Board Members
Margaret Laws, M.P.P., Chair
Margaret Laws is director of the California Healthcare Foundation’s Innovations for the Underserved program. In this role she oversees the Foundation’s work to reduce barriers to efficient, affordable care for the underserved. Specific objectives of the program include: encouraging, testing and promoting lower-cost models of care; improving the availability of specialty and dental care for underserved Californians; promoting policy and operational improvements to increase enrollment and retention in publicly sponsored insurance programs; and increasing the efficiency of safety-net institutions.
Prior to joining CHCF, Laws was on the staff of the California Managed Care Improvement Task Force. Before that she was a senior consultant and manager with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), where she worked in the government and health care strategy practices with clients including state health and human service agencies and payer and provider organizations.
Laws also has worked as a consultant with the Francois Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health, conducting research on trends in international development funding for HIV/AIDS; for the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, providing technical assistance in program development and operations for nonprofits in developing countries; as a consultant for the World Health Organization’s Global Programme on AIDS; and as a caseworker and analyst for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare.
She serves on the advisory board of the Health Initiative of the Americas.
Laws received a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Princeton University and a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Dan Cawley, Treasurer
Dan Cawley is Vice President of Impact & Administration at HopeLab. As the administrator of programs and services, Dan implements systems and strategies to ensure the greatest possible impact for HopeLab’s innovative solutions. He is also responsible for creating and administering efficient and effective internal systems consistent with HopeLab’s mission and values to support the work of the organization’s research and development staff.
Dan has extensive experience in finance and administrative systems. Most recently, he was the Deputy Executive Director of Finance and Administration for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, one of the oldest and largest community-based AIDS service organizations in the United States. He was also the Treasurer of Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation, a global affiliate of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. During his ten years with the organizations, Dan was responsible for strategy development and implementation, fund development, finance, administration, and technology management. He was previously Director of Finance & Administration for the Stop AIDS Project from 1994 to 1996 and the Business Director for the Foundation for National Progress, publishers of Mother Jones Magazine, from 1991 to 1994. Dan also held finance positions in other industries, including motion-picture production and telemarketing.
Dan received his B.S. in Marketing from the State University of New York, College at Oswego in 1985.
Julia Martin, MHSc
Julia Martin is Vice President for Programs at Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation. With over 15 years experience in HIV/AIDS and public health she brings leadership in the areas of program and research development across multiple populations. Working in the fields of both disease prevention and treatment she has extensive experience in developing national policy, supporting operational research and the design of healthcare delivery systems in mid-level and developing economies. Recently, her work has focused on injection drug using populations in Ukraine and roll-out of ART programs Uganda. She previously coordinated the clinical, prevention, and training programs of the Infectious Diseases Institute, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda where she lived for several years, and established clinical and administrative systems for one of the first free ART delivery programs in Africa. Ms. Martin was previously the coordinator of HIV Prevention Strategies, Applied Research and Knowledge Development for Health Canada where she oversaw the management of national and international HIV prevention programs and policy development. Prior to her position at Health Canada, Ms Martin practiced clinical intensive care nursing for eight years in a tertiary care hospital in Canada, and additionally, functioned as a clinical manager in a primary care, rural hospital in Zambia. She earned a BscN from the University of Western Ontario and a MHSc from the University of Toronto.
