Mary Takach joined NASHP in 2007, and in her current role as a program director, she directs NASHP’s policy research focused on primary care, specifically patient centered medical homes, health homes, federally qualified health centers, and delivery system issues. She is the lead researcher on a Commonwealth Fund multi-year project that is helping states advance medical homes in their Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Programs. Mary is directing NASHP’s efforts in the five-year evaluation of the Multi-Payer Advanced Primary Care Practice Demonstration for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in partnership with RTI and the Urban Institute. She also is project director on a National Cooperative Agreement from the U.S. Department of Health’s Health Resources and Service Administration that is seeking to improve partnerships with Medicaid Directors and safety net providers to improve access to care for vulnerable populations. Mary has a background in health policy and clinical care and has worked on Capitol Hill as a Legislative Assistant to two Congressmen, where she focused on health care, welfare, veterans’, and aging issues. She has worked in a wide variety of health care settings for nearly 15 years as a registered nurse, has lectured at the University of Maryland Graduate School of Nursing and was the assistant editor for a local newspaper. She holds a master’s degree in public health from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a bachelor of science in nursing degree with honors from Northeastern University.