The Imperative to Vaccinate Adolescents and Young Adults Now

As vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, Chelsea Clinton works alongside the Foundation’s leadership and partners to help create economic opportunity, improve public health, and inspire civic engagement and service across the United States and around the world. In particular, Chelsea focuses on promoting early brain and language development through the Too Small to Fail initiative, and uplifting and empowering female entrepreneurs and women-led businesses around the world through initiatives like the Caribbean-focused Women in Renewable Energy (WIRE) Network. She also serves on the boards of the Clinton Health Access Initiative and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation.

Judy is President and Founder of Unity Consortium and has deep expertise in healthcare and vaccines. Judy's passion is supporting individuals to lead healthy lives by proactively focusing on preventive healthcare and immunizations. Toward this end, Judy actively engages with organizations that advance this approach including the National HPV Roundtable Steering Committee and the National Adolescent and Young Adult Health Information Center Advisory Committee. Judy was recently selected, on behalf of Unity, as the winner of the 2021 Vaughn Rickert Vaccine Research Award by the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine.

Dr. Tamera Coyne-Beasley is the Derrol Dawkins, MD Endowed Chair in Adolescent Medicine, Division Director for Adolescent Medicine, Vice Chair of Pediatrics for Community Engagement, and Professor of Pediatrics and Internal Medicine at the University of Alabama Birmingham and Children’s of Alabama. As a vaccine expert, Dr. Coyne-Beasley was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Dr. Coyne-Beasley is on the Board of Directors of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and is also a Past-President of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine.

Kelly Danielpour is a high school senior and the founder of VaxTeen, an organization dedicated to helping teenagers make informed decisions about vaccines. She works as an intern at the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA, focusing on researching and improving vaccine uptake and policy. She is also a member of UNITY Consortium’s Teen Advisory Council, the California and National HPV Roundtables, and the Vaccine Working Group on Ethics and Policy. Kelly will be attending Stanford University in the fall and hopes to one day work in health policy, focusing on increasing access to preventative care as a way to reduce health disparities.

Richard M. Gordon IV is an award-winning educator who has been the Principal of Paul Robeson High School for Human Services in the West Philadelphia/University City section of Philadelphia, PA for approximately eight years. Slated for closure in 2013 in response to a city financial crisis, Paul Robeson High School was spared at the 11th hour and placed under the leadership of Principal Gordon, whereby his transformative and innovative leadership led the school to be recognized as the “2017 Most Improved High School” in the City of Philadelphia. With a 100% minority student population (95% African-American) and a 100% school poverty rate, Principal Gordon is credited with developing a model college & career readiness program and for achieving a 95% annual graduation rate (the city average is a 70% graduation rate). In 2019, the Pennsylvania State Department of Education recognized Principal Gordon for Paul Robeson High School becoming a “High Progress” school, removing it from State’s list of academically “high needs”/lowest performing schools.

As principal of a small high school in the 8th largest school district in the country, Principal Gordon has won some of the nation's highest honors in education, including the 2021 NASSP National Principal of the Year Award, the 2020 Pennsylvania Principals Association’s State Principal of the Year Award, the 2020 NASSP Distinguished Service to Education Award, and the 2019 National Alliance of Black School Educators’ National Principal of the Year Award.

Dr. Tan is a special advisor to the Unity Consortium Board of Directors. Dr. Tan joined the Immunization Action Coalition in 2013. Prior to that, he was the Director of Medicine and Public Health at the American Medical Association for 15 years. Dr. Tan also serves as Co-Chair of the National Adult and Influenza Immunization Summit, together with the CDC and the National Vaccine Program Office.