Northwell Health’s Constellation Forum 2026 Unites Global Leaders to Accelerate Innovation in Women’s Health

NEW HYDE PARK, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 26, 2026--

Northwell Health’sConstellation Forum 2026 concluded last week, bringing together a powerful coalition of health care leaders, researchers, investors, policymakers and innovators for a two-day summit in New York City focused exclusively on women’s health. The event, part of the Raise Health Thought Leadership series hosted by Northwell Health, examined where women’s health stands today and charted a bold course forward.

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Hosted by John D’Angelo, MD, Northwell’s president and CEO, the forum opened with a welcome reception on October 21 with the main program on October 22. “For far too long, women’s health has been underinvested and underrepresented in health care. We have both an opportunity and a responsibility to change that,” said Dr. D’Angelo. “By bringing together leaders across health care, science, policy and innovation, we can turn promising ideas into meaningful progress. I’m incredibly optimistic about what we can accomplish together and the difference we can make for women and families for generations to come.”

The Forum’s opening session set a powerful tone, examining how women’s health has historically been approached, where meaningful gaps remain and how emerging technologies, data insights and innovative care models are shifting the status quo. The panel – featuring Esther Krofah, executive vice president, health, Milken Institute and Carolyn M. Mazure, PhD, founding director, women’s health research, Yale School of Medicine; former chair, White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research – was moderated by Stacey E. Rosen, MD, senior vice president of Northwell’s Katz Institute for Women’s Health and immediate past president of the American Heart Association, a physician who has spent her career championing women’s health equity.

“Historically, women’s health has been treated as a niche – an afterthought in research, in the physician’s office, in policy,” said Dr. Rosen. “What we saw at this Forum was a community that is done accepting that reality. The science, the technology and the new models of health care delivery are converging at this moment. We have an opportunity to reimagine what women’s health looks like for Northwell and beyond.”

During a special dialogue, Anthropic’s Anne Stake, who is part of the AI company’s Beneficial Deployments team focused on Global Health, joined this year’s Forum for a session titled “Where AI and Women's Health Intersect.” Moderated by Chethan Sathya, MD, VP of Strategy at Northwell, the conversation explored how this emerging technology may shape the future of women's health, along with the company’s focus on deploying its technology in meaningful ways to benefit systems, communities and people.

To help close out the day, in one of the Forum’s most moving moments, Northwell patient Fatimah Shepherd shared how her care team’s coordination across nephrology, maternal-fetal medicine and cardiology helped her defy grim odds – delivering a healthy baby and later receiving a life-saving kidney transplant, despite living with lupus and kidney failure.

Ms. Shepherd was hospitalized for nearly five months under close specialist supervision after pregnancy complications threatened her life and her unborn child. On July 5, 2024, she delivered a healthy son, Oakari, via emergency C-section; he never needed the neonatal intensive care. Months later, when she developed postpartum cardiomyopathy, the same integrated care model caught it early; she recovered fully and went on to receive a successful kidney transplant.

Ms. Shepherd’s story illustrates how coordinated, specialist-driven care can transform outcomes for high-risk patients, particularly Black women, who face maternal mortality rates three times higher than white women. Her journey stands as a model for how collaborative medicine can close gaps in women's health and save lives.

Additional speakers from the Forum included:

Northwell Health, through its Katz Institute for Women's Health, is dedicated to improving the health of women across their lifespan, bridging the gap between wellness and personalized care delivery. The health system provides a complete health care connection and defines the standards of excellence in patient-centered women’s health care. Northwell continues to be a leader and trusted partner for all women. This spans a wide range of efforts: supporting sex- and gender-specific research, providing coordinated clinical care, and addressing solutions that tackle maternal morbidity, particularly Black maternal health, as well as fertility, midlife and menopause care, and other conditions. Efforts also include a strong commitment to education and prevention.

For more information about the program and its speakers and to register your attendance, please visit: www.constellationforum.com.

About Northwell Health

Northwell is the largest not-for-profit health system in the Northeast, serving residents of New York and Connecticut with 28 hospitals, more than 1,000 outpatient facilities, 22,000 nurses and over 20,000 physicians. Northwell cares for more than three million people annually in the New York metro area, including Long Island, the Hudson Valley, western Connecticut and beyond, thanks to philanthropic support from our communities. Northwell is New York State’s largest private employer with over 108,000 employees – including members of Northwell Health Physician Partners and Nuvance Health Medical Practices – who are working to change health care for the better. Northwell, named a TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2025, is making breakthroughs in medicine at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research. Northwell is training the next generation of medical professionals at the visionary Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and the Hofstra Northwell School of Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies. For information on our more than 100 medical specialties, visitNorthwell.eduand follow us @NorthwellHealth onFacebook,X,InstagramandLinkedIn.

Northwell’s CEO, Dr. John D’Angelo (left), stands with Fatimah Shepherd (middle), her son Oakari, and Northwell's Chief Nursing Officer, Dr. Launette Woolforde at the 2026 Constellation Forum, after Fatimah shared her story of being hospitalized while pregnant for more than five months. (Credit: Northwell Health)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is attempting to prosecute James Comey for what it calls a decade-old leak of classified information, an effort the former FBI director's lawyers immediately dismissed as invalid and outside the legal time limit for when the Justice Department can file a criminal indictment.

The allegations from the Justice Department were revealed Monday in newly unsealed court documents that shed light on a closed-door fight that represents a clear escalation in the administration's targeting of Comey, a longtime critic and foe of President Donald Trump who has faced two other criminal cases since the Republican returned to the White House last year. The effort to prosecute Comey is also part of a series of politically charged investigative actions the department has undertaken in the run-up to next week's midterm elections.

“Well, they’re back — again,” Comey said in a video statement released after the documents dropped. “It would almost be funny if it weren't such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice – one that we cannot become numb to. Nothing’s changed with me; I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid of these people — and I still believe in an independent federal judiciary.”

The Justice Department, for its part, said it had filed what's known as a “criminal information” to extend the 10-year statute of limitations for bringing a case.

"Filing a criminal information to toll the statute of limitations is a widely recognized practice in federal court and has been approved by multiple Circuit Courts of Appeals. This is an ongoing criminal investigation, and we will not comment further,” a department spokesperson said.

A criminal information is typically filed with a defendant’s consent accompanying a plea deal, but Comey’s lawyers made clear that they intend to fight the charges as invalid and barred by the statute of limitations.

“For the third time in little more than one year, the Department of Justice has attempted to charge Mr. Comey with a federal crime. Mr. Comey steadfastly maintains his innocence,” his attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, said in a statement.

The latest allegation concerns an October 2016 New York Times story related to a secret court order that required Yahoo to scan emails for messages potentially linked to a foreign terrorist organization. The story cited two government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the order from a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that Yahoo was barred from publicly disclosing.

Federal authorities, including then-Special Counsel John Durham, began investigating the FBI’s Oct. 5, 2016, disclosure to The New York Times in early 2017. Durham wrote a classified memo in December 2018 recommending no criminal charges against anyone in connection with the disclosure, Comey’s attorneys said in a recent court filing.

In January 2019, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia opened a second investigation of the same matter under the code name “Tropical Vortex.” But that investigation was closed without any charges filed in February 2020.

“Both times the Government determined that no charges should be brought against anyone. Now, ten years after the article was published, the Government filed an “Information” against Mr. Comey that was not approved by a judge nor issued by a grand jury. It purports to charge Mr. Comey with crimes that he did not commit,” Fitzgerald said.

The first case against Comey was dismissed after the judge found that the prosecutor who brought the indictment was illegally appointed. Comey was charged in a separate case in April over a social media post depicting seashells on the beach that officials said constituted a threat against the president.

Comey was the FBI director when Trump took office in 2017, having been appointed by then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and serving before that as a senior Justice Department official in President George W. Bush’s Republican administration.

But the relationship was strained from the start, including after Comey resisted a request by Trump at a private dinner to pledge his personal loyalty to the president -- an overture that so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.

Trump fired Comey in May 2017 amid an FBI investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s campaign. That inquiry, later taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, found that while Russia interfered in the 2016 election and the Trump team welcomed the help, there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal collaboration.

FILE - The U.S. Department of Justice logo is seen on a podium before a press conference, May 6, 2025, at the Justice Department in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)