Akeiisa Coleman

Akeiisa Coleman, M.S.W., is senior program officer for Medicaid in the Federal and State Health Policy (FSHP) initiative at the Commonwealth Fund. She is responsible for the Medicaid and state-facing grants and coordinating the cross-program Medicaid initiative. She was promoted from program officer in July 2021. As part of the FSHP team, she advises on strategy around federal and state policy, contributing to Fund research and publications and helping to execute projects and events to inform and educate policymakers at the state and federal level. Prior to joining the Commonwealth Fund in August 2018, Ms. Coleman was a senior policy analyst with the National Governors Association (2015-2018), where she managed multiple projects related to social determinants of health, Medicaid, and behavioral health. She provided technical assistance to state leaders, including governors’ health policy advisors, Medicaid directors, secretaries of health, and other senior state officials on key policy issues and best practices. From 2008–2015, she was a health policy associate with the Missouri Foundation for Health, where she wrote and edited reports on the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, Medicare, and health disparities and assisted in the development of grant programs and requests for proposals. While working full-time as a health policy associate, she was also a clinical social worker at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis from 2009–2015. Prior to those positions, she was a project coordinator at the Center for Mental Health Services Research in St. Louis, a Coro Fellow in Public Affairs, and an AmeriCorps member. Ms. Coleman earned her Master of Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis and her B.A. in sociology from the University of Southern California.