Leadership

During his military career, Dr. Hassan spearheaded groundbreaking initiatives, including leading the Air Force’s first combat stress control and prevention team embedded with Army units during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004. He managed the Pacific’s largest military substance abuse and family advocacy programs, recognized as benchmarks and training models for other bases. His final military role was at the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he served as Deputy Department Head, Leadership Directorate, overseeing the only graduate-level degree program for elite Air Force Commanders.

Before founding CVN, Dr. Hassan was the inaugural Director and Clinical Professor at the Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans & Military Families (CIR) at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. From 2009 to 2015, he played a key role in expanding the school’s military social work graduate degree program, fostering global collaboration with Allied Militaries to enhance military mental health capacity, and advancing community-based and technology-driven research in military mental health.

Dr. Hassan is also the author of Boys in the Barracks, praised as one of the most candid accounts of Army life. His dual expertise in military and academic leadership has enabled him to build strong relationships with senior leaders in the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, and State/Federal Governments. He holds a Doctorate in Higher Education Administration from the University of South Florida and is an alumnus of Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.

Neal-Walden leads the development and implementation of network-wide clinical practice guidelines and ensures all clinics within the network meet the highest professional standards of access, empirical quality care, and ethical service delivery.

Neal-Walden is a veteran of the United States Air Force and served for over 24 years as a military psychologist/clinician, officer, leader, and academic; retiring in the rank of Colonel. She served as the Air Force’s Director of Psychological Health and Chief of Behavioral Health, as well as numerous other clinical and senior level leadership positions; developing and implementing policy for 75 military treatment facilities. In addition, she deployed to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom and led a team of clinicians across 9 different locations to serve our nation’s warriors resulting in her being awarded the Bronze Star Medal.

Prior to CVN, Neal-Walden served as the inaugural Clinic Director of the Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic at Easterseals and a Senior Vice President at Easterseals from 2017-2020.  During her tenure, she was instrumental in leading the clinic to success in attaining CARF accreditation, leading the network in telehealth implementation and utilization, and spearheading new clinical processes and procedures.  Neal-Walden is actively involved in the professional community serving on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration’s National Advisory Council, the American Psychological Association’s Continuing Education Committee’s Advisory Council, and the Editorial Board of Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice.

Neal-Walden holds a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Drexel University-Hahnemann Medical Campus and completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in Clinical Health Psychology at Wilford Hall Medical-Surgical Center.

Sheetal also serves as CVN’s information security officer responsible for CVN’s cybersecurity strategy and implementation of the organization’s security program including policy and education, data confidentiality, risk analyses, and incident response.

Sheetal is a healthcare information managment, information security and technology innovation leader with over 20 years of industry experience. She specializes in the areas of information governance, technology risk management, cyber security, business continuity, privacy audits, information systems investigations,  security awareness and training programs and healthcare compliance.

Before joining CVN, Sheetal was the Senior Executive Compliance officer and Corporate Records Management Officer at NYC Health + Hospitals, the largest municipal healthcare system in the United States, where she was responsible for all information governance activities around HIPAA privacy and data security. Prior to NYC Health + Hospitals, Sheetal was the Chief Privacy Officer for the NYC Housing Authority and the head of technology audit for the agency. Prior to her government roles, she worked as a technology expert leading digital transformation for companies in various industries including financial, media, transportation, manufacturing and others.

Sheetal is a frequent speaker at information security and healthcare compliance events. She volunteers with Scouts BSA specifically teaching STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) skills to scouts (age 6-18).

Sheetal is certified in information security (GSEC, CISSP), risk management (CRISC), information systems audit (CISA), information privacy (CIPP/US) and healthcare compliance (CHC). She also holds numerous other product-specific certifications and has worked with several frameworks including NIST, HITRUST and COBIT. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering from Shivaji University in India.