Dr. Allison Kelliher, Maanoyeedlakkon (Mother of Daylight), is an Alaska Native and American Indian physician, Traditional Healer and the first Tribal Doctor physician. She is board-certified in Family and integrative medicine and is a citizen of the Nome Eskimo Community and is also Dena (Koyukon Athabascan), she has practiced in Indian Health Service, Tribal, and private settings. She earned a BS in Indigenous Medicine (UAF), an MD (UW, 2005), and completed the Alaska Family Medicine Residency (2009). A diplomate of both the American Board of Family Medicine and the American Board of Integrative and Holistic Medicine, she apprenticed with Tribal Healers Rita Pitka Blumenstein and Francis Miller. Dr. Kelliher is an adjunct associate professor at the University of North Dakota and has held affiliations with Johns Hopkins, University of Washington, and University of Alaska Anchorage. She is the president of the Association of American Indian Physicians and co-chair for the Indigenous Determinants of Health Alliance and has published over a dozen scientific articles and textbook chapters.

Jay C. Butler, MD is Dean of the College of Health at the University of Alaska Anchorage. From January 2023 to May 2025, his work focused on global health security as the Associate Director for Infectious Diseases in the CDC’s Office of Readiness and Response. From April 2019 to January 2023, he served as Deputy Director for Infectious Diseases at CDC. Dr. Butler has held multiple leadership roles in Alaska, including Commissioner for Health and Social Services in 2018, Chief Medical Officer (2014-2019 and 2007-2009), State Epidemiologist (2005-2007), and Senior Director of the Division of Community Health Services for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (2010-2014). From 1998-2005, Dr. Butler was Director of CDC’s Arctic Investigations in Anchorage. He held leadership roles in multiple emergency responses, including CDC’s response to bioterrorist anthrax in 2001 and the SARS outbreak in 2003, and he was Incident Manager for the CDC COVID-19 response in May and June of 2020 and Deputy Response Official of the Federal Unified Coordination Group for H5N1 avian influenza from September 2024 to May 2025. He graduated from North Carolina State University with a BS in zoology, received his MD at the University of North Carolina, and did internship and residency training in medicine and pediatrics at Vanderbilt. After completing CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service in the Wisconsin Division of Public Health, Dr. Butler completed a preventive medicine residency with the Respiratory Diseases Branch in CDC’s National Center for Infectious Diseases, and an infectious disease fellowship at Emory University. He is board certified in medicine, pediatrics and infectious diseases. He has authored or co-authored over 150 scientific papers, reviews, and book chapters. He was Governor of the Alaska Chapter of the American College of Physicians, 2005-2009, and President of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials in 2016-2017. In addition to his focus on infectious diseases, he has made important contributions to public health approaches to reducing harms associated with addiction and to addressing the health needs of those experiencing homelessness or incarceration.