Board & Staff Bios

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Sarah Pressman Lovinger

Executive Director

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Sarah Pressman Lovinger, MD, is an internist who has worked in community health centers providing care for

uninsured adults for more than 15 years. Deeply concerned about the public health and humanitarian implications

of climate change, Sarah is happy to work as director of Chicago PSR, so she can make a difference on this pressing

issue. In addition to her clinic responsibilities and her non-profit management, Sarah is an adjunct lecturer in

climate change and public health at Northwestern University. An avid writer and blogger, she completed the

one-year Morris Fishbein Fellowship in Medical Editing at the Journal of the American Medical Association, and now

blogs for Huffington Post. She will soon launch a new blog devoted to the links between climate change and health.

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Sarah is a graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and

Rush Medical College. She completed her residency in internal medicine at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

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Robin Bradley

Assistant Director

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A graduate of the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan, Robin Bradley, MA, worked in infant,

maternal and mental health for years before joining the PSR team. A Colver-Rosenberger Scholar and trained

doula, her past work and research have focused on parenting and prenatal education, women's health and

supportive services for survivors of trauma. Ms. Bradley has worked as a sexual violence therapist and policy advocate,

a college instructor in the social and health sciences and possesses certification in bilingual family risk assessment

through Healthy Families of Illinois. She lives on Chicago's Northwest side and is excited to have transitioned into work

in the environmental justice movement.

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Peter Orris

Board President 

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Peter Orris, MD, MPH, FACP, FACOEM, a former NIOSH Medical Officer, is the Chief of Service for Occupational and

Environmental Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center, and a Professor at the University of

Illinois School of Public Health. He holds Professorships on the faculties of the Northwestern and Rush Medical

Schools in Preventive and Internal Medicine, has served as advisor to WHO, PAHO, as well as Federal, State and

Local Governments, environmental organizations, labor unions and corporations. He is currently a member of the

State of Illinois’ Board of Health, and the US/Canadian Health Professionals Task Force of the International Joint

Commission and is an Expert Consultant to USEPA Region V. He chairs the Research Collaborative of Health Care

Without Harm, and is President of the Westside Branch of the Chicago Medical Society. He has edited and authored

numerous articles, book chapters and governmental reports in the field of Occupational and Environmental Medicine

and maintains an active clinical and teaching practice.

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Susan Buchanan

Board Member

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Susan Buchanan, MD, MPH graduated from the Ohio State University College of Medicine and completed a Family

Medicine residency in Burlington, Vermont. After nine years of practice, she sought additional training and board

certification in Occupational and Environmental Medicine. She is Associate Professor of Environmental and

Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public. She is Director of the Great

Lakes Center for Children’s Environmental Health/Region 5 Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit. She

teaches and conducts research in the UIC residency program in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

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Lee Francis

Board Member

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Lee Francis was appointed President and CEO by Erie Family Health Center's board of directors in September 2007.

Erie is a community health center serving over 34,000 Chicago area patients at 11 sites, regardless of the ability to

pay. Since starting this leadership role at Erie, he has led organization toward some notable accomplishments,

including the implementation of electronic health record systems at all of Erie's sites; the expansion of oral health

services; a strong financial bottom line; the development of Erie's 2010 Strategic Plan; and the expansion of Erie’s

board of directors. Dr. Francis works with the Executive Leadership Team, the Quality Improvement Department and

with Erie's Board of Directors to ensure that Erie is a leader in quality care. He is also charged with ensuring the

strategic growth of the organization. In addition to his executive responsibilities, Dr. Francis is still a practicing

Internist and sees adult patients on a regular basis at Erie.Dr. Francis served as the national president of the Physicians

for Social Responsibility in 2001 and was a member of the board of directors for 15 years. He was selected as a

Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow in 2000. He is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine, a volunteer position,

at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He joined Erie Family Health Center in 1991 as an Internist

and served as its medical director from 2001-2007. Prior to becoming medical director, he spent ten years dividing

his time between Erie and Cook County Hospital. Dr. Francis completed his medical training in Primary Care Internal

Medicine at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. He is a graduate of Amherst College, the University of Illinois at Chicago

College of Medicine and the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health.

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Holly Rosencranz

Board Member

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Holly Rosencranz, MD, FACP is a board-certified internist with a special interest in graduate medical education, health

care policy and climate change. She graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1978 and from

the College of Medicine in Chicago in 1982. She subsequently completed her residency in internal medicine at the

University of Illinois Medical center in 1985.  She has over twenty five years of experience in clinical practice and

working with both residents and medical students in graduate medical education, and has been the recipient of several

teaching awards.  She served as the Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Illinois in

Champaign Urbana (UIUC) from 2012-2016. In this role, she gave several presentations on community service, residency

wellness and most recently, on the impacts of climate change on population health. She remains actively involved with

teaching medical students and residents as a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine. She is on the Board of Directors

for the Champaign County Medical Center, a member of the Illinois State Medical Society, the American Medical

Association and has served as an instructor for a graduate course at UIUC in Climate Change, Community Needs, and

Public Health. She is proud to represent Physicians for Social Responsibility in Central Illinois.

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Aditi Vyas

Board Member

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Dr. Aditi Vyas is currently the Director of Population Health and an Occupational Medicine Physician at

Riverside Hospital in Kankakee, IL.  During her medical residency training in Occupational and Environmental

Medicine at the University of Illinois she participated in the CDC response to investigate the health impacts

from the recent ammonia incident in Beach Park, IL, Dioxin spill in Michigan and was very active with

Ethylene Oxide exposure related to Sterigenics in Willowbrook. She has been very active with environmental 

issues and has a true passion for environmental medicine. Dr. Vyas has her MD degree from Chicago Medical

School, as well as multiple Masters degrees in Public Health, Biotechnology, and Biomedical Sciences. 

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Robert Needleman

Board Member

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Robert Needleman, MD, graduated from Boston University School of Medicine and completed an Emergency Medicine 

residency at Cook County Hospital, in Chicago, where he stayed on as faculty. He is interested in addressing the social 

determinants of health that contribute to his patients’ wellbeing, particularly environmental, nutrition/food insecurity,

and community violence factors. As faculty at Cook County Hospital, he is currently developing a social emergency

medicine curriculum to educate faculty, resident physicians, and medical students. He holds an assistant professor

position on the faculty of Rush Medical College.

 

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