US Department of Health and Human Services

18A-55

Rockville, MD 20857

Phone: 301-443-2340

For more than twenty years Dr. Kessel has been a strident advocate and public policy leader on behalf of America’s children and families. Dr. Kessel was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and educated in medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. He was a resident and fellow in pediatrics and primary care at the Boston City Hospital and clinical scholar at the Children’s Hospital National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He obtained a master of public health degree at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in Baltimore. Dr. Kessel has championed the prevention of illness and the promotion of health in childhood, the application of clinical science, and he has been a tireless advocate for the promotion of pediatric education and research across the entire perinatal and pediatric continuum. His scholarship skills and abilities have advanced knowledge and science-based judgement in such diverse areas as reducing low birth weight, preventing inappropriate early discharge, and promoting child development. His effective partnership skills and abilities have successfully fostered a collaborative spirit among educators, multi-disciplinary academics, community organizations, care plans, payors, practitioners, policy makers, parents, and families as a team with a common purpose summoning support for children. Dr. Kessel has served with distinction as an officer in the United States Public Health Service. He has attained the rank of Assistant Surgeon General and has been an advisor on child health matters at the White House and throughout the Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Kessel is presently serving as the Senior Child Health Science Advisor to the President’s Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children, and as a Steering Committee member and Federal Champion for the State of Maine of Vice President Gore's National Partnership to Reinvent Government’s Boost for Kids initiative.