Meet The Team

SWL is small and nimble. Individually and as a group, we work well with all types of people and organizations. As needed, the SWL team expands to include partners to ensure that we are able to provide timely services that delight our clients.

Diane Stollenwerk, MPP, President
Diane@StollenWerks.com

Focus: Keynote speaking and facilitation, strategic planning, environmental scans, product development, consumer engagement, measurement and improvement, sustainability, and public affairs including policy analysis and stakeholder collaboration.

As the founder of StollenWerks, Diane applies a wealth of experience and the ability to bring structure to complex situations and tease out practical approaches to meet goals. She is an award-winning public speaker with 25 years of experience working ‘from policy to practice’ at the national, state and regional levels. Her focus areas are multi-stakeholder engagement to develop workable solutions to improve health and health care, patient and consumer engagement, and using data for measuring, reporting and aligning incentives. She is a board member of the Mental Health Association of Maryland and of FreeState Justice. She served on the Maryland Health Care Commission and was Vice President of Stakeholder Engagement at the National Quality Forum in Washington, DC. She understands the hard work of turning vision into reality: she was a founding director of the nationally-recognized Washington Health Alliance, a multi-stakeholder coalition in the Pacific Northwest successfully improving health care cost and quality. In addition to the health field, she has worked in high tech, transportation, corrections, education, and with community groups and professional associations.

Diane has a master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree in English from San Diego State University.

William K Bleser, PhD, MSPH, Senior External Independent Consultant

Focus: Health policy; public health; value-based payment and delivery reform; health equity; social determinants of health; strategic planning; qualitative, quantitative, and policy analysis research; product development; and stakeholder collaboration.

Dr. Will Bleser has 11 years’ experience in applied and academic health policy and public health research. He is an Assistant Research Director, Payment Reform and Population Health, at Duke University’s Robert J. Margolis, MD, Center for Health Policy in Washington, DC. His work at Duke revolves around key policy questions in health care delivery, with focus on the overlap of value-based health care payment and delivery reform and population health. Will is a former Graduate Research Assistant at Pennsylvania State University conducting research on inequities in preventive health services, evaluating national health quality improvement efforts, and reforming the patient-centered medical home delivery model.

Will has a PhD from Pennsylvania State University in Health Policy and Demography, an MS in Public Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Disease Epidemiology and Control, and a BS from the College of William and Mary in Neuroscience.

Ashley Fenker, MA, Senior Director

Focus: Copyediting, writing

Ashley has spent the last decade as a professional writer and editor in various marketing and communications roles in agency, nonprofit, editorial, and education environments. Her expertise in strategic communication has enhanced the storytelling of many outreach campaigns across a broad range of industries, including: human services non-profits, pharmaceutical and life sciences, real estate, branding and design, women’s media, food and hospitality, the arts, and faith-based.

Ashley has a BA in English and Communication, with a minor in Writing, from McDaniel College, and an MA in Biblical and Theological Studies, with a focus in Media Arts and Worship, from Dallas Theological Seminary.

Michelle Ferrari, PhD, MPH, Senior Director

Focus: Patient experience; consumer engagement; health care performance measurement; health system quality improvement; strategic planning and change management.

Dr. Michelle Ferrari has over two decades of experience as a healthcare policy and management professional, with expertise in patient experience and patient-centered care. Michelle has led healthcare change management initiatives in both the United States and Australia. She was Director of Person-Centered Care at the North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network, one of 31 primary health networks instituted by the Australian Government to commission health care system reforms at the local level. Michelle was also a founding team member at Minnesota Community Measurement, whose mission is to accelerate the improvement of health by publicly reporting health care quality data. Michelle directed Minnesota’s Aligning Forces for Quality initiative, whose aim is to strengthen collaboration between patients, payors, and providers to boost the quality of healthcare through performance measurement, quality improvement, and consumer engagement.

Michelle has a PhD in Economics and Management from the University of Bolzano (Italy) and a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

Stephanie L. House, MA, CPRP, Senior Director

Focus: Local behavioral health services integration; increasing use of evidence-based strategies and best practices; recovery services expansion; suicide prevention programs and strategies

Stephanie has extensive behavioral health experience in the public and private sectors, starting her career back when mental health services were moving from hospitals to community settings. She worked more than 20 years with the Baltimore County Department of Health where most recently she was Chief of the Bureau of Behavioral Health in the Local Behavioral Health Authority (LBHA). In that role she oversaw a staff of 85, managing the Public Behavioral Health System at the local level, including services to address mental health, substance use disorders, prevention, recovery, and harm reduction. Prior to leading the LBHA, she was appointed Chief of Operations during a major organizational merger after being the Chief of Administrative Services for fiscal and operations and, earlier, a Program Manager for Administrative Services in the Bureau of Mental Health. Stephanie also has extensive private sector experience, having been the Executive Director of Prologue, Inc., a multi-county community private non-profit psychiatric and residential rehabilitation program. Stephanie holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from the University of Maryland, College Park

Vimbai Madzura, MA, LISW, Senior External Independent Consultant

Focus: Medicaid, health policy, policy analysis and research, health equity, practice transformation, and stakeholder and community engagement

Vimbai brings state-level experience in supporting the development and implementation of Medicaid behavioral health and integrated care models, and care coordination programs. She also brings direct experience providing behavioral health case management, care coordination in primary care systems, and crisis management services for individuals receiving Medicaid. She currently serves as a Deputy Director on the Medicaid Policy and Programs at Aurrera Health Group; in this role, she supports clients by providing policy research and analysis, project management, strategic advice, and support with community and stakeholder engagement efforts to advance public policy. Vimbai is committed to working towards improving policies and programs in ways that are inclusive and promote equitable outcomes.  

Vimbai holds a master’s degree in social work from Arizona State University and a master’s degree in advertising from the University of Texas at Austin.

Suzanne Sherif, MBA, Operations Coordinator
Suzanne@StollenWerks.com

FocusTracking project deliverables, overseeing operations,  scheduling, research, social media

As Operations Coordinator, Suzanne applies her skills and experience that stem from her professional background that includes technology markets research consulting in the European Union, administrative management, patient advocacy, and social media management. Suzanne feels that this is a transformational era in healthcare, as information technology and democratization of data access will revolutionize the industry, both in terms of quality improvements and patient engagement.

Suzanne has an MBA from Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of
Western Ontario in London, Canada.

Megan Thomas, MPP, Senior External Independent Consultant 

Focus: Medicaid, CHIP, health policy, quality of care, quality measurement, data collection and reporting, policy analysis and research, health equity

Megan has nearly two decades of federal, foundation, and consulting experience in health policy, with a focus on quality of care issues in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). She currently serves as a Managing Principal for Medicaid Quality Initiatives at Aurrera Health Group; in this role, Megan leverages her expertise in data, quality measurement, and performance improvement to support state delivery system reform efforts, assist in the design and implementation of Medicaid Section 1115 Waivers and other initiatives, and supports state and federal efforts to improve the collection, reporting, analysis, and dissemination of data. Megan also has extensive experience analyzing data and conducting policy analysis and research to improve the understanding of health and healthcare disparities.

Megan holds master’s degree in public policy with a focus in health policy from Georgetown University, and a bachelor’s degree in human biology from Stanford University.