Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Scholars

Ami Bhatt is a physician-scientist with a strong interest in microbial genomics and metagenomics. She received her MD and PhD from the University of California, San Francisco. She then carried out her residency and fellowship training at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and served as Chief Medical Resident from 2010-2011. She joined the faculty of the Departments of Medicine (Divisions of Hematology and Blood & Marrow Transplantation) and Genetics at Stanford University in 2014 after completing a post-doctoral fellowship focused on genomics at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. Prof. Bhatt has received multiple awards for her academic scholarship including the Chen Award of Excellence from the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO).

Her team’s research program seeks to illuminate the interplay between the microbial environment and host/clinical factors in human diseases. Her translational laboratory develops and applies novel molecular and computational tools to study strain level dynamics of the microbiome, to understand how microbial genomes change over time and predict the functional output of microbiomes. These innovations facilitate much improved (1) measurement of the types and functions of microbes in patients with non-communicable diseases, (2) understanding how microbes communicate with one another and with human cells using small proteins, and (3) testing of the impact of microbially targeted interventions in clinical trials.

In addition to carrying out research at Stanford University, Prof. Bhatt has active collaborations worldwide including in Nigeria and South Africa. She is committed to ensuring that advances in research touch the lives of individuals in all income settings–and thus, in her spare time, enjoys volunteering for the nonprofit she co-founded, Global Oncology and serves as the Director for Global Oncology for Stanford’sCenter for Innovation in Global Health.

Paul P. Christopher, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry & Human Behavior at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. His scholarship focuses on ethical issues central to biomedical research and public health policy, with a particular focus on justice-involved and other vulnerable populations. Through a Mentored Career Development Award (K23) from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), he identified a number of urgent and under-recognized problems that exist in modern prison research. As a Greenwall Faculty Scholar in Bioethics, he is currently translating those findings into an ethical framework and tool to guide investigators and institutional review boards in the ethical planning and conduct of clinical research with prisoners. He is also principal investigator on a NIDA-funded study of civil commitment for opioid use disorder. A graduate of Wesleyan University, Dr. Christopher received his medical degree from the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) and residency training in psychiatry at Brown. He completed fellowships in Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School and Forensic Mental Health Research and Policy at UMMS. His work has been published in a wide range of academic journals and newspapers including the New York Times and Washington Post.

Dr. Carrie Colla is an Associate Professor of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice at the Geisel School of Medicine. A health economist, Dr. Colla focuses on provider payment, health insurance markets, and insurance benefit design. Her work is aimed at improving the quality, accessibility, and cost of health care. Colla’s investigator-initiated research is dedicated to examining health system performance and the effectiveness of payment and delivery system reforms, including accountable care organizations. Her empirical studies include the effects of changes in Medicare reimbursement for physicians and institutional providers on vulnerable patient populations; the prevalence and drivers of low-value health care services; and labor market effects of health insurance expansions, among others. In 2017-2018 Dr. Colla participated in the Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship, with placements in the House of Representatives and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. Colla received her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College, and her MA in economics and PhD in health policy from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Fayanju is an Assistant Professor of Surgery and (effective July 1, 2019) of Population Health Sciences in the Duke University School of Medicine, Associate Director for Disparities & Value in Healthcare with Duke Forge, Surgical Lead for the Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC) clinic in the Duke Cancer Institute, and Director of the Durham VA Breast Clinic. She received both her undergraduate degree in History and Science and an MA in Comparative Literature from Harvard. She received her MD and a master of population health sciences (MPHS) from Washington University in St. Louis, where she also completed her residency in General Surgery. She completed fellowship training in Breast Surgical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

She is an academic breast surgeon who conducts health services research focused on addressing disparities in breast cancer outcome and treatment, optimizing management of aggressive breast cancer variants such as IBC, and enhancing the quality and efficiency of breast cancer care delivery using the principles of value-based health care.

In 2017, Fayanju was awarded a Duke CTSA KL2 Career Development Award (CDA) to support her research, and she is the 2019 recipient of the American College of Surgeons/American Society of Breast Surgeons Health Policy And Management Scholarship. Her work has previously been recognized with receipt of two Conquer Cancer Merit Awards from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and has been published in a variety of journals including Annals of Surgery, Annals of Surgical Oncology, Cancer, and JAMA Surgery.

Marcia C. Haigis obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 2002. She performed postdoctoral studies at MIT studying mitochondrial sirtuins and metabolism. In 2006, Dr. Haigis joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School, where she is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Cell Biology. Dr. Haigis is an active member of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging and the Ludwig Center at Harvard Medical School. Her research aims to: 1) identify molecular mechanisms by which mitochondria respond to cellular stress and 2) elucidate how these cellular mechanisms contribute to aging and age-related diseases, such as cancer. The Haigis lab has made key contributions to our understanding of metabolic reprogramming in cancer, including a role for prolyl hydroxylase 3 in the control of fat oxidation in leukemia and metabolic recycling of ammonia to generate amino acids important for tumor growth. Dr. Haigis has received a Brookdale Leadership in Aging Award, the Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar Award and an American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award.

Ronald Hickman is the inaugural Ruth M. Anderson Endowed Chair and Associate Dean for Research at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). He is a registered nurse and a board-certified acute care nurse practitioner who has provided postoperative care for critically ill patients and their families. As a nurse scientist, Dr. Hickman is nationally known for his pioneering work focused on technology-based solutions to improve chronic disease self-management and end-of-life care. His innovative work integrates knowledge from several disciplinary domains to develop technologies and understand biobehavioral mechanisms that influence how patients and their families make decisions and manage their health or an acute illness. He is currently the principal investigator for an NIH-funded clinical trial evaluating the effects of a decision support technology for family members of critically ill patients posed with end-of-life care decisions.

Dr. Hickman received his PhD in nursing science from CWRU and completed a 4-year career development award (KL2) in multidisciplinary clinical and translational research at CWRU’s School of Medicine. Dr. Hickman’s scholarship has garnered numerous regional and national awards from research and professional societies, such as distinguished scientist awards and recognition for his efforts to enhance diversity and inclusion in nursing. He is committed to mentoring others and has received his university’s highest honors for excellence in mentoring undergraduates and graduate students. Dr.Hickman is an elected fellow of the National Academies of Practice and the American Academy of Nursing.

Dr. Leora Horwitz is director of the Center for Healthcare Innovation and Delivery Science at NYU Langone Health, director of the Division of Healthcare Delivery Science in the Department of Population Health at NYU School of Medicine, tenured associate professor of population health and of medicine, and a practicing internist. Her work focuses on improving the safety and quality of healthcare delivery. She conducts federally-funded research on transitions in care; develops quality measures for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; and leads the AHRQ-funded NYU Patient Imaging Quality and Safety Laboratory, the CMMI-funded Greater New York City Practice Transformation Network, the AHRQ-funded T32 Training Program in Population Health and Healthcare Delivery, and the philanthropically-funded Rapid Cycle RCT Lab. Dr. Horwitz received her undergraduate degree in Social Studies from Harvard and her medical degree from Harvard Medical School. She then completed residency and chief residency in internal medicine at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, NY and the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at Yale. Dr. Horwitz was on faculty at Yale for 7 years before moving to NYU in 2014.

Dr. Jenny Jiang is Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Oncology at the University of Texas at Austin. She obtained her Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology where she studied molecular mechanisms of T cell receptor antigenic ligand discrimination. Before joining the faculty at UT Austin in 2012, she was a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Stephen Quake’s lab at Stanford University where she developed the first generation of high-throughput immune repertoire sequencing technology. The Jiang lab focuses on systems immunology by developing technologies that enable the direct profiling of human immune systems in various immunological diseases. These technologies include a second generation of immune repertoire sequencing technology, a high-throughput T cell receptor affinity and sequence test, and a high-throughput technology that links antigen specificity to T cell receptor sequences. Dr. Jiang has received numerous awards including the NIH Pathway to Independence (K99/R00) Award, Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award, NSF CAREER Award, and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Neurodegeneration Challenge Network Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Award.

Miguel Marino, PhD is an Associate Professor of Biostatistics in the Department of Family Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, with a secondary appointment in the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health. He received his undergraduate degree in Mathematics from UCLA and his PhD from Harvard University. Before joining OHSU, he was a Yerby Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University.

Dr. Marino maintains a broad statistical research program that focuses on the intersection of primary care and public health studies. His research utilizes novel statistical methodology to address complexities associated with the use of electronic health records (EHRs) for critical community and primary care research questions in health policy, health disparities, preventive service utilization, health insurance monitoring, among others. Dr. Marino currently studies how to validate EHRs as a reliable source for pragmatic trials and observational cohort studies. He is currently funded by several agencies including the NIH, AHRQ, CDC and has over 125 peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals such as JAMA, JGIM, Health Affairs, and AJPH.

Since 2013, Dr. Marino has been the Statistical Editor for the Annals of Family Medicine. He also has served on NIH, PCORI and AHA study sections. He has formerly served as the President of the American Statistical Association’s Oregon Chapter. Currently, he serves as the Publications Officer for the Health Policy Statistics section of the American Statistical Association. His contributions to this field were recognized in 2017 when he received the New Investigator Research Award by the North American Primary Care Research Group.

Mark D. Neuman is Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. Dr. Neuman is the founding Director of the Penn Center for Perioperative Outcomes Research and Transformation, which focuses on improving the health and well-being of patients undergoing surgery, critical care, and pain treatment through comparative effectiveness research and implementation science. A practicing general anesthesiologist and health services researcher, his work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), and the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research. Dr. Neuman’s work, which has appeared in JAMA, the Lancet, the BMJ, and the New England Journal of Medicine, focuses primarily on understanding the determinants of functional outcomes among older adults undergoing major surgical procedures and the short- and long-term consequences of anesthetic and pain management interventions delivered around the time of surgery; additional work has examined processes by which medical research findings are translated into expert guidelines, and how such guidelines change over time in response to new evidence. He is the Principal Investigator of the PCORI-funded REGAIN trial (Regional versus General Anesthesia for Promoting Independence after Hip Fracture), a 45-center international pragmatic randomized trial to assess the association between commonly used anesthesia treatments for older adults undergoing hip fracture repair with and survival and functional outcomes at up to 1 year after fracture. Dr. Neuman currently chairs the Committee on Geriatric Anesthesia of the American Society of Anesthesiologists and lectures nationally and internationally on the care of older adults undergoing surgery and anesthesia and on the design and conduct of pragmatic trials in perioperative care.

Dr. Patel is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Health Behavior & Health Education. She completed her M.P.H and Ph.D. in HBHE at the University of Michigan. Dr. Patel directs the Center for Behavioral Solutions to Healthcare Engagement and Access (CBSHC) at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Her research program focuses on the development and evaluation of behavioral interventions that focus on improving self-efficacy and navigation skills for individuals to access complex health care delivery systems, affordable healthcare, and management of chronic disease. Emphases of her work include health-related financial toxicity, team-based care, health and financial literacy, and populations with a long history of health disparities. Dr. Patel’s research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, American Lung Association, and private foundations. She has led studies focused on improving health insurance literacy in economically disadvantaged communities, screening and addressing unmet social needs in clinical settings, and health care provider training in implementing guideline-based care. She also serves on the evaluation team of Michigan’s expanded Medicaid program. In 2017, Dr. Patel received the Early Career Achievement award from the Behavioral Sciences and Health Services Research Assembly of the American Thoracic Society.

Dr. Nathan Price is Professor & Associate Director of the Institute for Systems Biology where he co-directs with Lee Hood the Hood-Price Integrated Lab for Systems Biomedicine.  He is also affiliate faculty at the University of Washington in the Departments of Bioengineering, Computer Science & Engineering, and Molecular & Cellular Biology.

Price has received a number of awards for his research work, including an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Howard Temin Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award, a young investigator award from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust, and being named as one of the inaugural “Tomorrow’s PIs” by Genome Technology. He was also named as a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, and received the 2016 Grace A. Goldsmith Award for his work pioneering scientific wellness.

Price has co-founded two companies: Consilience (a 2019 AI startup focused on the learning healthcare system) and Arivale. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI) and on the Board of Advisors for the American Cancer Society (WA).  He is also Chair of the NIH study section on Modeling and Analysis of Biological Systems (MABS).

Price also serves on numerous scientific advisory boards including for Providence St. Joseph Health, Roche (personalized healthcare division), Sera Prognostics, Navican, Basepaws, Mexico’s National Institute for Genomic Medicine, the Center for Big Data and Precision Health at Duke University, and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability. He is a fellow of the European Society of Preventive Medicine, and has published over 160 scientific papers and given 200 invited talks.

Jacob S. Sherkow is Professor of Law at the University of Illinois College of Law. His research focuses on the intersection of advanced biotechnologies and intellectual property and regulation. Prof. Sherkow is the author of over 40 articles on these and related topics in both traditional law reviews and scientific journals, including Science, Nature, the Yale Law Journal, and the Stanford Law Review. He is also the winner of the 2018 Otto L. Walter Distinguished Writing Award and the Class of 2017 Teaching Award. On matters pertaining to biotechnology and patent law, Professor Sherkow has advised both the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary and a committee of France’s National Assembly. Aside from his appointment at Illinois, Professor Sherkow is a Permanent Visiting Professor at the Center for Advanced Studies in Biomedical Innovation Law at the University of Copenhagen Faculty of Law. Previously, Professor Sherkow has held research positions at Harvard University, Stanford Law School, and Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Professor Sherkow graduated cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School, where he was an editor of the Michigan Law Review. He also holds an MA in biotechnology from Columbia University and a BSc from McGill University in molecular biology.

Dr. Hassan A. Tetteh is a US Navy Captain and Associate Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and adjunct faculty at Howard University College of Medicine. He was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow from 2012-13, assigned to the US Congress, Congressional Budget Office, (CBO). Currently, Tetteh is a Thoracic Surgeon for MedStar Health and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He leads a Specialized Thoracic Adapted Recovery (STAR) Team, in Washington, DC, and his research in thoracic transplantation aims to expand heart and lung recovery and save lives.

A native of Brooklyn, New York, Tetteh received his BS from State University of New York (SUNY) at Plattsburgh, his MD from SUNY Downstate Medical Center, his MPA from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, MBA from Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School, and MS in National Security Strategy with a concentration in Artificial Intelligence from the National War College. He completed his thoracic surgery fellowship at the University of Minnesota and advanced cardiac surgery fellowship at Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Tetteh is a bestselling author of the novel Gifts of the Heart, has finished twenty marathons, and recently delivered the popular TEDx talk entitled, From Death to Life, based on his work in transplant surgery. Tetteh is board certified in thoracic surgery, general surgery, clinical informatics, and healthcare management, and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.

Jonathan Watanabe, PharmD, MS, PhD, BCGP is a professor of clinical pharmacy and associate director and founding associate dean at the University of California Irvine Samueli College of Health Sciences.  He is a pharmacist, health economist, and outcomes researcher.  He serves as a Member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Forum on Drug, Discovery, Development, and Translation. In this capacity, Professor Watanabe has been involved in methods development for pragmatic clinical trials through the FDA-sponsored Real-World Evidence Series and serves on the steering committee for the Drug Research Development in Older Adults Workshop. He was a contributor to the NASEM report Making Medicines Affordable: a National Imperative. Professor Watanabe applies real-world data to develop policy solutions to improve patient care, bolster population-health, and reduce medical costs.  His research on health implications of non-optimized medication regimens has been cited in multiple successful legislative efforts to grant pharmacist provider status.  He is a consultant to the California Health Benefits Review Program of the California State Legislature and served on the Advisory Group on Pain Assessment and Management in Long-Term Care Settings for the Joint Commissions. He is currently appointed to the NASEM committee on Implications of Discarded Weight-Based Medications mandated funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  Dr. Watanabe was the first recipient of the University of Washington/Allergan Global Health Economics and Outcomes Research Fellowship. He received his BS from the University of Washington, his PharmD from the University of Southern California, and his MS and PhD from the University of Washington Comparative Health Outcomes, Policy, and Economics (CHOICE) Institute.  He is past recipient of the University of Washington Distinguished Alumnae in Pharmaceutical Science and Research award. He is a past National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Anniversary Fellow in Pharmacy sponsored by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy and the American College of Clinical Pharmacy. He currently serves as a Scholar in the NAM Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Program and serves as a Distinguished Fellow of the Get the Medications Right Institute. He is a Board-Certified Geriatric Pharmacist (BCGP).