Samara Tahmid is a public health professional with more than six years of experience engaging community and government stakeholders in advancing public health initiatives aimed at improving community resiliency, closing mental health equity gaps and increasing access to care. She currently serves as a Project Manager of Practice Improvement at the National Council for Mental Wellbeing. In her role, Samara primarily manages technical assistance and public health education campaigns of the National Behavioral Health Network for Tobacco & Cancer Control (NBHN), one of eight CDC National Networks established to eliminate tobacco use and cancer disparities for individuals with mental health and substance challenges.

Taslim van Hattum, LCSW, MPH, Senior Director of Practice Improvement is a public health social work professional with more than 15 years of experience in program design and implementation, training and technical assistance design and delivery, and facilitation and interactive meeting design. She is an expert in dismantling siloes between and within organizational structures and systems and has facilitated effective and sustainable partnership building with public health departments, state health departments, public health agencies, community-based organizations, and community health organizations. She also brings expertise in providing individualized coaching, action planning and project direction, with an orientation towards improving overall client and organizational wellness and advancing equitable health practices within systems, communities, and patient populations. Taslim has spent four years as a Senior Director of Practice Improvement leading initiatives at the intersection of tobacco and behavioral health on behalf of the National Council and NBHN. She has directed the launch of successful communities of practice, coached individual providers on policy development and implementation, and trained thousands of providers and public health professionals on the intersection of tobacco and behavioral health as well as systems change opportunities to address disparities in this space.