Mailing Address
Children's Dental Health Project
2001 L Street, NW
Suite 400
Washington, DC 20036
Phone (202) 833-8288
Fax (202) 318-0667

Nancy Gralla
Executive Director
(click for bio)

Meg Booth, MPH
Director of Governmental Affairs
(click for bio)

Marcy Frosh, JD
Program Manager, Infrastructure Development Initiative Related to Oral Disease Prevention and Oral Health Promotion
(click for bio)

Jessie Buerlein, MSW
Program Associate, Perinatal and Infant Oral Health
(click for bio)

Jessica Kleinman
Administrative/Project Assistant
(click for bio)

Nancy Gralla was Executive Director of the National Association of City and County Health Officials (NACCHO) from 1987 to 1997, and helped build the organization from immediately after its inception from a staff of 2 to a staff of 30 by the time of her departure. During that time, the organization increased its budget from $150,000 to over $2 million. In 1994, Ms. Gralla assisted in guiding the merger of two organizations representing local agencies into the current NACCHO. During her tenure at NACCHO, Ms. Gralla provided leadership to public health infrastructure projects, as well as grants from HRSA, CDC, Kellogg, and RWJF. Ms. Gralla earned her BA from the University of California at Berkeley and her MPH from Columbia University. Prior to her position at NACCHO, Ms. Gralla was with the New York City Health Department, working on evaluation, maternity services and family planning. She also held positions with Children's Hospital in Boston and Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. She has been published in the Journal of Public Health and authored two chapters in graduate school textbooks on local public health. Upon her departure from NACCHO, the board of directors created the Nancy Rawding Leadership Award, recognizing leadership and performance within the organization.

Ms. Booth is the Director for Government Affairs and has spent her career working to improve the health and health care systems for children. Prior to joining CDHP Ms. Booth served as a Policy Analyst for children with special health care needs and early childhood issues at the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs. Her background includes working to educate policy makers on child health issues at the local, state, and national levels. Ms. Booth worked with local health department in North Carolina to assess and evaluate their strategies to enroll children into public health care coverage. Additionally, Ms. Booth also worked in the Family Services Bureau at the Iowa Department of Public Health developing the state Title V Block Grant application and outreach strategies for enrolling Iowa's children into Medicaid and SCHIP coverage. Additionally, Ms. Booth was a Policy Associate with the Alliance for Health Reform and a private consultant at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Ms. Booth holds a bachelor of arts in Community Health Education with a minor in Women's Studies from the University of Northern Iowa. She also obtained a Master's in Public Health from the Department of Maternal and Child Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Marcy Frosh is the Program Manager for the National Infrastructure Development Initiative Related to Oral Disease Prevention and Oral Health Promotion. Prior to joining CDHP, Ms. Frosh served as a consultant on health policy projects with MayaTech Corporation's Health Policy and Legislative Analysis Program. Under contract with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), she completed key phases of a project to develop an instrument to evaluate state childhood obesity policies related to the School Nutrition and Physical Activity Environment. She also served as a consultant on the development and implementation of a legislative evaluation system to enhance analyses of State Cancer Legislative Database data for NCI's American Stop Smoking Intervention Study (ASSIST). Ms. Frosh also worked for Common Cause, a nonpartisan advocacy nonprofit that serves as a vehicle for citizens to make their voices heard in the political process and to hold their elected leaders accountable to the public interest in a variety of capacities. She has dedicated her career to local, state and federal policy and legislative development with a particular focus on public health. Ms. Frosh holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of Maryland. She also obtained her Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Jessie Buerlein received a Bachelor of Arts degree, with a major in Sociology and minor in Religious Studies, from the University of Virginia in 2002. She worked to develop and coordinate community development programming for families and children as an employee of the YMCA of Greater Richmond before beginning her graduate studies. Ms. Buerlein earned her Masters in Social Work from Boston College in 2006, with a concentration in Community Organizing, Planning, Policy, and Administration. Her interest in public health began with her graduate internship at the South Boston Community Health Center, where she worked with adolescents on a community-wide substance abuse prevention initiative. She fulfilled her final internship at Health Care For All, where she worked to support the Oral Health Advocacy Taskforce's legislative priorities, aimed at expanding access to oral health care for Massachusetts residents. Jessie has participated in many international programs, and after completing a graduate course in Kampala, Uganda, one of her primary interests has become international public health. As the Improving Perinatal and Infant Oral Health Program Associate, she assists the Project Director in tasks related to project coordination and implementation on both state and federal levels.

Jessica Kleinman received a Bachelor of Science degree, with a major in Women's Studies and a concentration in Psychology, from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2005. Her interest in health policy was sparked when she took part in a policy research initiative for the Lt. Governor of Wisconsin called Wisconsin Women Equals Prosperity. She also has interned and volunteered at non-profit organizations focusing on children, including Zero to Three and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. Her experience in the non-profit sector and overall interest in children and public health make working at CDHP a perfect fit, where she looks forward to contributing to the public health policy process that improves children's oral health. As the administrative/project assistant, she assists interim administrator in administrative tasks and supports a wide variety of tasks for the organization's projects.