Candidate for State Delegate in District 16

From the Community, For the Community

I was born and raised in Montgomery County, Maryland, and I now live in downtown Bethesda. As a graduate of the local MCPS educational system—Luxmanor Elementary, Tilden Middle, and Walter Johnson High School—I know what works and what doesn’t for local students and families. I pursued my Bachelor’s degree at Vassar College and my Master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Active Citizenship

Throughout my life, I have taken an active approach to citizenship and have devoted myself to public service. I currently serve on the White Flint Downtown Advisory Committee, the District 16 Democratic Club Board, the Western Montgomery County Citizens Advisory Board, the Selective Service Board, and as an Area Coordinator for the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee. I have previously served as the  as the Chair of the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission Customer Advisory Board and also as the President of the Luxmanor Citizens Association.

Hitting the Ground Running

Professionally, I bring a wealth of experience at the intersection of health care policy and Maryland state government. After college I served as a Legislative Aide for a Delegate to the Maryland General Assembly. In that role, I learned that providing outstanding constituent service is as important to the work of a successful delegate as ushering bills through the legislative process. While with the General Assembly, I worked on health and budget issues, and closely monitored the development of what would eventually become the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in Congress. I am proud of my achievements, which include research supporting the passage of a utility regulation bill preventing “termination of service” to indigent customers on days of extreme temperature, as well as the issuance of a $5 million bridge grant to Bon Secours Hospital enabling it to ensure continued service for uninsured patients.

In order to be more effective as an advocate for all families facing difficulties within the health care system, I pursued my MSPH in Health Policy with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. While in Baltimore, I supplemented my academic training with concrete experience working on mental health care delivery systems, patient safety, and quality of care at the Johns Hopkins University Medical Campus. As a health care policy advisor at the National Partnership for Women and Families, I wrote comments pertaining to the implementation of the ACA on the use of quality measurement to improve value in health care. Some of those were incorporated into final regulations in the Federal Register. I worked on Health IT at Kaiser Permanente and at the District of Columbia's Department of Health Care Finance in the Health Care Reform and Innovation Administration on health information exchange and health information technology policy.

I am the Host of Public Interest Podcast which has 60,000 listeners, largely in Maryland, and features interviews with cabinet secretaries, major network news anchors, Pulitzer Prize winners, Nobel Prize laureates and candidates, ambassadors to the United Nations, governors, foreign parliamentarians, congressmen, senators, delegates, mayors, councilmen, executive directors of non-profit organizations, and others who seek to improve the state of the world. Episodes are released on a daily basis within a weekly theme, which is accompanied by a weekly newsletter to 10,000 subscribers, many of whom are based in Maryland.

Now, as a candidate for Delegate, I am committed to advocating on behalf of all the residents of Maryland’s 16th Legislative District. I am your advocate for issues concerning you at the local, state, and federal levels of government. Send your issue to me at Contact [at] Cooper4MD [dot] com and allow me to advocate for YOU.

[Speaker Arranged by Phil Meade]