Allison Alimayu
Public interest futurist. Fulbright US Scholar. Former Nevada regent.
Roxboro, North Carolina, United States
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Dr. Allison Alimayu is a public interest futurist, keynote speaker, and founder of Alimayu Studio. Her work sits where decisions about children and families are actually made: in how health care is paid for, in the votes of public boards, and in the evidence that funders and regulators accept.
She spent more than a decade in managed care at UnitedHealthcare and DaVita Integrated Care, where she designed a five-state value-based reimbursement program that averaged $8.5 million in monthly savings. She was elected to the Nevada Board of Regents in 2012, served a six-year term including as vice chair, and later ran for US Congress. The US Secretary of Health and Human Services appointed her to the Medicare Evidence Development and Coverage Advisory Committee, and in 2026 she joined the North Carolina Oil and Gas Commission.
She holds a PhD in biomedical informatics from Rutgers University, taught at Tufts University School of Medicine, and was a 2025 to 2026 Fulbright US Scholar at Research Ireland. She has delivered more than 200 keynotes, panels, trainings, and media appearances, including TEDx Carlow College, Fox News, and the CNN post-debate spin room. She published earlier work as Allison Stephens.
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Topics
The average patient does not exist
Health plans make decisions about large groups of people. They use averages, set rules that apply to everyone, and plan for what most people will need. That approach works well when the goal is keeping a whole community healthy.
Medicine is different. A doctor treats one person at a time, and good care fits that person. Problems start when rules built for groups decide what one patient can get.
Dr. Allison Alimayu spent more than a decade inside UnitedHealthcare and DaVita Integrated Care building payment programs, and she now reviews evidence for Medicare coverage as a member of the federal MEDCAC panel. In this session, she explains in plain terms how health plans actually work, where thinking in groups helps children and families, and where it gets in the way of their care. Audiences leave able to spot the difference in their own programs and benefit decisions.
Every version is tailored to the audience, from health plan executives to public health teams.
Formats: keynote, executive briefing, or leadership workshop. Length: 30 to 60 minutes, adaptable. Audience: health plans, health systems, payers, employers, public health, and health associations. Available in person across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia, or virtually.
Data centers and health
A data center brings heat, air pollution, water use, noise, and light to its neighbors, and each one answers to a different regulator. The state environmental agency permits the backup generators. The utility commission approves the power. The local zoning board approves the site. None of them owns health, and no one adds up the combined effect on the people next door.
Dr. Allison Alimayu brings a public health researcher's framework to that gap. Her doctoral research mapped heat-related health risk across Nevada. She serves as a commissioner on the North Carolina Oil and Gas Commission, and she wrote the Democratic National Committee resolution calling for siting decisions to account for noise and the cumulative impacts of pollution. In this session, she lays out every dimension a full health assessment should cover, why each one matters, and how any town, county, or community organization can get the information before a decision is made.
Audiences leave knowing which questions to ask, which agencies to press, and how to keep watch after a site is built.
Formats: keynote, panel, moderated conversation, or training. Length: 30 to 60 minutes, adaptable. Audience: local governments, public health agencies, regulators, and community and environmental organizations. Available in person across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia, or virtually.
What is missing from science? The rest of us
Smart institutions keep getting the same problems wrong. Often the evidence is not the problem. The problem is who gets a seat when the evidence is weighed.
Dr. Allison Alimayu first delivered this talk at TEDx Carlow College in Ireland. Drawing on her research in biomedical informatics, her years in public office, and her Fulbright work advising Research Ireland, the national research funder, she shows what changes when research, funding, and policy listen to more people, including the families and communities most affected. Audiences leave with a simple test they can apply to any decision: who is missing from this table, and what do they know that we do not?
The keynote version is tailored to the audience, from university leaders and research funders to innovation and public health conferences.
First delivered at TEDx Carlow College, Ireland, February 2026 (video: https://youtu.be/h38DzRh2I9w). Formats: keynote, opening plenary, or commencement address. Length: 18 to 45 minutes. Audience: universities, research funders, foundations, and innovation conferences. Available in person across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia, or virtually.
Faith, families, and the first years of life
Every week, families bring their newborns to be blessed. That moment of trust is one of the best chances a community has to support a child's first years, and most health and social service systems miss it.
Dr. Allison Alimayu shares what she and Rev. Dr. Darrell Armstrong learned through FAAITH and HOPE, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded partnership with Shiloh Baptist Church in Trenton, New Jersey, that brought the science of positive childhood experiences into congregational life. She shows why faith communities are often the most trusted bridge between families and care, what gets in the way, and how clergy, health systems, and public agencies can work together without losing what makes each one trusted.
The session is tailored for faith leaders, public health and child welfare audiences, health systems, and funders.
Based on FAAITH and HOPE, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Systems for Action program. Formats: keynote, panel, or training. Length: 30 to 60 minutes. Audience: faith leaders, seminaries, public health, child and family services, health systems, and funders. Available in person across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia, or virtually. More: https://alimayu.studio/faaith-and-hope.html
Allison Alimayu
Public interest futurist. Fulbright US Scholar. Former Nevada regent.
Roxboro, North Carolina, United States
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