Oregon Health Authority Bios

Dr. Sejal Hathi

Dr. Hathi was appointed director of the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) by Governor Kotek in November 2023 and confirmed by the Oregon Senate in February 2024.

Dr. Hathi comes to Oregon after serving most recently as New Jersey's deputy health commissioner for public health services and its designated state health officer. Prior to that, she served in the Biden-Harris Administration for two years as the White House’s Senior Policy Advisor for Public Health, leading various domestic presidential policy priorities. A board-certified attending physician, she also held joint faculty appointments as an assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine & Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Early in her career, Dr. Hathi founded and led two social enterprises, each advancing women’s and girls’ leadership—over time, across 6 continents, mobilizing more than 30,000 young women. In 2013, Dr. Hathi was appointed as 1 of 9 public health leaders to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s expert advisory group on women’s & children’s health, charged with evaluating and reporting global progress against maternal and child mortality+. More recently, she served as the Host & Producer of Civic Rx, a podcast on health equity and social justice that featured long-form interviews with leaders ranging from Dr. Anthony Fauci to Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez—its listeners spanning 40+ countries. At the same time, Dr. Hathi cared for COVID-19 patients as a resident physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and a clinical fellow on faculty at Harvard Medical School, where she also launched and led a voter education and mobilization initiative for providers and their patients. She has served on numerous national boards related to public service and public health and today maintains a role as a founding board member of Indiaspora. Dr. Hathi has spoken at TEDWomen, the World Health Assembly, and the United Nations, among other venues. During the first two years of the pandemic, she appeared regularly as a medical commentator for CNN, BBC, CBS News, and Yahoo! News.

Dr. Hathi holds a B.S. with honors from Yale University and an M.D./M.B.A. from Stanford University, where she studied as a Harry S. Truman Scholar and Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow. Among other honors, she’s been named to the Forbes 30 Under 30, Newsweek's "150 Women Who Shake the World," Glamour's Amazing Young Women of the Year, the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Awards, the National Minority Quality Forum's 40 Under 40, the World Economic Forum Global Shapers, and the United States Presidential Scholars for her work. She is a delegate of the Academy of Achievement, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Yale University President’s Council on International Activities.

Ashley Thirstrup

Ashley Thirstrup brings more than 20 years as an administrator and leader in health and human services. She oversees agency-wide initiatives related to policy, partner engagement, and strategic communications. Her responsibilities include collaborating with agency leaders and community partners in root cause analysis, facilitating strategic planning efforts, and driving measurable, equitable improvements in OHA’s operational structure.

Ashley has been with OHA since 2017 — beginning her career as the Manager of Community Policy, Systems, and Environmental Change within the Public Health Division, before becoming the Director of Health in Education in the Director’s Office. In that role, she spearheaded collaboration between OHA and the Oregon Department of Education to improve the health and well-being of students, families and educators. Most recently, Ashley served as OHA’s Director of Government Relations, where she led OHA through two legislative sessions. Prior to her state service, Ashley was the Director of Youth and Education Services at the Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA) where she worked to reduce health and educational inequities in partnership with Portland’s Urban Native American and Alaska Native community. Ashley holds an undergraduate degree in International Relations and Cross-cultural Studies from Burlington College and is a graduate of Portland State University’s Executive Master of Public Administration program.

Kristine Kautz

Kristine Kautz, Oregon Health Authority's deputy director, has been employed by the state of Oregon for 33 years. Previously Kris served as the Department of Revenue deputy director for almost six years and before that the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) deputy director for five-and-half years. She also has been deputy director for administration at the Department of Fish and Wildlife, assistant director for human resources at the Department of Corrections, senior budget analyst at DAS, and the Workers' Compensation Management-Labor Advisory Committee administrator at the Department of Consumer and Business Services. From March 2008 to February 2011 she served on the Oregon Employees Federal Credit Union Board of Directors. Kris also served from 2012 to 2014 on the board of directors of The Luke Center, which provides leadership development programs to the public sector. Kris is a graduate of the University of Portland with a bachelor's degree in business administration

Dave Baden

Dave Baden, formerly Oregon Health Authority's chief financial officer (CFO), came to OHA from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where he most was deputy CFO. His accomplishments at OHA include managing OHA’s procurement process for Coordinated Care Organizations, as well as multiple critical roles during the pandemic. He was one of the statewide incident commanders in response to COVID-19, procuring and distributing personal protective equipment to health care systems in Oregon amidst a nationwide shortage. 

He also oversaw staffing support for hospitals and long-term care settings during the height of surges brought on by variants, bringing in more than 2,000 staff to Oregon to help keep providers afloat. Additionally, he also led effective vaccine distributions, which contributed to Oregon having the second-lowest COVID-19 case rate and eighth-lowest death rate in the nation. He has a Master of Science in public affairs from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a Bachelor of Science in political science from Truman State University in Missouri.

Ebony Clarke

Ebony Clarke, Oregon Health Authority’s behavioral health director, brings more than 25 years of experience as an administrator, manager and clinician. In both the public sector and non-profit behavioral health arena, Ebony has influenced policy, centering the "work" with an equity and consumer lens.

Prior to this role she served in multiple leadership roles during her 12 years at Multnomah County, most recently as Health Department Director overseeing public health, behavioral health, corrections health, and the federally qualified health centers. Before that, Ebony served as the county’s Behavioral Health Director. Before joining the county, Ebony worked as a Service Director of Child and Family Services at Lifeworks NW. In that role, she oversaw child and family outpatient mental health, prevention, and culturally specific adult mental health and addiction services.

Under her forward-looking leadership, Ebony led the Multnomah County Health Department during the pandemic, with a staff of 1,900 and a budget of over $400 million. The county was a regional leader in the COVID-19 response, standing up vaccination clinics for low-income and underserved communities. She was instrumental in establishing the Behavioral Health Resource Center, which serves more than 1,000 people a week in downtown Portland.

Ebony’s mission is to build and sustain a behavioral health continuum of care that is consumer-focused, equity-focused, and effective in meeting the unique and complex needs of every person in Oregon to promote healing and well-being for individuals, families, and communities.

A Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Ebony holds a Master of Social Work from Portland State University and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Oregon.

Ali Hassoun

Since 2018, Ali Hassoun has led the Public Employees’ Benefit Board (PEBB) and Oregon Educators Benefit Board (OEBB) programs as the Interim Director. In that role, he’s been a catalyst in bringing Oregon’s health transformation strategies to PEBB and OEBB members by offering better coordinated care and containing health care cost growth to the more than 300,000 people they serve. Ali also brings many years of experience in state government finance, health care, and employee benefits, including working as the deputy director and director of operations for both PEBB and OEBB. Ali was part of the core team that initially stood up OEBB and the Oregon Health Insurance Exchange.

Before coming to OHA, Ali worked for nine years in the state budget office at the Department of Administrative Services (DAS). More recently, Ali has been a crucial leader in the implementation of Senate Bill 1067 (2017), the Oregon Legislative bill that merged the administration of the two boards. He established the SB 1067 work group that brought together a diverse group of partners to formulate innovative approaches to improving the quality of health care, more efficiently delivering care, and reducing unnecessary costs.

Emma Sandoe

Emma Sandoe, PhD, MPH, is the director of Oregon’s Medicaid Division. She leads employees and programs that support Oregon Health Plan (OHP), the state’s Medicaid program, which serves approximately 1.4 million members.

Before coming to OHA, Dr. Sandoe served as North Carolina’s Deputy Director of Medicaid Policy, where she was the primary liaison to Tribal nations in the state and to the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). She oversaw the state’s Medicaid Plan and its Medicaid waivers, and took a lead role in developing and implementing new policies to improve health equity.

As part of her work in North Carolina, Dr. Sandoe helped direct the passage and implementation of the state’s Medicaid expansion, which brought health coverage to more than 550,000 people. She also led efforts to expand the health care workforce under North Carolina’s Home and Community-based Services (HCBS) program and assisted in developing and implementing the state’s Healthy Opportunity Pilots program, leveraging Medicaid dollars to address food, transportation, and housing insecurity, as well as toxic stress.

Alfonso Ramirez

Alfonso brings over 30 years of experience in the human services field as an educator, clinician, program administrator and equity leader serving diverse communities. He holds expertise in equity, trauma-informed and culturally responsive practices, systems change and community engagement. He believes the humanization of systems to be critical to equity and trauma informed work.

Alfonso has received local and national recognition for his work leading one of the nation’s first Trauma Informed Schools Pilot Programs implemented in a large comprehensive high school which experienced significant increases in graduation rates for students of color, students experiencing economic hardship and students receiving special education services. He also co-developed an antiracist-trauma informed curriculum for health care providers in Washington County with local CBOs and community members. He currently represents Oregon in the Center for Health Care Strategies Equity Changemakers Institute.

Alfonso has served as OHA’s Behavioral Health Equity and Community Partnerships Director since 2021 leading equity efforts for Behavioral Health and forging new partnerships with culturally specific providers. Working alongside community partners, his unit co-created the nation’s first enhanced Medicaid payment program for culturally and linguistically specific behavioral health providers. He directed culturally specific shelter programs for children from central and south America in Oregon and Arizona and was recognized as an Emerging Non-Profit leader receiving non-profit business and leadership training through the Bank of America Neighborhood Builders Program. He is trained in the Neurosequential Model of Education and Therapeutics and Family Functional Therapy. His teaching experience in multicultural settings includes working with Chicano students at Aztlan Academy and Tohono O’odham and Yaqui students at Ha:ṣañ Preparatory & Leadership School in Arizona.

Sara Walker

Sara Walker, M.D. moved to Oregon to follow her passion for working with people with severe and persistent mental illness. Dr. Walker began treating patients at Oregon State Hospital (OSH) in 2006 and has served in leadership roles since 2010. She spent four years as the president of the Medical and Allied Health Professional Staff and more than six years as the Chief of Psychiatry before stepping into her current position as Chief Medical Officer in 2020. Dr. Walker is also currently serving as interim Superintendent for OSH.

She obtained her medical degree from the University of South Florida College of Medicine and completed her residency at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo. She is board certified in psychiatry and is a strong supporter of academic training at OSH. She is also a strong supporter of career development through on-the-job learning about topics such as forensic psychiatry and leadership.

Since assuming the role of Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Walker has played an integral part in guiding the hospital through multiple crises (both acute and chronic), improving collaboration between clinical disciplines and administration, and responding effectively to the changing needs of our patients and the behavioral health system in Oregon.

Dr. Walker is a champion for excellence in patient care and development of high-performing teams who are flexible, collaborative and patient-centered. As such, she prioritizes open communication, ensuring clinicians have the information and resources they need to be successful, and providing clinicians with a voice in how to most effectively provide treatment in a complex system.