PUBLIC POLICY COMMITTEE
The Public Policy Committee is charged with advocating on behalf of persons with ADHD and related disorders by influencing national, state, and local public policies. As a committee, we monitor legislation and regulatory agencies as they relate to ADHD, particularly in the justice and educational systems, civil rights, employment and healthcare. The committee is goal-oriented, establishing legislative priorities that we wish to influence, and responding to concerns as they develop.
Ingrid Y. Alpern, JD, LLM in Tax, Co-Chair
Ingrid Alpern practiced tax law in Washington, DC, for many years. Alpern has helped to raised awareness about ADHD and provides support to families coping with ADHD through her long-term work as a volunteer for CHADD and as a Parent to Parent teacher. She also serves on CHADD’s Finance Committee. Alpern brings to CHADD the expertise she developed as a tax attorney in legal research and writing and analysis of complex matters.
Jeffrey S. Katz, PhD, Co-Chair
Jeffrey Katz is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Katz has been involved with CHADD for many years. In addition to the public policy committee, Katz also serves on CHADD’s professional advisory board and is a past member of the board of directors. Katz specializes in the evaluation and treatment of children, adolescents and adults with an emphasis on ADHD, as well as other behavioral and learning issues. Katz frequently attends school meetings, bringing his knowledge of ADHD, learning disabilities, and school-based interventions together with his knowledge of educational regulations to ensure that students receive the support they need. Katz also serves on the Disabilities Advisory Committee of Tidewater Community College, Virginia, sharing his expertise with their office of educational accessibility.
Tanya Murphy, MBSRP, CBTAC, Co-Chair
Tanya Murphy is a holistic wellness expert, meditation facilitator, restful lifestyle curator, and ADHD mentor and advocate. She specializes in mind/brain/body management strategies to support overall wellbeing. A women's health advocate, she has served as a federal women's health lobbyist for over twenty-five years in a variety of national associations in Washington, DC. After being diagnosed with debilitating anxiety, panic, and depression, Murphy suspected she had ADHD and began seeking a diagnosis. Murphy received a diagnosis of predominantly inattentive ADHD at the age of fifty-three. She is committed to bringing awareness to the importance of addressing ADHD, neurodivergence, and mental wellbeing, particularly in communities of color. Understanding the constant level of exhaustion many women with ADHD live with, and the shame that often accompanies that exhaustion, Murphy created REST, an online community that helps women with ADHD embrace rest in their daily lives. Murphy is a Christian minister and contemplative who has been featured in Thrive Global, Meditation Magazine, and on InsightTimer.
Vincent Buttaci, JD
Vincent N. Buttaci, JD, is a member of Buttaci Leardi & Werner LLC, a boutique health law firm with offices in New Jersey and New York. He focuses his practice on representing nonprofit and for-profit behavioral health facilities and health systems in all aspects of care delivery, access, and reimbursement. Additionally, he has nearly twenty-five years of experience representing nonprofit healthcare associations in matters of advocacy, legislative action, and public policy reform. While in law school, Buttaci struggled with undiagnosed adult ADHD and later learned about coping with neurodiversity. His experience spurred him to establish the Wellness in Career Program at The Ohio State University Michael E. Moritz College of Law, which provides workshops to law students on building self-awareness and addressing time management, stress, and anxiety. He first became involved with CHADD after his daughter’s ADHD diagnosis and is thrilled to join the board of directors to support the organization’s ongoing mission.
Cindy Goldrich, EdM, ADHD-CCSP
Cindy Goldrich, EdM, ADHD-CCSP, is a board-certified ADHD coach. She specializes in providing education, coaching, and support for parents, educators, and mental health professionals to help children with ADHD and executive function deficits succeed at home, in school, and in life. She received her master’s degree in education in counseling psychology from Columbia University. She is the creator of the Calm and Connected: Parenting Children with ADHD series and the author of 8 Keys to Parenting Children with ADHD. She provides professional development workshops and presentations nationwide. She previously served on the editorial advisory board for CHADD’s Attention magazine.
Matthew J. Gormley, PhD
Matthew Gormley is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Gormley is a school psychologist and his research focuses on supporting students at-risk for or diagnosed with ADHD. He is specifically interested in interventions that build collaboration among families, schools, and healthcare settings to support students with ADHD across their academic careers. Gormley received CHADD’s Young Scientist Research Award in 2017.
Trenton Ullrich, MPA
Trenton Ullrich, MPA, is an associate at High Lantern Group’s New York City office. He supports clients across various industries, including in healthcare and patient advocacy. Before joining HLG, Ullrich worked in government and politics, providing communications and organizing support to elected officials and candidates for public office. His work helped elect more than a dozen state and local candidates across New York during the 2019, 2020, and 2022 election cycles. Ullrich holds a master of public administration degree concentrating in public policy from Cornell University. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in government and politics from St. John’s University, where he wrote for the university’s student newspaper.
Mary V. Solanto, PhD
Mary Solanto is Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the Hofstra-Northwell School of Medicine, Long Island, NY. She received her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She completed an NIMH post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She is a former director of the ADHD Center in the Department of Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine. In 2017-2018, Dr. Solanto was a Fulbright US Scholar in the Netherlands, where she taught undergraduates and conducted research on the treatment of ADHD in college students. Dr. Solanto’s research on the cognitive and behavioral functioning of children with ADHD, the effects of psychostimulants, and the characteristics of the subtypes of ADHD has been supported by grants from NIMH, NICHD, and NINDS. Dr. Solanto developed a novel cognitive-behavioral intervention to target problems of executive self-management in adults with ADHD, which was the focus of an NIMH-sponsored treatment efficacy study. It was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Dr. Solanto has published scholarly papers and books about ADHD in children and adults. She is a frequent reviewer for professional journals, and has served on study section/grant review panels for NIMH. The manual for therapists, Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Adult ADHD: Targeting Executive Dysfunction, was published by Guilford Press. The program was recognized by CHADD as an Innovative Program of the Year. Dr. Solanto also edited, with Amy Arnsten and Xavier Castellanos, Stimulant Drugs and ADHD: Basic and Clinical Neuroscience. Currently, she is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Attention Disorders, and the ADHD Report.
Dr. Solanto serves on the professional advisory boards of CHADD, National Center for Learning Disabilities, and the American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders.
M. Jeffry Spahr, MBA, JD
Jeffry Spahr is an attorney in Norwalk, Connecticut. Spahr is president of the Connecticut Association of Children and Adults with Learning Disabilities. He has been the driving force behind the Connecticut governor's annually declaring an ADHD Awareness Week in the state. He also founded the Association of Parents of Exceptional Children and Siblings to assist parents in his state in coping with the legal and academic challenges they face for their children.
Brandi Walker, PhD
Dr. Walker is the CEO of Marie Pauline Consulting, LLC, her private practice dedicated to providing educational, clinical, and psychological guidance and expertise to organizations seeking to improve their social climate, employee and customer relations, and/or enhance their diversity and equity awareness.
Dr. Walker is also an executive leadership coach experienced in providing educational, clinical, and coaching guidance to military leaders and their teams in order to support strategic initiatives that target the reduction of mental health challenges for servicemen and women. She is a Howard University and University of Maryland, alumna and an Army Clinical Psychologist and faculty member at Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg, NC. Dr. Walker is also an active duty Army officer (soon to retire) who works directly with Service Members and their families, in addition to developing initiatives and collaborations that are in sync with the Army’s Holistic Health and Fitness programming. Additionally, Dr. Walker maintains her earnest desire to further what is known about ADHD and continues to provide therapeutic expertise and researched-informed support to families and individuals that are impacted.
She spent the last seven years working with various hospitals, clinics, and schools conducting research on children with ADHD, their family and various sleep variables and environmental factors of influence. Dr. Walker’s community efforts entail collaboratively initiating the Prince George’s County (Maryland) CHADD (Children and Adults with ADHD) Chapter and CHADD’s Southern Regional Support Center. Dr. Walker also focuses her efforts to training and advocacy on diversity, inclusion, equity, and intersectionality awareness and practices. She serves as Chair Past of the Diversity in the Military Committee, of the American Psychological Association's Society of Military Psychology (Division 19).
Naline Walker
Naline Walker has over fifteen years of experience working with neurodiversity and neurodivergent individuals as a residential counselor in human behavior and a case manager in Virginia and Maryland. She earned a bachelor’s degree in social science from the University of University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland, and holds dual Master of Science degrees in business administration and management/criminal justice at University of Maryland University College. Walker is a Howard University associate investigator/research assistant and has served as a liaison in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area for recruitment suites in a five-year research study titled An Examination of the Relationship Between Sleep and Parental Distress in Children with ADHD Who Differ in Their Medication Status. She worked at Joint Base Andrews, a military facility in Prince George County, Maryland, for the past ten years. Walker serves as a volunteer facilitator/coordinator for Prince George County CHADD parent support group and as regional coordinator for the CHADD Southern Regional Center. She also volunteers with a domestic violence nonprofit organization advocating against human trafficking.
