Reverend Dr. Byron Benton

Senior Pastor

Senior Pastor

Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church, Charleston, SC

Rev. Dr. Byron L. Benton serves as the Senior Pastor of Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church located in North Charleston, South Carolina. He works closely with public and private institutions, serves on and advises various boards, and speaks across the country on critical issues that impact families. His commitment to community and families is evident throughout his ministry. He serves as co-president of the Charleston Area Justice Ministry (CAJM), and as a board member of the Lowcountry Foodbank, and African-American Chamber Fund. He is an advisor to The Four Rivers Outreach Community Development Corporation in Charleston, South Carolina, and the founder and host of the Mountaintop Manna Podcast.

Pastor Benton, an academically high achiever, offers a much-needed blend of southern hospitality and urban edge. He is a native of Greensboro, North Carolina, and a proud graduate of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University with a degree in business education and administrative systems. He completed his Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary (Princeton, New Jersey), focusing on homiletics and pastoral care, and has a Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Eastern University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).

Pastor Benton’s gifts extend beyond the classroom and the sanctuary. He is a gifted percussionist who served as Chaplain of the N.C. A&T State University Band, also known as The Marching Machine.  As an undergraduate student, Pastor Benton instructed an urban charter middle school drumline. While serving as the Associate Pastor at Berean Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York, he founded the award-winning Berean Community Drumline (BCD) through the Berean Community and Family Life Center. In 2012 Pastor Benton became one of the founders and later that year the Pastor of Berean Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. There he became a founding Board member of the Berean Community Center and was the Vice President of the Garden on Millbrook Catering Company, Inc.

Pastor Benton works closely with public and private organizations, having served as a chaplain intern at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital in Trenton, New Jersey, and Chaplain of the Association of Black Seminarians at Princeton Theological Seminary. His time at Princeton was rewarding and life-changing. Pastor Benton was awarded the Aaron E. Gast Award in Urban Ministry, the Jagow Award in Homiletics and Speech, and the Ray Lindquist Award in Pastoral Care.  The Amsterdam News (New York, New York) featured Dr. Benton as the “Black New Yorker,” and he was awarded a congressional record for his community involvement.

Passionate about the abundant life and holistic health accessible through Christ, Pastor Benton has committed his life to empower others to live spiritually, mentally, and physically healthy lives. Living by example, he completed the TCS New York Marathon and has run countless other competitive races and challenges, such as the Tough Mudder. Pastor Benton truly believes that the transformational power of Jesus Christ can change any circumstance and renew all mindsets.

Pastor Benton is married to his best friend and soulmate, the former Yasmeen Hadaway, and they have three beautiful daughters – Arianna, Mayara, and Zaya. Pastor Benton looks forward to watching his family continue to grow in love for God and each other.

Artie L. Shelton, MD

Prostate Cancer Survivor and PHEN Ambassador

Prostate Cancer Survivor and PHEN Ambassador

US Army Veteran, Olney, MD

Artie L. Shelton, MD (ret) U.S. Army is President and CEO of Shelton Professional Services.  He currently serves as the Director Veterans Health Council of Vietnam Veterans of Americas the President and CEO of Shelton Professional Services.  Dr. Shelton is a committed PHEN advocate and serves as PHEN’s Regional Coordinator for the Washington, D.C. area. He is an 18-year prostate cancer survivor and advocate for PHEN. Dr. Shelton was appointed by Governor O’Malley to serve a three-year term as a member of the Maryland Council on Cancer Control, and was reappointed under Governor Larry Hogan. Dr. Shelton co-chaired the writing of the Prostate Chapter for the Maryland Comprehensive Cancer Control Plan Executive Summary.

 

Mr. David Ford

Prostate Cancer Survivor, Senior Manager and Board Member

Prostate Cancer Survivor, Senior Manager and Board Member

Southern California Edison and American Cancer Society West Region

Mr. Dave Ford is Senior Government Relations Manager at Southern California Edison, managing relationships with government municipalities and promoting awareness of a clean energy future. He serves on several strategic and philanthropic boards including with the American Cancer Society West Region Los Angeles, Los Angeles Philharmonic, American Association of Blacks in Energy and Greater Los Angeles African American Chamber Educational Foundation. As an ACS CAN California volunteer advocate, Mr. Ford has experience sharing his personal cancer story with stakeholders to highlight the complex issues many patients and survivors experience and how policymakers can take action to address them.

Richard Lee, MD, PhD

Medical Oncologist

Medical Oncologist

Massachusetts General Hospital

Richard Lee, MD, PhD is an oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA where he sees patients, and he is also involved in community outreach activities.

Dr. Lee was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated AOA with MD and PhD (molecular biology) degrees at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY. After completing internal medicine training at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), he completed the hematology and oncology fellowship at the combined Dana-Farber / Harvard Cancer Care program, in Boston, MA. His post-doctoral research at MIT was on animal models of metastasis. He joined the medical oncology staff at Massachusetts General Hospital in 2007 and is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His research has been on biomarkers in genitourinary malignancies as well as clinical trials. Dr. Lee has served on the NCCN Prostate Cancer Guidelines Panel (2010-2018), including 2 years as Vice-Chair (2017-2018). He has received grant funding from the Prostate Cancer Foundation, Conquer Cancer Foundation, and Department of Defense.

Thaddeus Bell, MD

Prostate Cancer Survivor / Family Doctor

Prostate Cancer Survivor / Family Doctor

Closing the Gap in Healthcare

Thaddeus Bell, MD has been a family doctor for over 45 years and is a passionate advocate and expert on health disparities. He runs a private practice in Charleston, South Carolina. As a solo practitioner with one office manager and no other staff, Dr. Bell not only sees and cares for patients, but he also is the one to call insurance companies when they deny his patients the care they need. “It’s a hassle to be on the telephone with insurance companies so often, getting prior authorization, telling health insurance companies why I want to do XYZ with my patient,” he said. “It takes a significant amount of time.” Most frustrating for Dr. Bell is when a patient changes insurance companies, and the new company wants the patient to get on cheaper medications than the ones that are already working for them. “I have to jump through hurdles to keep my patient on the medicine that works,” he said. “That doesn’t seem right.”

Angelo Moore, PhD, MSN, RN, NE-BC

Assistant Director, Community Outreach, Engagement, and Equity (COEE)

Assistant Director, Community Outreach, Engagement, and Equity (COEE)

Duke Cancer Institute

Angelo Moore, PhD, MSN, RN, NE-BC is the Assistant Director, Community Outreach, Engagement, and Equity (COEE), Duke Cancer Institute, where he provides overall direction, coordination, and implementation DCI’s community impact-designed projects to reduce cancer outcomes disparities in the DCI community and across its Catchment Area.  COEE goals are to: (1) Engage meaningfully, respectfully, and collaboratively with community partners, (2) Build strong, bi-directional partnerships between our community and DCI cancer researchers, and (3) Develop a multi-level, prospective data infrastructure to guide community-DCI partnerships.  The mission is to reduce cancer disparities and improve population health in DCI catchment area for historically marginalized and medically underserved populations such as the African American, Latinx, Asian American, Native American, Jewish, Muslim, LGBTQ+, refugee, and rural communities.

Dr. Moore leads the Community-Facing Navigation program at Duke Cancer Institute.  Duke Cancer Institute utilizes a longitudinal patient navigation multidisciplinary matrix model, which incorporates multiple patient navigation entities.  Within this longitudinal patient navigation multidisciplinary matrix, COEE has Community-Facing Patient Navigators, which is unique. These Community-Facing Patient Navigators are employees of the health care system, operate in the community, and trained by the Harold P. Freeman Patient Navigation Institute.  Some responsibilities include providing cancer education on prevention, early detection screening as well as navigating individuals needing cancer screenings, follow-up for abnormal screenings to diagnostic testing, and into treatment if diagnosed with cancer.  The uniqueness of being within the health care system allows these Community-Facing Navigators get patients to and through the health care system to maximize continuum of care.  He is a member of the National Navigation Roundtable Steering Committee.  He is also a member of the Evidence Based Promising Practices Task Group and the Membership Committee.