Candace Stewart joined HLA as a Contract Medical Debt Advocate in 2026 after serving as a summer Law Clerk with the Access to Care and Coverage team in 2025. Her work focuses on helping clients address medical debt, coverage barriers, and other obstacles that affect access to timely and affordable care. Candace earned her Juris Doctor from Northeastern University School of Law and her Master of Public Health from Stony Brook University.

Candace’s background spans health law, public health research, academic medicine, biopharma, and health equity advocacy. Before joining HLA, she supported research governance, policy, advocacy, communications, mentorship, and program operations for the MOTHER Lab at Tufts University School of Medicine. She also managed a 14-member clinical research team at Boston Children’s Hospital, supported global health economics outcomes research/real-world evidence (HEOR/RWE) initiatives at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and coordinated public health research operations for the World Trade Center Health Program. Her work is grounded in the belief that access to healthcare should not depend on a person’s ability to navigate complex systems alone. She is committed to helping clients move through healthcare systems with clarity, dignity, and agency.