Martha Coven has spent her career inside and outside of government working on domestic policy, with a particular focus on poverty reduction and the federal budget. Before coming to Princeton, she served for six years in the Obama Administration. From 2011 to 2014, she was the Associate Director for Education, Income Maintenance, and Labor in the Office of Management and Budget, where she was responsible for the budgets of the Department of Education, Department of Labor, Social Security Administration, Administration for Children and Families at the Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Nutrition Service at the Department of Agriculture, and the Corporation for National and Community Service. From 2009 to 2011, Coven served as a Special Assistant to the President at the Domestic Policy Council, where she was the lead policy advisor on anti-poverty programs and initiatives, job training and employment services, and work-family issues, and developed the Administration’s plan for reducing childhood obesity. Prior to joining the Administration, Coven spent eight years in the non-profit sector, at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Consumers Union. She began her career on Capitol Hill, working for the House Democratic leadership. Coven holds a B.A. in economics and a J.D. from Yale University.

Heather Howard is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Health & Wellbeing and director of State Health and Value Strategies, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded program that provides technical assistance to support state efforts to enhance the value of health care by improving population health and reforming the delivery of health care services. She served as New Jersey's Commissioner of Health and Senior Services from 2008-2010, overseeing a cabinet-level agency with a budget of $3.5 billion and staff of 1,700 responsible for public health services, regulation of health care institutions, senior services, and health care policy and research.

Previously, Howard served as Governor Jon Corzine's Chief Policy Counsel, directing his policy agenda. She also has significant federal experience, having worked as Senator Corzine's Chief of Staff, as Associate Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and Senior Policy Advisor for First Lady Hillary Clinton, as an Honors Attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division Health Care Task Force, and for the U.S. House of Representatives. She received her J.D., cum laude, from the New York University School of Law, and her B.A. cum laude, from Duke University.

Howard teaches courses in implementation of the Affordable Care Act, state and local health policy, public health and politics, and the social determinants of health.