’s degree in physical therapy from Northeastern University in Boston, MA and a doctor of physical therapy degree from the University of Montana. Her specialties include integrated care delivery models, post-acute care, and long-term care. A board-certified clinical specialist in geriatric physical therapy, she has lectured and written many articles on topics related to physical therapy and the older adult. She has spent the majority of her career in post-acute care and long-term care settings and has more than 36 years of experience as a physical therapist. Her professional activities include serving as a member of the National Quality Partnership Opioid Stewardship Steering Committee, co-leader of the NQF Opioid Stewardship Member Workgroup, APTA appointee to the NDHI Opioid Crisis Workgroup, APTA appointee to the National Quality Partnership Opioid Stewardship Action Team, Member of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Technical Expert Panel for Skilled Nursing Alternative Payment Systems, Appointee to the National Quality Forum (NQF) for Long Term Care Quality Measures, Member of the Steering Committee for NQF's National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Nursing Home Project, and representative of the Coalition of Rehab Therapy Organizations’ Joint Commission’s Long Term Care Professional and Technical Advisory Committee.

Cindy Lane Moore, PT, DPT, PhD, MPH, is a Board-Certified Clinical Specialist in Geriatric Physical Therapy and Staff Development Coordinator for Rehabilitation at Redeemer Health Home Care and Hospice.  She is co-founder of the Environmental Physical Therapy Catalyst Group within APTA’s Academy for Leadership and Innovation and an active member of APTA’s geriatrics and home health academies.  Cindy serves as a PT member on her state’s professional licensing board and is on track to complete Yale’s Climate Change and Health Certificate program September 2023.

Maral Hassanshahi, PT, DPT, is a clinician based in San Francisco and co-founder of the Environmental PT Catalyst Group within APTA’s Academy for Leadership and Innovation. She has over 12 years of extensive work and leadership in the environment, global health, and peace sector, collaborating with esteemed international organizations such as the United Nations.  Maral co-chaired the DEI committee in APTA Maryland and currently serves as the chief representative to the assembly within the California Physical Therapy Association. Beyond her APTA involvement, she serves on the Board of Directors at Physicians for Social Responsibilities-Los Angeles Chapter and is the climate and health ambassador for the PSR.

Carrie Hall, PT, MHS, has been a physical therapist since 1983. She earned her undergraduate degree from Saint Louis University and graduate degree from Washington University in Saint Louis (WUSTL). Carrie is the former owner of Movement Systems Physical Therapy (1995-2021) and current owner of Sisu Physical Therapy and Mentoring Services in Seattle, Washington. Carrie has served on several faculties including WUSTL, Northwestern University in Chicago, and University of Washington in Seattle and has taught Continuing Education on the topic of the movement system since 1984. She is co-author of Therapeutic Exercise: Moving Toward Function and contributor to 2 Monographs for the Academy of Orthopedic Physical Therapy online continuing education on “A Physical Therapy Approach to the Lower Quarter.”  Carrie is also a longtime advocate for physical therapy with past APTA Washington board and committee positions, as well as current Chair of Nominating Committee for APTA Private Practice. 

Ali received her degree in physical therapy in 1982 from the University of Puget Sound. She is a co-founder of Peak Sports and Spine Physical Therapy, practicing in Bellevue, WA. Ali has been active in numerous roles in the Physical Therapy Association of Washington (PTWA) and APTA. She has chaired her state private practice Special Interest Group (SIG) and Orthopedic SIG, and served on the APTA Private Practice Section Board of Directors. She is a past board member of the Bellevue YMCA and on the King County Regional Advisory Group for the Alzheimer’s Association. Ali is currently serving on the APTA Private Practice Nominating Committee.  

Kendell was born in Dominica, West Indies and came to Birmingham from St. Croix in 1999 to attend Samford University. While at Samford, Kendell was a member of the track and field team and earned a Bachelor’s in Education with a concentration in Exercise Science. He then attended The University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB) and received his Doctorate in Physical Therapy in 2007.  Kendell founded M3 Endeavors, a performance venture in 2015 and in 2018 expanded the company to include physical therapy and services.  M3 Performance and Physical Therapy now operates across a few platforms in the Birmingham area.  In the clinic, his specialties include injury prevention, Pilates, sports performance, post-operative rehabilitation, neurological dysfunctions, and manual strategies to improve movement dysfunctions.  He has a passion for evaluating movement in those who desire to live active lives and developing programs to improve their skill and performance.  When not in the clinic you can find him on the golf course or developing new recipes in the kitchen. Kendell’s community involvement has included mentoring students at Cornerstone School of Alabama and working with the Central Alabama Caribbean American Organization (CACAO), the Alabama Chapter and the Private Practice Section of the American Physical Therapy Association, Samford University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (Department of Physical Therapy) and Learning Excellence Through Tennis (LETT).

Pedro Teixeira and Ravi Atreya launched PredictionHealth in January 2017, a startup dedicated to helping clinicians and healthcare organizations understand and quantify the unstructured data in their EHR with machine learning to ensure every patient gets the best care every time. Their analytics and actionable feedback in physical therapy help organizations improve their compliance and practice efficiency by analyzing every sentence of every single note.

Pedro received his degrees from Vanderbilt University and completed his PhD in the laboratory of Dr.Josh Denny in the Department of Biomedical Informatics.  There he applied machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) methods to extract phenotypic information from electronic health records (EHR) and identify associations with genetic variants.

Adele Myszenski, PT, DPT is an experienced physical therapist, researcher, and rehab supervisor at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, MI and a part time faculty member at Wayne State University  also in Detroit, MI.  Adele’s experience in performance and organizational management has led to the development of a clinical competency program for general and advanced practice in the hospital setting. In the past decade, she has led the transition to the EPIC electronic health record for Allied Health across the system, developed multiple novel pathway programs including and successfully launched an early rehab program providing PT and OT services within 12-24 hours of medical stability for over 180 intensive care unit beds at HFH and another 60 at HF community hospitals. An accomplished speaker, she has provided sessions at APTA’s CSM for 8 years, MPTA Fall conference and APTA State Forum, as well as webinars for PT.com, OT.com and PT CEULocker via APTA Michigan.  Adele serves on the APTA Health Systems Council Steering committee and is a passionate advocate for value-based provision of acute care physical and occupational therapy. 

Dr. James P. Crick, Jr. is a part-time PhD student in Health and Rehabilitation Science at The Ohio State University and a full-time clinician at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. He received his Doctor of Physical Therapy degree from Bellarmine University in 2015. He has received multiple national awards in physical therapy and currently serves as co-chair for combined sections meeting programming for the Academy of Acute Care Physical Therapy and is a member of the core outcomes set knowledge translation workgroup. Locally he is a mentorship coordinator for the Ohio State University Acute Care Physical Therapy Residency. His research interests include identifying which patients maximally benefit from acute care physical therapy, understanding variations in healthcare service delivery, and enhancing health care processes through quality improvement.

Michael is the Director of Strategic Program Development and faculty member of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Mr. Friedman co-directs the Johns Hopkins Medicine Activity and Mobility Promotion (AMP).

Mr. Friedman’s responsibilities include integration of rehabilitation within health system initiatives inclusive but not limited to population health, quality improvement, clinical research, practice standardization, and functional outcome measurement.  Additionally, Mr. Friedman’s responsibilities include development and management of education and training solutions and partnerships.

Eleni has worked in nursing at The Johns Hopkins Hospital for 27 years, holding a variety of clinical and leadership roles. She has been the nurse manager for three units during her tenure — the Progressive Cardiac Care Unit (2011–16), the Cardiovascular Catheterization Laboratory and Post Anesthesia Care Unit (2004–11) and the hospitalist unit (2003–04). Prior to her management positions, she served as a cardiology case manager (2001– 03). Eleni gained her clinical experience here at Johns Hopkins on Halsted 5 and the cardiac intensive care unit.

Eleni holds a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Delaware, a master of business administration degree from The Johns Hopkins University, and a master’s degree in nursing, as well as a doctor of nursing practice degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing.

Jenna Kantor is a physical therapist and a performer. Jenna is the owner of Jenna Kantor Physical Therapy PLLC, which specializes in rehabilitating performing artists. She is also the co-founder of the nonprofit organization Fairytale Physical Therapy (FTPT), which brings musical theatre shows to children in hospitals while teaching choreography that is secretly composed of therapeutic exercises. APTA involvement: APTA PA Finance Committee, APTA PA HOD Alternate, APTA PA Annual Conference Sustainability Task Force, APTA PPS PR & Marketing Committee, APTA PPS Key Contact, NYPTA SSIG Co-Founder, NYPTA SSIG Advocacy Chair, NYPTA Student Conclave Committee, NYPTA GNY Legislative Task Force, NYPTA Social Media Committee, and NYPTA Public Policy Committee Student Liaison. On social media, she advocates for the PT profession, provides regular content for performing artists, and runs an online health course for performers, Powerful Performer. She hosts the podcasts “Healthy, Wealthy, and Smart” and "Physiotherapy Performance Perspectives" and has published two books, "Advocating in Physical Therapy" and "The Grind." Dr. Kantor has spoken on advocacy, social media, how to give an effective presentation, vestibular rehab for dancers, leadership, and research, and participated in two Oxford debates at CSM, PPS, multiple Student Conferences, and SSPT Live. Learn more at www.jennakantorpt.com.

Dr. Karen Litzy, PT, DPT is a licensed physical therapist, international speaker and owner of Karen Litzy Physical Therapy, PLLC.

As the host of Healthy Wealthy & Smart, a top 200 podcast on Apple Podcasts, she has interviewed influencers in the worlds of health, medicine, and entrepreneurship. She also shares how she has prevailed with her own experience of chronic pain.

Karen’s expertise has been featured in The Washington Post, Time Magazine, Well + Good, and more. She was recently added to the Medical Advisory Board of Prevention Magazine.