Dr. Nitya Thummalachetty

Armed with a Master’s in Bioethics and a Doctor of Public Health from Columbia University—is an expert in how structural constraints impact everyday choices, with a focus on how private sector practices impact the general public.

Internationally recognized as a global innovator by the BBC, Nitya has dedicated her life to understanding how power affects the public’s access to safety and well-being.

Dr. Thummalachetty is a co-founder of the Nau Project. Here, she applies her systems expertise—the ability to see how one variable impacts many variables—to the obtuse and opaque American healthcare system.

She draws connections between healthcare processes and the systemic inefficiencies contributing to the high costs and red tape insured Americans often experience.

Dr. Pramod Pinnamaneni

With more than a decade of experience in rural American healthcare and an MBA from Columbia Business School, Dr. Pramod Pinnamaneni is a rare character: an urban-trained practicing cancer physician who understands healthcare policy and its real impact on rural lives.

Dr. Pinnamaneni operates the only private oncology practice in Lufkin, Texas, a town of roughly 34,000 people, and the largest independent oncologist practice in a sixty-mile radius.

His geographic isolation solidifies him in the trenches with everyday rural Americans fighting cancer. He witnesses how insurance companies create barriers to care, how high deductibles decimate family finances, and how specific agents in the healthcare system extract far more than they contribute.

Dr. Pinnamaneni co-founded the Nau Project with Dr. Nitya Thummalachetty to peel away the layers of complexity around the American healthcare system. He believes that with better information and financial literacy, patients can protect themselves from the prison of fine print and focus on what matters most: their health.