CATALYST offered Dr. Daniel Walker road from doctoral degree to Vice Chair for Research post
By Tyler Griesenbrock
CATALYST scientific editor
Published August 8, 2023
Daniel Walker, PhD, MPH, began his postdoctoral work with the health services research team in what was, at the time, The Ohio State University’s Department of Family Medicine; it was before CATALYST even existed under its current name and structure.
Now, recently selected as the new Vice Chair for Research in the since-renamed Department of Family and Community Medicine at Ohio State, he can trace his career trajectory along the road he traveled with CATALYST: the Center for the Advancement of Team Science, Analytics, and Systems Thinking in Health Services and Implementation Science Research.
“I joined at a time when the team was small and starting to grow, especially in grant success,” Dr. Walker said. “I could not have imagined that CATALYST would be where it is today, with the breadth and depth of knowledge it encompasses.”
His initial connection to the entity that would grow into the robust interdisciplinary health services and implementation science research program that CATALYST is today came through networking within the Academy of Management’s Health Care Management Division.
That was where he met Ann Scheck McAlearney, ScD, MS, who is now the Executive Director of CATALYST, Associate Dean for Health Services Research (HSR) for the College of Medicine and Wexner Medical Center, and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine; she was working alongside Tim Huerta, PhD, MS, now the Chief Research Information Officer and Associate Dean for Research Information Technology, Director of Biomedical Informatics for the Center for Clinical and Transitional Science, a professor in the departments of Family and Community Medicine and Biomedical Informatics, and a core faculty member with CATALYST.
“Dr. Huerta had recently moved to Ohio State, and he was on my dissertation committee because of his methodological expertise and as a result of that professional network,” Dr. Walker said. “He and Dr. McAlearney recruited me and brought me here.”
What he found appealing about coming to work with Dr. McAlearney and Dr. Huerta, he said, was the direct relationship he felt he would find with them.
“The grants, the projects, the papers were all important,” he said. “But the real factors were those relationships and the mentorship I was confident I was going to receive.”
As CATALYST was officially founded and grew around him, Dr. Walker likened the atmosphere to a coral reef, an idea from Steven Johnson’s book Where Good Ideas Come From that resonated with him.
“You can have a lone fish trying to succeed, but a coral reef is a mix of different ideas and perspectives, and the environment thrives as a result of that,” Dr. Walker said. “CATALYST is the coral reef of HSR academia. … Every conversation that you join is a new amazing person doing new amazing work.”
As a postdoctoral researcher with CATALYST, he said he had the opportunity to see firsthand the operationalization of a clinical trial focused on health services research, following it from an initial concept to a proposal to a funded project to an executed study. Along the way, he worked with people who helped him develop a template for creating a plan, anticipating problems, and overcoming obstacles.
“CATALYST is not your traditional postdoctoral program where you’re working with one faculty member on one project. You’re diversified in your experience. That diversification can be confusing to people because it doesn’t fit what people expect. Postdocs want to become the expert in one thing. But it turns out the diversification gives you more opportunities to explore new things and expand your skill set,” he said. “It is a phenomenally successful approach to postdoctoral training.”
That approach served him well as he moved into a position as an assistant professor, and was then promoted to associate professor, with Ohio State’s Department of Family and Community Medicine.
“By the time I was looking at faculty positions, it didn’t feel daunting. It didn’t feel like I was suddenly on my own because I was still within that reef of CATALYST,” Dr. Walker said. “I wasn’t on my own. I was still part of ongoing projects. It wasn’t a gigantic leap; it was a natural progression.”
Part of that progression included taking on greater responsibility and independence, he said, which made the initial process of moving to a faculty position more organic.
“Each day, you are exposed to new people with new perspectives, and that results in new opportunities for collaboration,” he added. “All of that has been enormously helpful as I’ve developed my own HSR projects.”
Recently, those projects have included LINK: Linking education, produce provision, and community referrals to improve diabetes care. The study endeavors to counter the long-term effects of uncontrolled Type 2 diabetes by testing the combined effects of interventions including a food referral program and a diabetes education intervention.
By addressing the health-related social needs of diverse study participants experiencing food insecurity, the project aims to help those who are disproportionately affected by the higher all-cause mortality stemming from Type 2 diabetes.
“Even though we’re still in our first six months of recruitment, our engagement with these individuals and their engagements with the interventions have really brought out how much of an impact we can have,” Dr. Walker said.
As his career continues to move forward, he said he is thankful for the embedded knowledge within CATALYST that has resulted from its accumulated experience and success. As Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, Dr. Walker looks forward to expanding primary care research as well as helping mentor trainees and more junior faculty members as they advance their careers.
“CATALYST has built a team that is unparalleled in this academic space,” he said. “It provides an exciting framework to develop your own collaborations and research projects.”
For more information about CATALYST, visit go.osu.edu/catalyst.