President

Catherine Collings, MD, FACC, MS, DipABLM

Dr. Cate Collings is a board-certified practicing cardiologist in Silicon Valley. She received her BS at the University of California and her MS in Exercise Physiology followed by an MD degree at the University of Wisconsin. Returning to California, her residency and cardiology fellowship training were completed at Stanford University Medical Center.

Dr. Collings established and provides ongoing medical directorship to the El Camino Hospital Cardiopulmonary Wellness Center targeting lifestyle measures to improve the health of cardiac patients. In addition to her clinical work, she is developing a Women’s Heart Center to focus on women specific cardiovascular disease management and on the unique application of lifestyle competencies to women and their family’s heart health.

Dr. Collings joined the ACLM Board in 2015 to bridge to the cardiology community and promote lifestyle intervention on equal footing with other cardiovascular interventions. She is passionate about the importance of physician-patient partnerships to co-navigate the abundance of health information and mobile health technologies so that patients achieve meaningful health outcomes. She loves spare time-particularly active travel vacations, culinary explorations, and family time.

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President

Elizabeth P. Frates, MD, FACLM, DipABLM

Dr. Frates is trained as a physiatrist and a health and wellness coach. Her expertise is in lifestyle medicine, and she works to empower patients to reach their optimal level of wellness by adopting healthy habits. At Harvard Medical School, Beth created the first Lifestyle Medicine Interest Group in 2008, which is still thriving today. She is an award-winning teacher at Harvard Medical School, where she is an assistant clinical professor, and she developed and taught a college lifestyle medicine curriculum at the Harvard Extension School, which is one of the most popular courses offered at the school. She shared a lifestyle medicine syllabus, which can be downloaded through the ACLM website, in hopes that her work can serve as a template for other instructors and professors hoping to teach a course in lifestyle medicine. In addition, Dr. Frates shared her PowerPoints and curriculum in lifestyle medicine and co-created a LM Curriculum 101 which is free and accessible through the ACLM website.  As the Director of Wellness Programming at the Stroke Institute for Research and Recovery at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Dr. Frates has created and implemented a 12 Step wellness program, PAVING the Path to Wellness™ for patients and providers alike. As the Director of Lifestyle Medicine and Wellness for the Department of Surgery at Mass General Hospital, Dr. Frates is well versed in physician wellbeing programing. Dr. Frates is co-author of the book Life After Stroke: The Guide to Recovering Your Health and Preventing Another Stroke and co-author of three chapters on behavior change in different medical textbooks. Recently, she co-authored The Lifestyle Medicine Handbook: An Introduction to the Power of Healthy Habits which was ranked in the top 20 by Book Authority for medical book released in 2018. In August of 2020, Dr. Frates was voted President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. 

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Past President

Dexter Shurney, MD, MBA, MPH, FACLM, DipABLM

Dexter Shurney, MD, MBA, MPH, FACLM  is the Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of Clinical Affairs for Zipongo, a San Francisco-based based digital health and wellness company. Dr. Shurney is the former Chief Medical Director / Executive Director for Global Health Benefits and Corporate Wellness for Cummins, Inc. Prior to Cummins, he was the Chief Medical Director of the Employee Health Plan for Vanderbilt University and Medical Center. During his tenure at Vanderbilt he also held joint faculty appointments as Assistant Clinical Professor, Division of Internal Medicine and Public Health, and Adjunct Faculty, Owens Graduate School of Management.

Other positions that Dr. Shurney has held include Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Healthways, Senior Health Policy Strategist in the Division of Government Affairs for the biotechnology company Amgen Inc., Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of medical affairs for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, and Editor of the Journal of Managed Care Physicians.

Dr. Shurney serves on numerous boards including: the Global Business Group on Health, and the National Association of Managed Care Physicians. He was also the most recent Chair of the Business Strategies Committee for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)/National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP). Shurney is co-author of the book “Integrating Wellness into Your Disease Management Programs.” 

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Secretary

Michelle Tollefson, MD, FACOG, DipABLM, FACLM

Dr. Michelle Tollefson is an obstetrician-gynecologist and an associate professor in the Health Professions department and teaches in the Integrative Therapies program at MSU Denver, Colorado. She received her medical degree from Creighton University School of Medicine and has been in practice between 20 years. Dr. Michelle Tollefson has focused on advancing lifestyle medicine in her clinical practice through patient education. She is also founding co-chair of the Women’s Health Member Interest Group which unites practitioners from diverse backgrounds in order to advance women’s health through healthy lifestyle practices.

Dr. Tollefson is a graduate of Creighton University where she received her Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Medicine degrees.  She then completed an obstetrics and gynecology residency at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, and received her board certification in this medical specialty. Dr. Tollefson was a private practice obstetrician and gynecologist, until leaving to work with Poudre Valley Health System as a medical director and Director of Women’s Wellness Education.

Additionally, Dr. Tollefson has dedicated the last eight years to the creation and instruction of a lifestyle medicine and wellness coaching curriculum for pre-professional students at MSU Denver. As founding co-chair of the Pre-Professional Lifestyle Medicine Education Member Interest Group, along with others, she has advocated for lifestyle medicine as the foundation of all health education.

She is a certified Wellcoach, guest faculty for Harvard, and author of online continuing medical education for the Harvard Institute of Lifestyle Medicine.  She is passionate about women’s healthcare, lifestyle medicine, and teaching people to lead healthier and happier lives.

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Treasurer

Koushik R. Reddy, MD

Dr. Reddy, MD is Director of Interventional Cardiology in Tampa, FL. graduating from Gandhi Medical College Bhopal in 2006 and has been in practice for 12 years. He completed a residency at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center.

After being involved with cardiovascular care and advanced cardiac interventions for years, I established a cardiology-based lifestyle clinic called Cardiology HEAL – Healthy Eating And Living. In addition, Dr. Reddy established a lifestyle medicine and whole foods plant-based nutrition related discussions into the core curriculum of our cardiology fellowship. Recently, he founded the Tampa Bay Chapter of PBNM – Plant Based Nutrition Movement. This is community based nonprofit organization that is working on taking the power of plant-based nutrition and lifestyle medicine to the grassroots level.

Dr. Reddy is passionate and deeply committed to the idea of health promotion and disease prevention, using lifestyle and nutrition related tools. Majority of our current healthcare expenditure is geared towards chronic diseases that are lifestyle related. The onus is on all of us to change the current paradigm. The status quo is not sustainable at a personal, societal and planetary scales.

Dr. Reddy is currently founder and co-chair of the ACLM working group for the Veteran Health Administration and Armed Forces.

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Young Director 

Marsha-Gail Davis, MD

Dr. Marsha-Gail Davis is a primary care internist and preventionist who desires only to see her patients and community living well. Her mission is simply to help her patients preserve their health and prevent the burden of chronic diseases that causes significant suffering and early death, especially in communities that are most ravaged by the impact of chronic disease. Her interest is in making prevention the priority and making prevention popular by creatively incorporating lifestyle medicine into primary care and community interventions. She hails originally from the beautiful island of Jamaica. She received her MD from the University of California, San Diego and completed her residency in the Yale Primary Care Residency Program. She is currently completing additional training in the UCSD Preventive Medicine Residency Program while serving in the role of Chief Resident.

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Director 

Melissa Mondala, MD, MHA, MS

Dr. Mondala is a Family Medicine physician completing her medical school training at Chicago Medical School. During 2019, Dr. Mondala has served as Preventive Medicine Junior Faculty at Loma Linda University Health completing her Lifestyle Medicine fellowship. At Loma Linda University, she empowers patients to make positive lifestyle changes and develop disease-specific lifestyle recommendations and prescriptions.

Dr. Mondala served as President and Secretary for the American College of Lifestyle Medicine Professionals in Training (PiT) Division. I carried out PiT’s mission to expand PiT nationally and globally through Lifestyle Medicine Interest Groups (LMIGs). She has accelerated the lifestyle medicine movement within academic institutions, social media, community fairs, and podcasts.

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Director

Theresa Stone, MD, FACP

Dr. Stone, MD is a practicing Internist in Washington, DC. Dr. Stone graduated from Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1993 and has been in practice for 26 years. She completed a residency at Washington Hospital. She currently practices at Medstar Health at Lafayette Centre and is affiliated with MedStar Washington Hospital Center.

Dr. Stone was invited by Medstar Health Leadership to head a taskforce to bring wellness initiatives to our large 10 hospital system. She has had the opportunity to work with colleagues on multiple wellness initiatives for the health system. These initiatives include; Georgetown School of Medicine Mind Body Medicine Elective Facilitator, “Mindfulness Mondays “ relaxation technique introduction for several Georgetown University Hospital Nursing Units , Physician Wellbeing Taskforce, “Wellness Wagon” designed to promote healthy lifestyle interventions and build connectedness for Medstar Health Associates in several of multi-specialty outpatient ambulatory outpatient centers. She looks forward to sharing experiences with many of the dynamic energetic compassionate members of ACLM who are interested in designing workplace wellness initiatives at their institutions.

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Director of Allied Health

Kelly Freeman, RN

Kelly Freeman has a strong interest in preventing, halting, and reversing chronic diseases. A former lieutenant in the United States Navy, she worked as a medical/surgical nurse, charge nurse, and case manager while on active duty. She is an advanced practice nurse with prescriptive authority. Kelly is board certified as an adult and geriatric primary care nurse practitioner. She is also board certified in wound healing, incontinence, and ostomy care. Kelly serves as the lead nurse for the American College of Lifestyle Medicine's RN/NP Working Group. She is a chronic disease advisory group member for the Indiana Public Health Association and is a steering committee member for the Indiana Cardiovascular and Diabetes Initiative. She currently teaches Nursing Intensive and has taught Interactive Processes, Data Analysis, and Health Assessment. She is also clinical faculty and the clinical placement coordinator for adult/geriatric NP students.

Knowing the importance of getting nurses involved, Kelly Freeman founded the ACLM RN/APRN Interest Group. It seemed logical and necessary that nurses would share this same interest in health promotion through therapeutic lifestyle techniques as physicians.  There are five regional RN/APRN interest groups and many talented nurses and advanced practice nurses working towards incorporating lifestyle medicine content into nursing curriculum and published in nursing journals.

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Director

Craig McDougall, MD

Dr. Craig McDougall is an internist in Beaverton, Oregon and is affiliated with OHSU Hospital. He received his medical degree from The Ohio State University College of Medicine and has been in practice 10 years.

As a physician, Dr. McDougall's greatest rewards come from the relationships he builds with his patients and helping them live better lives. He places a strong emphasis on prevention and treating problems with lifestyle changes, and reserves prescribing medications and surgeries as a last resort.  Before joining OHSU’s faculty, Dr. McDougall worked as a primary care physician and was the physician-lead of a lifestyle medicine consult clinic at Kaiser Permanente. Most recently, he was at ZOOM+Care helping develop an adult primary care practice emphasizing food and movement as medicine.

The last two years, Dr. McDougall has been working at Oregon Health and Science University as the medical director of a primary care clinic. This involves planning innovative practice models, expansion of primary care clinics, and primary care integration across a large health care system.

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Director

Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM, DipABLM

Having practiced in the Rochester, NY area since 2006, Dr. Barnett is the founder, executive medical director and CEO of Rochester Lifestyle Medicine (RLM). With a BS in Intensive Biology from Yale University, he earned his MD from Tufts University School of Medicine, followed by a Flexible Internship with Framingham Union Hospital and a Diagnostic Radiology Residency at Tufts. Board Certified in Diagnostic Imaging, as well as Vascular and Interventional Radiology, he refers to himself as the high-tech doctor with low tech solutions. Dr. Barnett teaches a 6-week plant-based nutrition course which is accredited for 12 professional CMEs, in addition to patient education training offered by he and his RLM team.

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Director

MIchelle McMacken, MD

Michelle McMacken, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at NYU School of Medicine. An honors graduate of Yale University and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. McMacken practices internal medicine in the Adult Primary Care Center at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, where she also directs the hospital's Weight Management Program and the Plant-Based Lifestyle Medicine Program. Through a 2014 NYU Merrin Fellowship grant, Dr. McMacken studied evidence-based nutrition and developed a nutrition curriculum for her internal medicine faculty colleagues. She has received the faculty ‘Teacher of the Year’ award three times for her work with physician trainees and has presented on nutrition at the American College of Physicians, the American Diabetes Association, and other national academic conferences. She has also been featured in several documentary films and popular nutrition-related websites and podcasts. Dr. McMacken is a council member for the True Health Initiative, a coalition of health experts from around the world committed to educating on evidence-based, proven principles of lifestyle as medicine. She is proud to serve on the board of ACLM, the organization that catalyzed her passion for lifestyle medicine.

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Director

Neha Pathak, MD, DipABLM

I am passionate about educating the public and health professionals about the science behind the pillars of lifestyle medicine, and I intend to play a larger role in advocating for policies that support lifestyle medicine as the foundation of our healthcare system. Now, more than ever, people are hungry for knowledge about lifestyle interventions that promote health and improve resilience in the setting of the multifaceted challenges we face: whether it is from infectious diseases such as the current coronavirus pandemic, the growing health impacts of climate change, or the insidious long-term effects of systemic racism. I believe that the components of lifestyle medicine protect not only individual health, but also improve community and planetary health, and want to work within the ACLM to advance recognition and understanding of the benefits of the field. I am an honors graduate of Harvard College and Weill Medical College of Cornell University and currently serve as Medical Editor and writer for WebMD and Medscape. I am board certified in both internal medicine and lifestyle medicine. I began practicing lifestyle medicine within the Department of Veterans Affairs as part of the VA’s Whole Health program and worked to bring access to whole health care to vulnerable veterans. Currently, I am a member of ACLM's Women's Health member interest group (MIG) and co-editor of a textbook volume focused on lifestyle medicine and women's health

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Director

Padmaja Patel, MD, DipABLM

Dr. Padmaja Patel has been a practicing internist in Midland, TX for nearly two decades. She completed her E.N.T. training in India and Internal Medicine residency at the University of Missouri, Columbia. She currently serves as the Medical Director of the Lifestyle Medicine Center at Midland Health and has been an advocate for offering a variety of comprehensive lifestyle intervention programs under physician supervision. In her private practice, she strives to offer high-quality, evidence-based care that incorporates the core principles of lifestyle medicine. Dr. Patel’s passion for health and wellness fueled her desire to co-found Healthy City, a non-profit organization, to raise awareness of the benefits of plant- based nutrition within her community. She also serves as Vice President of the Midland Quality Alliance, a clinically integrated network of physicians, and is on the Health and Wellness committee of Priority Midland, a local community initiative.

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Director

Jessica Matthews, DBH, MS, NBC-HWC

Dr. Matthews is assistant professor and director of the Master of Kinesiology in Integrative Wellness program at Point Loma Nazarene University. An award-winning educator, she has developed and implemented graduate degree and professional certificate programs at several colleges in southern California, in addition to creating and teaching a variety of graduate courses in areas such as lifestyle medicine and integrative health. A national board-certified health and wellness coach (NBC-HWC), Dr. Matthews serves as director of integrative health coaching at UC San Diego in the Centers for Integrative Health. She is also the lead author and editor of the textbook, The Professional’s Guide to Health and Wellness Coaching. 

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