Alok Patel, MD

Clinical Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, Stanford University

Alok Patel, MD is a physician, journalist, producer, host, and consultant who firmly believes humor and relatability should drive science communication. He is a medical correspondent for ABC News and regularly appears as an on-camera expert for several news outlets. Additionally, he is co-host of "Parentalogic,” and "Vitals", digital series from NOVA and PBS Digital Studios, and hosts a popular web series for Medscape. Previously, he worked as a medical producer for CNN/HLN and as a host/contributor for both ABC and NBC News in New York.

Dr. Patel is also the faculty director for media and communication strategy for the department of pediatrics at Stanford's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. Through this role, he helps coordinate creative media strategies for awareness, education, advocacy, and recruitment.

Dr. Patel is involved with several advocacy projects including a media-based sex trafficking education campaign, a 501(c)(3) dedicated to improving healthcare's presence on social media, and on initiatives to improve access to mental health care. He was also on the founding team of Medumo, a patient platform that delivered timely instructions for procedures and treatments, which was acquired by Philips in 2019. Dr. Patel is originally from Arizona, completed his pediatric residency at Seattle Children's Hospital, was on faculty at Columbia University, and is currently a pediatric hospitalist at Stanford University, and the University of California, San Francisco.

In his rare downtime, you can catch him practicing martial arts, creating cocktails, discovering new music, or spending time with his rambunctious toddler-aged daughter, or his wife, a renowned wedding/event planner, who is more creative, talented, and far better-looking, than he is.

Alicia Bazzano, MD, PhD, MPH

Chief Health Officer, Special Olympics Inc.

Alicia Bazzano, MD, PhD, MPH, serves as the Chief Health Officer of Special Olympics Inc., providing strategic oversight of health activities around the world to ensure health services, health professional training programs, and health policies are inclusive and centered around people with intellectual disabilities. Dr. Bazzano has overseen the growth of Special Olympics Health through the expansion of Healthy Communities to 75 countries and 45 states, focusing on lifespan health beginning with early intervention, and modernizing the Healthy Athletes Screening Program.

Dr. Bazzano is a pediatrician and public health executive who has dedicated her career to improving the health of people with intellectual disabilities. Prior to joining Special Olympics in 2019, she previously served as Senior Medical Director for Health Policy at Acumen, LLC and as Chief Physician at the Westside Regional Center in Los Angeles, which provides care to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Dr. Bazzano was the founding Co-Chief Medical Officer of the Achievable Health Center, a first-of-its-kind federally qualified health center dedicated to developmental disabilities. Dr. Bazzano was a faculty member of the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, and she previously served as Clinical Director for Health Promotion at Special Olympics Healthy Athletes in Southern California.

Dr. Bazzano completed her medical education and pediatric residency at UCLA and was a Robert Wood Johnson UCLA Clinical Scholar. She also completed her master's degree in Public Health and her doctorate degree in Health Policy and Management at UCLA.