The Team

BETH LAMBERT is a former healthcare consultant and teacher. As a consultant, she worked with pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostic and other health care companies to evaluate industry trends. She is the author of A Compromised Generation: The Epidemic of Chronic Illness in America’s Children (Sentient Publications, 2010). She is also a co-author of Epidemic Answers’ Brain Under Attack: A Resource for Parents and Caregivers of Children with PANS, PANDAS, and Autoimmune Encephalitis. In 2009, Beth founded Epidemic Answers and currently serves as Executive Director. Beth attended Oxford University and graduated from Williams College and holds a Masters Degree in American Studies from Fairfield University.

JOSIE NELSON is an ethicist, an advocate, a certified health coach, and a lifetime student of holistic health. With degrees from both Georgetown University and the University of Chicago Divinity School, Josie planned a traditional academic career but a detour into management consulting changed everything. While her doctoral dissertation lay undone, Josie worked first with industrial engineering clients and later on business ethics initiatives. As a consultant for Fortune 500 firms, she learned many things about the health industry. Since 2002, she has dedicated herself to understanding the rise in childhood illness, especially autism and related disorders, from an historical, political, ethical, scientific and environmental health perspective. She has witnessed the profound impact of an approach to health that includes informed consent, access to real food, integrative medicine, and healing modalities not typically embraced by mainstream medicine. She once held elected office in the District of Columbia and lived to tell about it. She has been blessed with two healthy children, a fine sense of humor, and many wise teachers.

DR. TALLMAN RUHM is a Board Certified Family Physician whose primary focus is whole-person health and patient education. She draws on her conventional western training along with insights and skills from functional, integrative, bioregulatory and energy medicine. She believes in the healing capacities of the human frame and supports the power of self-regulation to help her patients recover and access vitality. Dr. Tallman Ruhm was born and raised in Montana. She graduated from Montana State University and later the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard where she received a Master’s in Public Policy. She attained her MD degree from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and completed her Family Medicine Residency in Colorado and Alabama. She has practiced ambulatory medicine from Coast to Coast, first at the Whitaker Wellness Institute in California, and later multiple integrative clinics in New England. She served as a college professor for over a decade where she taught Pathology and Foundations in Complementary Health and Wellness, a course she co-designed. Dr. Tallman Ruhm is a sought-after public speaker who currently maintains a part-time private practice in Southern New Hampshire. Dr. Tallman Ruhm, along with her husband and daughter, have hosted numerous exchange students. She has also studied and trained abroad and speaks several languages. Although she competed at an elite level in several sports, she is now content with her practice of yoga, skiing, cycling, hiking and gardening.

DR. CHRIS D’ADAMO is an epidemiologist with expertise in the relationship between modifiable lifestyle factors and human health across the lifespan. Dr. D’Adamo received his Ph.D. in Epidemiology in 2010 from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and is currently an Assistant Professor with dual appointments in the Departments of Family & Community Medicine and Epidemiology & Public Health.

Dr. D’Adamo serves as the Director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the first academic-based integrative medicine center in the United States with an over 30-year history that has collectively published over 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers and received over $50 million of competitive research funding.  Dr. D’Adamo has served as Principal Investigator on many clinical trials and observational studies and authored over 70 publications in peer-reviewed scientific and medical journals including Nutrition, Clinical Nutrition, Nutrition Research, American Journal of Health Promotion, Journal of Nutrition, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Nutrients, Journal of Nutrigenetics and Nutrigenomics and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews among many others. Dr. D’Adamo is also a Fellow at the Nova Institute for Health and Senior Research Advisor to the Institute for Functional Medicine.

RANDALL REISERER, PhD, is a broadly trained, independent scientist whose experience as a statistician and data scientist affords him the freedom to work in a variety of research fields. His professional work includes topics in biology, ecology, animal behavior, psychology, neuroscience, human behavioral health, substance abuse, and now childhood chronic diseases. Dr. Reiserer’s recent research converges on how systems can be optimized to achieve global sustainability goals. He views health-related research as foundational to the pursuit of sustainability, and sees human health as a nested function of environmental health.  He is the Director of Biosynomics Institute and serves on the scientific advisory boards of the Chiricahua Desert Museum and the Copperhead Institute.

DR. SAEED is a board-certified integrative holistic family physician practicing in Illinois. She graduated residency in family medicine from Indiana University School of Medicine, South Bend, and received the Resident Teacher Award from the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine in 2010. She is a diplomate of the American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine and holds a diploma in homeopathy from the Center for Education and Development of Clinical Homeopathy. In 2010, Dr. Saeed joined Physicians HolisticHealth Alliance in South Bend, Indiana. As an integrative holistic family physician, Dr. Saeed witnessed the struggles each patient experienced as they sought to heal their underlying issues, and their frustration about where to begin. With her team at Physicians HolisticHealth Alliance, she was determined to get to the root of disease. She poured over hundreds of books from top professionals in holistic healing, delved into research studies, and examined the common factors in her patients’ numerous success stories. Dr. Saeed’s enthusiasm is demonstrated in her numerous public speaking engagements and her growing social media presence as HolisticMom, MD . She has had numerous articles published in Holistic Primary Care magazine, which called Dr. Saeed “an emerging voice for the next generation of holistic physicians.” Dr. Saeed also writes for the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine and is a member of their social media team. The AIHM has featured her in a member spotlight titled “Walking the Talk: One Member Brings Holism Everywhere She Goes.”

HELEN CONROY, after a fifteen-year career as Vice President and Relationship Manager at a major Fortune 500 company, shifted her career to focus on supporting families living with autism.  She worked as a Development Director at a non-profit organization dedicated to helping families with children with developmental delays and she also founded The Thinking Moms’ Revolution. Helen is the co-author of three books, The Thinking Moms’ Revolution: Autism Beyond the Spectrum, Evolution of a Revolution: From Hope to Healing, and Revolutionary Grandparents: Generations Healing Autism with Love and Hope. Helen and her husband, Doug, have three beautiful children, including Harrison, who is diagnosed with autism and on the path to healing. They live in Naples, Florida.

MARIA RICKERT HONG is a Co-Founder of, and the Education and Media Director for, Epidemic Answers, the 501(c)3 sponsoring non-profit of The Documenting Hope Project. She is a former sell-side Wall Street equity research analyst who covered the oil services sector at Salomon Smith Barney and Lehman Brothers under Institutional Investor #1 ranked analysts. Later, she covered the gaming, lodging & leisure sector at Jefferies & Co. and Calyon Securities. She quit working on Wall Street when her first son was born. Prior to working on Wall Street, she was a marketing specialist for Halliburton in New Orleans, where she also received her MBA in Finance & Strategy from Tulane University. She is the author of the bestselling book Almost Autism: Recovering Children from Sensory Processing Disorder and the co-author of Brain Under Attack: A Resource for Parents and Caregivers of Children with PANS, PANDAS, and Autoimmune Encephalitis. Maria is also a Certified Holistic Health Counselor. Her work can be found on EpidemicAnswers.org, DocumentingHope.com, Healing.DocumentingHope.com, Conference.DocumentingHope.com and MariaRickertHong.com

JANINE BURNHAM-RUTH is a holistic homeschooling mom of two boys. Janine’s professional training includes Neurodevelopment, Sound Based Therapy, Reiki, Meridian Energy Balancing through TKM and Jin Shin Jyutsu, Autonomic Response Testing to identify energy blockages, their causes, and what will relieve them, Retained Neonatal Reflex Integration, and Homeopathy. Janine is passionate about finding the deepest core disturbances to health and well being and using energetic and natural means to resolve them. In her community, Janine started a local Holistic Moms Network chapter and co-developed Conscious Parenting for Aware Kids. Besides professional pursuits, Janine enjoys organic gardening, traditional cooking, spiritual endeavors, and seeing life through the adventurous eyes of her children.

SHANDY LASKEY is an integrative speech-language pathologist and pediatric feeding specialist, as well as a Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, and Epidemic Answers Health Coach. She is a fierce nutrition advocate for children impacted by complex picky eating, neurodevelopmental disorders, and special needs. She is continuously advancing her knowledge in functional and bio-individual nutrition therapies for these specific demographics of children.

Shandy is the founder and CEO of Speaking of Health & Wellness, LLC. Through her own health and wellness journey, she learned the profound impact of nutrition and lifestyle on cognition and overall well-being first hand. Shandy has an intense passion for integrating holistic nutrition and lifestyle strategies into her work with families. She provides virtual and local parent coaching to guide families on identifying ways to address the underlying causes of their child’s condition and/or related symptoms, while also teaching integrative strategies for learning, behavior, communication and mealtimes.

COURTNEY HUELL is a licensed massage therapist and certified integrative nutrition health coach with master’s degrees in public health and holistic nutrition. She is a strong advocate for preventative self-care and integrative approaches to health care delivery. Courtney is the former owner of Route Wellness, LLC, a private practice in which she combined her skills in massage therapy and health coaching to help women identify and remove barriers to self-care, effectively manage stress, and create sustainable practices for long-term weight loss. She is a graduate of Spelman College and Temple University. Courtney lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with her husband and three children.

MARTHA REED HERBERT, PhD, MD, is a pediatric neurologist, neuroscientist, systems thinker and writer who trained in medicine at Columbia University, Pediatrics at Cornell-New York Hospital and Neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, where she founded the collaborative multidisciplinary TRANSCEND Research Program which takes a whole-body-brain approach to challenged brain development.  Prior to her medical training she received her PhD in the History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz, writing her dissertation on the evolution and development of learning processes. She founded the Higher Synthesis Foundation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, whose mission is to study and inspire successful regenerative approaches to complex health and environmental problems, particularly those that fall under the umbrella of its “Gifted Clinicians, Transformative Treatments, Sensitive Measures” Project and her Body-Brain-World thematic. She is the author of the book The Autism Revolution: Whole Body Strategies for Making Life All It Can Be as well as many scientific papers. Her websites are: drmarthaherbert.com and highersynthesisfoundation.org