Fireside Chat with 2025 Congressional Fellows

Sydney is the senior educational program manager at the Alliance for Health Policy, where she leads the design and delivery of the Alliance’s nonpartisan, stakeholder-neutral educational programs that connect policymakers and staff with diverse health care perspectives. She manages cross-functional teams to deliver high-quality programming that fosters balanced dialogue on critical and complex health policy issues. With nearly a decade of experience in advocacy and government relations, Sydney has led federal appropriations funding campaigns, built grassroots programs, lobbied on a range of health care issues, organized and executed Hill Days, and led coalition strategic communications plans. She was honored with the 2024 Women in Government Relations Excellence in Advocacy Award and serves as Communications Director for the Society of Health Policy Young Professionals. Sydney holds a BA in Criminal Justice with a minor in Sociology from the University of Delaware.

Allison Crha, MPH, RN, is a Legislative Assistant in the Office of U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, where she leads the health care policy portfolio for a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee. She previously served as a David A. Winston Health Policy Fellow with the U.S. Senate Finance Committee under Chairman Ron Wyden, contributing to policymaking at the intersection of federal health programs and congressional priorities.

Prior to her fellowship, Ally worked at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in the Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s Office of Policy and Planning, advancing initiatives to improve care for vulnerable populations. She began her career as a registered nurse, practicing in trauma, emergency, critical care, and mental health settings in both rural and urban communities—experience that continues to ground her policy work in the realities of frontline care.

A passionate advocate for patients and caregivers, Ally founded and expanded Nurse Voices at the Harvard Innovation Lab, a non-profit designed to educate and empower nurses as leaders in health policy. In recognition of her leadership, she was selected as a One Young World Global Health Scholar in 2019, where she joined former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland for a roundtable discussion on the future of global health care.

Ally holds a Master of Public Health from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Gonzaga University (GO ZAGS!). She is originally from Seattle, Washington.