A world-class and renowned
Advisory Board.

Dr. Brunton works in a group practice in rural Winnsboro, South Carolina and holds the faculty rank of Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at Touro University in Vallejo, California. He is also executive director of the Primary Care Metabolic Group (PCMG), a national primary care collaboration of over 10,000 primary care clinicians. He also serves as Editor-in Chief of the ADA’s primary care journal, Clinical Diabetes. He has over 175 publications in primary care and specialty journals and is a frequent speaker at national and international medical meetings.

Dr. Brunton earned his medical degree at Monash University Medical School in Melbourne, Australia and completed his residency in family practice at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center in California. He is a board-certified family physician and is also a certified diabetes care and education specialist.

Matthew Jay Budoff, MD, FACC, FAHA, is a professor of medicine at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the Endowed Chair of Preventive Cardiology at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Dr. Budoff is a graduate of University of California at Riverside (BS) and graduated a member of Alpha Omega Alpha from George Washington University School of Medicine (MD).

Dr. Budoff has authored or coauthored more than 50 books and book chapters and more than 1000 articles. He has received numerous research grants from the National Institutes of Health. In addition to his 2015 appointment as the Endowed Chair of Preventive Cardiology at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, he has been recognized for his work by the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography, from which he received the Gold Medal Award and recently designated as Master of the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (MSCCT).

Ralph A. DeFronzo, MD, is Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Diabetes Division at the University of Texas Health Science Center and the Deputy Director of the Texas Diabetes Institute, San Antonio, Texas. His major interests focus on the pathogenesis and treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus and the central role of insulin resistance in the metabolic-cardiovascular cluster of disorders known collectively as the Insulin Resistance Syndrome. For his work in this area, Dr. DeFronzo has received many national and international awards including the Banting Award from the ADA (2008), and the Claude Bernard Award from the EASD (2008). These represent the highest scientific achievement awards given by the American and European Diabetes Associations, respectively. Dr. DeFronzo also has received the Hamm International Prize (2017), and most recently The Prince Mahidol Award (2023) which recognizes a person worldwide in medicine and science who has made major discoveries leading to advances in global health. With more than 800 articles published in peer-reviewed medical journals, Dr. DeFronzo is a distinguished clinician, teacher, and investigator who has been an invited speaker at major national and international conferences on diabetes mellitus.

Dr. Freedman is the John Felts Distinguished Professor and Chief of the Nephrology Section at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Concomitantly he serves as the Chief Medical Officer of Health Systems Management, Inc. overseeing the Wake Forest University School of Medicine and Emory School of Medicine Outpatient Dialysis Programs. Dr. Freedman chaired the NIDDK Family Investigation in Nephropathy and Diabetes (FIND) Consortium and is PI of the NIDDK APOL1 Long-Term Kidney Transplant Outcomes (APOLLO) Coordinating Center. His work on familial clustering of ESKD in African Americans paved the way for the identification of major nephropathy risk variants. His team now works on functional, clinical, and translational aspects of apolipoprotein L1 gene (APOL1)-associated kidney disease. He has continually been funded by the NIH since 1995 and published more than 600 peer-reviewed manuscripts and editorials.

Dr. Freedman earned his medical degree from Downstate Medical Center, the State University of New York, in 1984. He completed his training in internal medicine at the Eastern Virginia Graduate School of Medicine and his nephrology fellowship at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Dr. Kramer is a Professor of Public Health Sciences and Medicine within the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at Loyola University Chicago. She is also a practicing nephrologist at the Edward Hines Jr VA hospital and is the Associate Director of Research for the Medicine Service Line and the Founding Director of the Hines VA Serwa Research Center on Aging. Dr. Kramer’s research focuses on the intersection of chronic kidney disease, nutrition, and cardiovascular disease. In addition to her research, she is a patient advocate and is a past President of the National Kidney Foundation and a current member of the Board of Directors of the National Kidney Foundation of Illinois and the National Kidney Foundation.

Javier Morales, MD, FACP, FACE, is vice president and principal clinical trials investigator at Advanced Internal Medicine Group in East Hills, New York. He is also an associate clinical professor of medicine for the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, Hofstra University, in Hempstead, New York. He earned his medical degree at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey–New Jersey Medical School in Newark, New Jersey. Dr. Morales completed a residency in internal medicine at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, New York, and North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York, where he was chief medical resident from 1998 to 1999. He is certified as a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine.

Dr. Morales is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and American College of Endocrinology, and a member of the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the National Hispanic Medical Association, and the Interamerican College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Morales currently serves as a member of the Diabetes Oversight Committee and the Obesity Medicine Subcommittee for the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. He is involved in the training of medical students, medical residents, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants. Dr. Morales is active in clinical research, having served as investigator on several key clinical trials, has published numerous articles in major peer-reviewed journals, and is a frequent lecturer at many national and international continuing medical education forums. He is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Cardiology & Current Research.

Dr. Joseph Vassalotti is the Chief Medical Officer of the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) and Clinical Professor of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology, at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He received his medical degree with Distinction in Research from the SUNY Stony Brook School of Medicine and completed an Internal Medicine Residency and Nephrology Fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. At NKF, his major focus is implementation of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines in chronic kidney disease (CKD), including the NKF’s Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (KDOQI), particularly through guidance of the NKF’s primary care initiative, called CKD intercept.

He has served as co-PI for the CDC Demonstration Project “CKD Health Evaluation and Risk Information Sharing (CHERISH)”, which aimed to identify individuals at high risk for CKD in the U.S. and as an investigator for the NIH-sponsored clustered practice randomized trial entitled, evidenced-based primary care for CKD. Leadership also includes multiple roles over the last decade with the CMS Fistula First national quality improvement initiative for hemodialysis, including as Lead Physician Consultant from 2013 through 2015. He has served on numerous committees that shape innovation and health policy in kidney disease for the CDC, the NIH and CMS. Currently, he serves as Principal Investigator for the Kidney Score Platform an NKF educational project funded by the Veterans Administration Center for Innovation to improve awareness and education among Veterans with and at risk for CKD in the primary care setting.

He is the Chair of NKF’s Technical Expert Panel on the Kidney Health Evaluation for Adults with Diabetes. He also serves as PI for an AARP-funded OptumLabs investigation that evaluates disparities in the Kidney Health Evaluation Measure for CKD testing of Americans with diabetes as well as analyzes evidenced-based therapies driven by the measure.  Dr. Vassalotti typically sees approximately 40 patients per week and has over 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals. He has been featured in Castle Connolly’s Top Doctors and Best Doctors in America.

Dr. Eugene E. Wright Jr holds appointments as Consulting Associate in the Department of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Wright has an undergraduate BSE in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University and a medical degree from Duke University School of Medicine. He completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Duke University Hospital in 1981. Dr. Wright has over 40 years of clinical experience as a private practitioner, academic clinician and educator, medical administrator, a rural physician in southeastern NC, and a volunteer physician. He currently works with the Charlotte AHEC in Performance Improvement. Dr. Wright serves and has served on several advisory and editorial boards, which include Clinical Diabetes, Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics, and as a content reviewer for UpToDate. Dr. Wright has served on the Planning Committee for the Clinical Conference of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) since 2009. He has served as the inaugural chair of the ADA Primary Care Interest Group and as a member of the ADA/AHA Know Diabetes by Heart Science Advisory Group. Dr. Wright has published several articles on diabetes diagnosis, treatment, and management, and has given presentations at national and international meetings on new treatments and technology for diabetes.