Meet our research team
Our CATALYST team includes more than 30 staff members – including clinical research associates, project managers, post-doctoral researchers, research specialists and scientists, and research administrators and directors – working in collaboration with dozens of members across The Ohio State University. We are only able to achieve our mission, vision, and values through the work of our outstanding faculty, collaborators and staff.
When asked about their work with CATALYST, some of our team members offered the following responses:
"Working with CATALYST is enjoyable and rewarding. Team members are valued, respected, productive and focused on ensuring our work yields impactful outcomes for those we seek to serve."
"As someone who has always worked in collaborative structures, I've never seen anything quite like CATALYST. The culture is one that truly fosters collaboration. Deep value is placed on bringing in different perspectives, using dialogue and healthy communication to bring impactful discovery to fruition."
"CATALYST is like a warm hug, and working with CATALYST helped me fall in love with research again."
CATALYST leadership
CATALYST leadership
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Ann Scheck McAlearney, ScD, MS Executive Director of CATALYST
Dr. McAlearney is the Executive Director of CATALYST, Associate Dean for Health Services Research, and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine in Ohio State's College of Medicine. She also holds appointments as a professor of health services management and policy in the College of Public Health and professor of pediatrics in the College of Medicine at The Ohio State University. She has over 30 years of health services research experience and has been actively involved in both performing research and disseminating research results to academic and practitioner audiences.
Dr. McAlearney enjoys collaborative research projects and engaging clinicians in health service research as well as mentoring junior faculty in their research endeavors. She has authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications, 10 books/edited books and 80 book chapters. Dr. McAlearney’s ongoing research focuses on information technology innovations in health care, population health management, quality improvement and organizational development, and she is an expert in both qualitative and mixed methods analyses. Dr. McAlearney received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford University and Harvard University’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
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Alice Gaughan, MS Associate Director
Alice Gaughan is the Associate Director of CATALYST at The Ohio State University. She drives health services and implementation sciences research administration, strategy development, and operations at CATALYST. With more than 20 years of experience performing research at Ohio State, she has an extensive background in building strong relationships leading to successful collaborations between health care and research teams. She is passionate about maintaining a positive work environment to support the success of all team members and is a member of the College of Medicine and University Staff advisory committees.
Alice received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Bethany College, a Master of Science degree in medical microbiology and immunology from Ohio State, and a Professional Certificate in Management from the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame.
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CATALYST Core leaders
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Laura Rush, DVM, PhD Director, Learning Health Systems Core
Dr. Rush is the Director of the Learning Health System Core at CATALYST. She collaborates with multidisciplinary teams to drive implementation of best practices and design novel methods of healthcare delivery. She also works with CATALYST faculty to develop innovative, high-impact research studies.
Laura received an associate degree in nursing from Marion Technical College, a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from North Carolina State University, a PhD in cancer biology from Ohio State, and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and Master of Business Administration with a focus in healthcare administration from Western Governors University. She is also a board-certified veterinary pathologist.
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Jennifer Eramo, MSN, RN, AHN-BC, CPHQ Assistant Director, Experience Core
Jenny is the Assistant Director of the Experience Core for CATALYST. She is the liaison for clinician-driven and patient-centered research and experiences including community engagement as it relates to the research goals, programs, and projects of the Center. In addition to participating and collaborating on research and project management, she will be ensuring compliance with laws, regulations, policies, and procedures.
Jenny’s background spans public, private, and academic settings and includes experiences in healthcare leadership, quality, staff development, data analytics, clinical care, and research. Her vitae includes the Noll Laboratory for Human Performance Research at Penn State; Phase I and II clinical trials in Gynecology Oncology at Yale New Haven Hospital using surgical, chemotherapeutic, or radioactive interventions; intensive and coronary care at a regional Level I trauma center; clinical leadership and staff development at a national skilled home care agency with co-authorship of two new procedures involving intraperitoneal dialysis; quality reviews for a national health care data analytics company; and quality leadership and nursing management for veterans at the VA Central Ohio Healthcare System, for which she received the VA Secretary’s Award for Excellence in Nursing in an Expanded Role. Jenny earned Bachelor of Science degrees in Biology/Vertebrate Physiology and Nursing from the Pennsylvania State University and a Master of Science in Nursing/Administration from Capital University. She is a certified professional in healthcare quality (CPHQ) and is board certified as an advanced holistic nurse (AHN-BC).
CATALYST research staff
CATALYST research staff
Post-doctoral researchers
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Carrie Davenport, PhD
Dr. Davenport is a post-doctoral research scholar at the Buckeye Center for Hearing and Development in the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. She completed a post-doctoral position in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science at Ohio State in 2019. She is PI on a PCORI-funded capacity building project designed to develop a family-driven research agenda. Her research centers on early parent-child interaction and language development in deaf/hard-of-hearing children and parental self-efficacy. She currently serves as a senior reviewer for the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education.
Dr. Davenport received a bachelor's degree in deaf education from Bowling Green State University, a master's degree in family-centered early education and an educational specialist degree in change leadership from Gallaudet University, and a doctorate in special education at Ohio State. She completed the Educational Consultant Training Program in cochlear implants at the California Ear Institute. Prior to entering the PhD program at Ohio State, she was the early childhood consultant for the Center for Outreach Services at the Ohio School for the Deaf. Dr. Davenport is a founding member of Ohio Hands & Voices. She has served on numerous state and national boards and committees and regularly presents at national conferences.
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Pallavi Jonnalagadda, MBBS, DrPH
Dr. Jonnalagadda is a post-doctoral researcher working with Dr. Saurabh Rahurkar. Her current projects using big data approaches to examine the role of health information technology in improving outcomes pertaining to public health, health care delivery, and health care practices. Her research interests include data science, social determinants of health, and evaluation of policies and interventions. She received a doctorate in public health and master's degree in public health in epidemiology from the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh.
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Amanda Gusovsky, PhD, MPH
Dr. Gusovsky is a post-doctoral scholar with CATALYST funded by a T32 training grant. She is working on health services research projects related to subject areas such as neurology and palliative care. Her research interests include using large data sources and methods of pharmacoepidemiology, and she is passionate about leveraging team science to answer complex questions in health care.
Dr. Gusovsky received her PhD in pharmaceutical outcomes and policy from the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy. She received her MPH from Emory University Rollins School of Public Health and her BS in public health and Spanish from Tulane University.
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Rachael Hawthorn, MD, PhD
Dr. Hawthorn is a post-doctoral scholar with CATALYST. Her work focuses on improving preventive service delivery through a better understanding of how health system organization and processes affect the provision of preventive care during individual clinical encounters. She is interested in applying qualitative inquiry and mixed methods research designs to explore ways to improve the experience of preventive service delivery for patients and clinicians across community and health care settings. Dr. Hawthorn received her MD and PhD in health services research from Case Western Research University School of Medicine. She did her preventive medicine training at University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve University through the Department of Family Medicine.
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Halia Melnyk, PhD, MPH, BSN
Dr. Melnyk is a post-doctoral researcher with CATALYST. She is interested in the study of multilevel influences on health and the application of a broad systems framework to improve health care delivery and population health outcomes.
Her work experience includes a variety of clinical and translational research roles. As a research nurse, she coordinated a multidisciplinary team in diabetes clinical trials. Her central functions were participant recruitment, education, and performing study visits. In her role as a research subject advocate, she facilitated institutional collaborative efforts to strengthen the ethical conduct of research and to foster community understanding and engagement in research. These initiatives included streamlining safety monitoring review processes, creating content for study coordinator training, and rolling out novel recruitment strategies across the health system. As a nursing research program coordinator, she collected and analyzed quantitative and qualitative data for research studies designed to promote quality care delivery. In these studies, she worked with frontline nurses in areas such as identifying programmatic approaches to correcting operational failures and fostering the coordination of team-based care for hospitalized older adults. Additionally, she is a Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Ukraine.
Dr. Melnyk received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Hunter College of the City University of New York and a Master’s in Public Health from Columbia University School of Public Health with a focus on health policy and management. She received a PhD from the New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing. Her studies were supported by a National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health T42 training grant. Her dissertation focused on the intersection of health-related quality of life and work in postmenopausal women with breast cancer during aromatase inhibitor therapy.
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Ramona Olvera, PhD, MA
Dr. Olvera is a post-doctoral researcher with CATALYST working on several projects including the HEALing Communities Study. With over 20 years of experience in conducting a variety of qualitative, survey, and mixed methods research, she is interested in how health outcomes are influenced by intersectionality and social determinants of health. Her work has focused on women, immigrants, and other minority groups and recently has explored data sharing for community and patient-centered care improvement. Dr. Olvera also has over 10 years of college-level sociology and gender studies teaching experience.
Dr. Olvera received her PhD in social policy and an MA in social policy/women and gender studies from The Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. She received her BA in sociology from Wells College and completed graduate course work in sociology at Boston University.
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Priti Singh, PhD, MS
Dr. Singh is a post-doctoral researcher with CATALYST. Her research involves use of both quantitative and qualitative techniques to address disparities in clinical and social outcomes. Her work includes use of data from electronic health records to identify gaps in the use of health information technology.
Dr. Singh graduated with a PhD in educational statistics and measurement with a minor in public health from the University of Toledo. She has a master's degree in pharmaceutics and pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Toledo and a bachelor's degree in pharmacy from the University of Mumbai, India.
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Research manager
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Jennifer Frey, PhD
Dr. Frey is a Director of Research Operations for the Department of Emergency Medicine at The Ohio State University. She has over 10 years of experience conducting clinical research in Emergency Medicine. Dr. Frey has worked with faculty, residents, staff, and students on numerous clinical research studies, serving as a mentor for individuals at all levels developing their research interests. She has also worked to write and manage federal, state, and foundation grants for both research and clinical implementation programs. Most recently, Dr. Frey's work has included program management for the Center to STOP-COVID, coordination for a clinical trial comparing known treatments for severe infections (CLOVERS study), managing an observational study to understand the pharmacogenomics of opioid use, and implementing a clinical program to initiate medication-assisted therapy in the Emergency Department for patients experiencing withdrawal from opioids.
Dr. Frey has contributed to over 30 peer-reviewed publications that cover a variety of emergency medicine topics including geriatrics, emergency medical services (EMS), education, and diagnostics. She has participated as a coordinator or investigator in more than two dozen clinical trials funded by the NIH, CDC, and private industry. Dr. Frey also has served on grant review committees for multiple national professional organizations and is the chair of the department awards nominating committee, which seeks to promote and recognize the outstanding achievements and efforts by faculty, residents, students, and staff at local, regional, and national levels. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in molecular genetics from Ohio State and a PhD in experimental therapeutics from The University of Texas Health Science Center and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Research scientists
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Christine Swoboda, PhD, MS
Dr. Swoboda is a research scientist in the Department of Family and Community Medicine. Her research interests include behavior change interventions for chronic disease prevention and treatment, and the effects of health behaviors on risk reduction. Her current research involves improving data collection and reporting for community-level infant mortality prevention programs across Ohio. Dr. Swoboda received her PhD from The Ohio State University in human nutrition and her Master of Science from SUNY University at Buffalo.
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Nikki Thomas, PhD, MS
Dr. Thomas is a research scientist with CATALYST whose research focuses on using mixed methods to improve policies and their implementation, especially to improve outcomes for people who have not historically been a part of policy development. She currently collaborates with communities and multidisciplinary teams to improve maternal and child health, as well as to improve adolescent experiences in STEM fields. She enjoys learning from others – particularly people who have not traditionally been considered “experts” but who provide significant value to addressing complexity and improving policies.
Dr. Thomas received her PhD in public policy and management and MS in mathematics from The Ohio State University, and she earned a BA in mathematics and philosophy from Boston University. Before joining CATALYST, she did research for Children’s Defense Fund-Ohio and Ohio State’s Office of Research and Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
Research specialists
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Alison Aldrich, MSI, MPH
Alison is a research specialist for CATALYST. She received a Master of Science in Information degree from the University of Michigan and a Master of Public Health from Wright State University. Alison worked for several years as an academic health sciences librarian. She provides research and publication support for CATALYST, as well as leadership for the PCORI taxonomy project.
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Sadie Chen, MLIS
Sadie is a research specialist. She received a Master of Library and Information Science from Kent State University and completed her graduate school practicum at Mount Carmel West Health Sciences Library in Columbus, Ohio. Sadie worked for several years as a librarian, taxonomist, and digital archivist. She is the project manager for the Ohio State instance of Eagle-i, which is an online research resource repository. She also does qualitative coding for the HEALing Communities Study grant.
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Gennaro Di Tosto, PhD
Dr. Di Tosto is a research specialist collaborating on CATALYST’s health care analytics initiatives across several projects. His current work explores innovative methods for leveraging analytics and data science to improve health care delivery. His interdisciplinary background includes projects using computational and simulation methods for the study of collective behavior. Dr. Di Tosto holds a PhD in psychology from the University of Padova, Italy, and has conducted research in learning analytics at The Ohio State University.
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Leanna Perez Eiterman, PhD, CCRP
Dr. Eiterman received her PhD in Interdisciplinary Nutrition at The Ohio State University. She is an integrative nutrition scientist by training and is experienced in behavioral and clinical research design, specifically in the areas of child and adolescent medicine and investigational new drug development. Dr. Eiterman is a research specialist at CATALYST where she is involved in assisting in clinical research study start-up, implementation, and data management.
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Lindsey Sova, MPH
Lindsey received her Master of Public Health from The Ohio State University. She is a research specialist for CATALYST and is responsible for overseeing daily operations of studies as well as supervising research staff and students. Lindsey brings prior expertise as a research assistant in both academic and practice settings. She provides project management for the team’s MEDTAPP projects and MyChart/patient portals research activities. She previously acted as the implementation lead for HT2 and provided project management for the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Taxonomy Project.
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Data analytics specialists
Education specialist
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Lauren Teuschler, MEd
Lauren is the education resource specialist for CATALYST. Lauren's background is in public education, where she collaborated with teams to connect learners with diverse needs to the resources needed to access their education. Lauren is passionate about collaborating with others to help create and improve systems aimed to produce better outcomes for all stakeholders. She received her Bachelor Of Science in Education degree from Bowling Green State University and earned her Master of Education degree from Xavier University.
Research associates
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Nicolette Coovert
Nicolette is a research associate with CATALYST.
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Jill Davis, MS
Jill is a senior research associate with CATALYST focused on social equity who is currently working on projects related to the HEALing Communities Study. More broadly, her research uses mixed methods to study criminal justice, public policy, and management, particularly for historically excluded groups, and incorporating social determinants of health.
Jill is completing her PhD in public policy and management from the Glenn College of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University. She earned an MS in gender and social policy from the London School of Economics. Before returning to Ohio State for graduate work, she worked in international development, mainly in Southeast Asia, on maternal and child health projects and advancing higher education for women. More recently, she managed the development and implementation of sexual violence prevention and advocacy programs for Franklin County.
Clinical research assistants
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Mireille Bitangacha
Mireille is a clinical research assistant with CATALYST who works on the Medicaid Care Experience Simulation (MCarES). Her role includes data entry and transcription for a variety of CATALYST projects. Originally from Phoenix, Mireille graduated from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, with a bachelor's degree in history in May 2022.
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Rachel Ernst
Rachel is a clinical research assistant with CATALYST. She graduated from The Ohio State University in May 2022 with bachelor’s degrees in biology and public health. During her undergraduate education, she worked as a student assistant at Ohio State COVID-19 Testing Center and volunteered with the Franklin County and Columbus Medical Reserve Corps to assist with the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. She stayed engaged with the Ohio State community as a Wellness Ambassador volunteer for the Ohio State Student Wellness Center, where she presented health and wellness seminars to her peers.
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Olivia Pardi, MS
Olivia is a clinical research assistant with CATALYST. She completed her bachelor's degree in health sciences at The Ohio State University and her Master of Science in community health and prevention science at the University of Cincinnati. During her undergraduate education, she worked as a student administrative assistant for The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute.
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Leah Roth
Leah is a clinical research assistant with CATALYST. She graduated from The Ohio State University in May 2022 with a bachelor's degree in psychology. During her undergraduate education, she worked in Ohio State's Cognitive Development Lab in the Department of Psychology.
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Anneliese Sinclair
Anneliese graduated from American University in May 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in international services. She concentrated in environmental sustainability and global health as well as justice, ethics, and human rights with a minor in public health. Her undergraduate education focused on health equity, indigenous communities’ health outcomes and sustainable practices, migrant population health, pandemic public health response, and health outcomes of climate change.
Administrative team
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Kirsten Gibbons
Kirsten is the department administrator for CATALYST.
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Tyler Griesenbrock
Tyler is a communication specialist with more than a decade of experience as an editor, designer, and web producer. As the scientific editor for CATALYST, he is responsible for projects such as developing Tableau dashboards and their accompanying documentation; creating paper and web-based forms for data submission; editing and designing graphics for grant applications and publications; and creating articles, flyers, and videos to explain the work done at the center. He served as the assistant editor for Volume 19 of Advances in Health Care Management and is responsible for updating and maintaining the CATALYST website as well as other associated websites. In addition, he serves on the communication, dashboard, and portal teams for the HEALing Communities Study. Tyler received his bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Dayton, and he spent 10 years in the newspaper industry.
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Pam Thompson
Pam is the Administrative Assistant for CATALYST. She has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from The Ohio State University and provides administrative support to the core faculty within the center. Pam is responsible for processing all travel and purchasing requests as well as coordinating calendars for meetings. She also assists in various other administrative tasks to support the team's research goals.
CATALYST faculty collaborators
CATALYST faculty collaborators
Department of Biomedical Informatics
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Guy Brock, PhD Associate Professor
Dr. Brock is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at The Ohio State University and the Associate Director of the Center for Biostatistics. He leads the Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design (BERD) Core of the Center for Clinical Translational Science (CCTS) and is the Director of the Biostatistics Resource at Nationwide Children's Hospital.
Dr. Brock's methodological research funded by the National Institutes of Health includes multistate transition models, competing risks, and statistical bioinformatics (cluster validation, data integration, and missing value imputation). He has partnered with CATALYST faculty to develop multiple studies ranging from early phase trials to community-based pragmatic interventions incorporating both efficacy and implementation outcomes. He is also active in using secondary data for research, including claims data, electronic medical records, cohort studies, and registry data.
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Courtney Hebert, MD, MS Associate Professor
Dr. Hebert is an associate professor appointed in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and continues to practice clinical medicine as an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Internal Medicine. In addition to these roles, she also serves as the co-chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics Graduate Studies Coordinating Committee and leads all clinical informatics and public health informatics educational efforts for the department. Her research focuses on the secondary use of electronic health record (EHR) data for research and quality improvement.
She has also used EHR data to study the effect of epidemiologic context on antimicrobial prescribing, as well as to develop a novel way to represent microbiology susceptibility data to enable decision support. Dr. Hebert received her MD from The Ohio State University in 2005 and a Master of Science in public health with a specialization in biomedical informatics from The Ohio State University in 2013.
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Saurabh Rahurkar, DrPH, BDS Assistant Professor
Dr. Rahurkar is a health services researcher and informatician with a focus on using health information technologies to draw actionable insights from big data collected during clinical care as well as public health practices to improve health care outcomes and inform policy. This includes building specialized registries using electronic health record data to facilitate research. Further, he has leveraged the latest in data sharing standards – Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) – to implement and evaluate FHIR-based apps in the emergency department and primary care setting across several discrete EHR systems. At Ohio State, he works closely with the team that leads the implementation of the FHIR standard at the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center making this resource available to other researchers across the university.
Dr. Rahurkar is an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and a core faculty member with CATALYST. Before coming to Ohio State, Dr. Rahurkar was a public and population health informatics fellow in the Center for Biomedical Informatics at the Regenstrief Institute in Indianapolis. He received his Doctor of Public Health in Health Services Research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Additionally, he is a trained dental surgeon.
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Fode Tounkara, PhD, MS Clinical Assistant Professor
Dr. Tounkara is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at The Ohio State University. As a biostatistician, his expertise includes statistical methods for clustered and correlated data. His PhD thesis involved the development of a new statistical model framework for analyzing clustered binary data, while his postdoctoral research in statistical genetics at McGill University involved the development of a flexible model to analyze secondary phenotypes from data collected through case-control, extreme-trait, and multiple-trait designs. He received his PhD from Université Laval in Quebec, Canada.
Before joining the Ohio State University, Dr. Tounkara was an Assistant Professor within the Department of Statistical Sciences at the University of Toronto, where he taught undergraduate and graduate courses in statistics including regression analysis, statistical theory, survey analysis, and sampling techniques. He also held a position as a biostatistician in the Lunenfeld Tanenbaum Research Institute at the University of Toronto, where he used the copula approach for modeling cancer risk in Hereditary Breast Cancer Syndrome families. His current work includes a machine learning (high-dimensional statistics) project to develop statistical approaches that can properly handle predictors with weak signals in high-dimensional data.
Department of Educational Studies
Department of Emergency Medicine
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Ashish Panchal, MD, PhD Associate Professor
Dr. Panchal is an associate professor of emergency medicine with the Department of Emergency Medicine. He is passionate about improving patient outcomes in the prehospital setting and conducts research focused on prehospital airway management and improving outcomes from cardiac arrest. He began his career as a researcher completing a PhD in cardiovascular physiology at Case Western Reserve University. Following this, at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, he completed his medical training and residency.
At Ohio State, he is the program director for the ACGME-accredited EMS fellowship. On a national level, he is the research and fellowship director for the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians and is part of the expert panels for the National EMS Scope of Practice Model Revision Project and the Evidence-Based Guideline for Naloxone. He also is a member of the American Heart Association Emergency Cardiovascular Care Scientific Subcommittee and is the chair of the 2018 AHA/ECC Guidelines Focused Update for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care.
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Lauren Southerland, MD Clinical Associate Professor
Dr. Southerland is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and the Director of Clinical and Implementation Research for Emergency Medicine. Dr. Southerland's research focuses on geriatric emergency medicine, fall risk, and safe transitions of care from the Emergency Department. Her current work includes studying how implementing geriatric screening tools into the Emergency Department can improve patient outcomes, an effort funded by the National Institute on Aging.
Dr. Southerland serves in the community as the medical representative for a Franklin County interdisciplinary team focused on preventing elder abuse and neglect. Her role also includes mentoring medical students and residents in emergency medicine research and geriatrics, and she works with graduate students pursuing an Interdisciplinary Certificate in Aging. Dr. Southerland earned her MD at the Duke University School of Medicine, where she also completed her internship and residency.
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Department of Family and Community Medicine
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Timothy Huerta, PhD, MS Professor
Dr. Huerta is the Chief Research Information Officer for The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and the Ohio State College of Medicine as well as a Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and the Department of Biomedical Informatics. He brings to CATALYST both breadth and depth of experience in quantitative methods, implementation science, health services research and multidisciplinary collaboration. Dr. Huerta is a well-published, nationally recognized expert in the use of survey data to advance discovery and has been published in a diverse set of journals. Dr. Huerta also has a long history of engaging clinical practitioners in translating the value of research to practice, and he has been recognized nationally for his work in both mentorship and teaching.
Before joining the faculty at Ohio State, Dr. Huerta was the director of the Center for Healthcare Innovation, Education and Research at Texas Tech University where he developed the infrastructure currently in use throughout the province of British Columbia for the online delivery of continuing medical education in community oncology. Finally, Dr. Huerta has a long history outside of academia developing tools and technologies that support both research and practice.
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Daniel Walker, PhD, MPH Vice Chair for Research
Dr. Walker is the Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Family and Community Medicine. His research focuses on a wide range of health services research topics, including efforts to use health information technology to improve communication, interorganizational coordination, and patient engagement. He is particularly interested in implementation science research that considers multi-stakeholder perspectives on health service innovations to improve patient and provider engagement. Dr. Walker employs mixed-methods approaches to this work, combining both quantitative and qualitative efforts.
Dr. Walker’s current research explores these issues in relation to health system efforts to address social determinants of health such as food insecurity and digital equity, the exchange of health information across the care continuum, the implementation of patient-facing health information technology, and changes in delivery system configuration. Dr. Walker received his PhD in Global Health Management and Policy from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and his Master of Public Health in Health Management and Policy from Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health.
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Department of Internal Medicine – Division of Cancer Prevention and Control
Department of Internal Medicine – Division of General Internal Medicine
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Alicia Bunger, PhD, MSW Professor
Dr. Bunger is a professor with the Division of General Internal Medicine in The Ohio State University Department of Internal Medicine. Dr. Bunger is an implementation scientist and her research addresses the question: How can human service organizations and professionals work together to improve service access, quality, and outcomes for the communities they serve? Her work is set within the context of behavioral health and child welfare systems and is organized around three domains: (1) the role of interorganizational relationships for reducing service fragmentation, (2) knowledge sharing and best practice implementation, and (3) front-line practices that facilitate linkages to effective services. Her work is intended to inform policy and managerial strategies that close structural gaps and improve care quality. Currently, she is focusing on implementation of interventions that require collaboration across systems, and she is interested in developing practical tools to support executive leaders.
Dr. Bunger earned her bachelor's degree in psychology from Susquehanna University; her Masters of Social Work from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; and her PhD from the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. She also completed post-doctoral training in behavioral health services and systems research at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Janet Childerhose, PhD Research Assistant Professor
Dr. Janet Childerhose is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and the qualitative core lead in the Center for Health Outcomes in Medicine Scholarship and Service (HOMES). She is a qualitative bioethics researcher who investigates the adoption of harm reduction strategies in the U.S. response to the opioid crisis and how physicians navigate ethical dilemmas in their practice. As a critical medical anthropologist who uses a comparative lens, Dr. Childerhose is concerned with how institutions and policies in national settings shape the management of chronic disease and generate duties to care, and why some effective interventions remain stigmatized or inconsistently implemented. Her research has examined how billing codes shape physician care of patients with substance use disorders, adolescent decision-making for bariatric surgery, and how participatory approaches in translational genomics research challenge the asymmetry of the researcher-participant relationship. She is currently developing a project on the responses of Ohio public libraries to the opioid crisis that explores whether expanded access to naloxone is creating rescue obligations for non-clinical actors.
Dr. Childerhose completed her MA in the history and philosophy of science and technology at the University of Toronto, her PhD in medical anthropology at McGill University, and postdoctoral training in bioethics at the University of Michigan and Johns Hopkins University. Prior to joining The Ohio State University, she worked with the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction in Ottawa.
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Robert Cronin, MD Associate Professor
Dr. Cronin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine. He is a tenure-track clinician-researcher with a career goal of using health information technologies to improve the care of individuals with chronic diseases. Dr. Cronin is board certified in internal medicine, pediatrics, and clinical informatics, specializing in clinical informatics, sickle cell disease, phenotyping and personal health informatics. His knowledge in these areas includes technologies such as patient portals, mobile health technology, and electronic health records, and topics of health information needs, effective health communication, and patient engagement. He also has methodological expertise in qualitative and quantitative methods, community-engaged research, and clinical trials. He has interest and expertise in the design and evaluation of electronic surveys, empowering individuals with health care and health care information technology disparities, and transitional care of adolescents and young adults with chronic diseases from pediatric to adult medicine.
Dr. Cronin received an undergraduate degree in computer science from Cornell University and continued pursuing this passion after residency through a National Library of Medicine fellowship in biomedical informatics, from which he received a master’s degree. He completed his MD at The Ohio State University. His current research projects include his career development K23 grant and data coordinating center grant for the Cure Sickle Cell Initiative from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), and a part of the Data and Research Center for the All of Us Research Program.
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Norah Crossnohere, PhD Assistant Professor
Dr. Crossnohere is an assistant professor with the Division of General Internal Medicine in The Ohio State University Department of Internal Medicine. She is a patient-centered outcomes researcher whose research areas include advancing methods for measuring patient and caregiver preferences, engaging patients to inform medical decision making, and integrating patient-reported outcomes into clinical care. She is experienced in the use of quantitative preference elicitation (e.g. discrete-choice experiments, best-worst scaling, health state utilities), survey methods, and systematic reviews.
Dr. Crossnohere has received funding from groups including PCORI and PhRMA Foundation to advance work in measuring patient experiences. She is an editor of the journal The Patient: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, and she is the 2022 winner of the Outstanding Paper by a Young Investigator Award at the Society for Medical Decision Making. Dr. Crossnohere earned her bachelor’s degree from Skidmore College and her MHS and PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
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Bryan Garner, PhD Professor
Dr. Garner is an Experimental Psychologist and Professor in The Ohio State University Department of Internal Medicine. He is both the Director of Dissemination & Implementation Science for General Internal Medicine and the Director of Dissemination & Implementation Research for CATALYST. Dr. Garner is passionate about improving population health by helping to develop and test effective and cost-effective strategies for disseminating, implementing, and sustaining evidence-based practices within real-world settings.
To date, Dr. Garner and his team have provided rigorous experimental evidence supporting the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of two promising strategies. One strategy is the Implementation and Sustainment Facilitation (ISF) Strategy, which was shown to be both effective and cost-effective for improving implementation of an evidence-based substance use disorder intervention within HIV service organizations. The second is a strategy called pay-for-performance, which was shown to be both effective and cost-effective for improving implementation of a substance use disorder intervention within adolescent treatment settings.
Before joining the faculty at Ohio State, Dr. Garner was a Senior Implementation Research Scientist with RTI International. Dr. Garner received his bachelor's degree in psychology from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and his master's degree and PhD in experimental psychology from Texas Christian University.
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Dan Jonas, MD, MPH Professor
Dr. Jonas is a Professor of Clinical Medicine, a primary care physician, a health services researcher, and the Director for the Division of General Internal Medicine. Dr. Jonas’ primary research interests and areas of expertise include delivery of preventive services, chronic disease management, unhealthy alcohol use, implementation, and critical appraisal and synthesis of health literature. Dr. Jonas has led multiple clinical trials and numerous projects critically evaluating the scientific evidence on health care and health policy topics for groups making national recommendations, such as the Effective Healthcare Program of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF).
Prior to joining The Ohio State University in December 2020, Dr. Jonas was at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for over 15 years where he worked as the Section Chief for Research in the Division of General Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology and as the Deputy Director for Research, Director of the Program on Medical Practice and Prevention, and Director of the Primary Care Research Fellowship at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. He has served as co-Director of the RTI-UNC Evidence-based Practice Center since 2012. Dr. Jonas received his MD from Ohio State and his MPH from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Natalie S. Lee, MD, MPH, MSHP Assistant Professor
Dr. Lee is an assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine. She is a clinician-researcher whose goal is to develop and implement innovative care models and technologies to improve population health care delivery. After completing her internal medicine residency, Dr. Lee pursued an additional three years of fellowship in health care research and innovation. Her advanced training in health services research introduced her to a broad array of skills, including foundations in biostatistics, causal inference methodologies, qualitative research, and cost effectiveness analysis.
She was mentored by experts in health care innovation and collaborated in a multidisciplinary team of bioinformaticians, software engineers, and clinicians to develop and operationalize an artificial intelligence tool for hypertension management. Dr. Lee has served as principal investigator and co-investigator on multiple internal and external grants. She is excited to continue building interdisciplinary and multi-institution collaborations to redesign the way we experience and deliver health care.
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Sarah MacEwan, PhD Assistant Professor
Dr. MacEwan is an assistant professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine. Her work as a health services researcher focuses on enhancing patient engagement through the use of health technologies and improving equitable use of patient-facing health technology tools. She is particularly interested in how health technologies can influence the management of chronic conditions through the communication and comprehension of patient-generated data and the impact of this data on shared decision making and health behaviors.
Dr. MacEwan received her PhD in biomedical engineering from Duke University and conducted postdoctoral research in molecular engineering at the University of Chicago. Her research as a biomedical engineer focused on the development of biomaterial systems for targeted cancer therapy and immunomodulation in autoimmunity. Before joining the Division of General Internal Medicine, Dr. MacEwan was a postdoctoral researcher with CATALYST.
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Department of Internal Medicine – Division of Hematology
Department of Internal Medicine – Division of Medical Oncology
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Carolyn J. Presley, MD, MHS Assistant Professor
Dr. Presley is an Assistant Professor on the tenure track in the Division of Medical Oncology/Department of Internal Medicine at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and her medical degree from Dartmouth Medical School. She completed residency in Internal Medicine and combined fellowship in Geriatric Oncology and Hematology at Yale University. She completed a master’s in Health Sciences, also at Yale, within the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program sponsored by the VA Connecticut Healthcare System.
Dr. Presley is an active member of the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Program, The American Geriatrics Society, and the American Society of Clinical Oncology. She has been a longtime member of the international Cancer and Aging Research Group (CARG). Dr. Presley leads studies focused on maintaining functional independence among older adults with lung cancer. These studies incorporate geriatric assessment, embedded palliative care, and interventions to improve risk factors for treatment toxicity and functional decline. She has been funded by the National Institute on Aging, the BMS Foundation, and the Rising Tide Foundation. She is one of the first two women to receive the preeminent Paul Beeson Emerging Leaders in Aging Career Development Award at Ohio State, and she also received the National LEAD Rising Star Award for Women in hematology and oncology.
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Ce Shang, PhD Assistant Professor
Dr. Ce Shang is an Assistant Professor in Medical Oncology at the Department of Internal Medicine at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. Dr. Shang is a health economist with extensive experience in regulatory science. Her research focuses on the economic analysis of health behaviors, with an emphasis on how taxes and policies impact substance use and abuse. Dr. Shang’s research has been funded by the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and various foundation awards. Her projects involve using experiments and observational data to estimate consumers' preferences and demand for tobacco, cannabis, and alcohol products.
Dr. Shang received the 2015 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Kaafee Billah Memorial Award in Economics Research and was among the 2016 cohort of World Heart Federation (WHF) Emerging Leaders of tobacco control. Dr. Shang’s work has appeared in such peer-reviewed publications as the American Journal of Medicine, Tobacco Control, Nicotine and Tobacco Research, Preventive Medicine and Addiction. She is also one of the co-founders of Tobacco Online Policy Seminar (TOPS), a free multidisciplinary international forum for tobacco policy research.
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Department of Internal Medicine – Division of Palliative Medicine
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Julia Agne, MD Assistant Professor
Dr. Agne is a palliative medicine specialist, an assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, and a member of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Her clinical focus is outpatient cancer symptom management and counseling for patients and families during difficult decisions involving their medical care. Dr. Agne's goal is to support patients during all phases of their life after cancer diagnosis.
Dr. Agne serves as a manuscript reviewer for the Journal of Palliative Medicine, Cancer, and Journal of Oncology Practice. She has presented at national and international conferences sponsored by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. She is also an institutional representative for National Comprehensive Cancer Network Adult Cancer Pain Panel. Dr. Agne received her doctorate from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, and she completed her residency and fellowship at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
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Jillian Gustin, MD Clinical Associate Professor
Dr. Gustin is the director of the Division of Palliative Medicine in the Department of Internal Medicine and a clinical associate professor. She focuses on supporting patients and their families who are facing serious illnesses. She is an expert in symptom management and communication related to advance care planning and goals of care, and she works in close collaboration with patients’ primary teams to ensure that the care patients receive is aligned with their values and goals.
In addition to her clinical work, Dr. Gustin is a Fellow of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM); a member of the AAHPM Leadership and Career Development committee; past co-chair of the AAHPM/ACGME Milestone Workgroup; and a Distinguished Faculty for Vitaltalk, a national nonprofit organization designed to improve communication training for physicians and other providers. She has also co-authored multiple publications in the Journal of Palliative Medicine and the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, the two top journals for her subspecialty. Dr. Gustin completed her medical training at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. She completed her residency at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and her fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
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Christopher Hritz, MD Clinical assistant professor
Dr. Hritz is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine's Division of Palliative Medicine. He received his medical degree from Northeast Ohio Medical University.
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Jennica Johns, MD Clinical Assistant Professor
Dr. Johns is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine's Division of Palliative Medicine. She received her medical degree from The Ohio State University, where she also completed her internship, residency, and fellowships.
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Sachin Kale, MD Associate Professor
Dr. Kale is an associate professor in the Department of Internal Medicine's Division of Palliative Medicine. His clinical focus is in ambulatory palliative medicine, and he is the Medical Director of Ambulatory Palliative Care at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. He has developed expertise in the use of opioids to manage cancer pain; has co-authored several internal, peer-reviewed clinical practice guidelines related to opioid prescribing and substance abuse; and has presented on the topic nationally.
Additionally, in September 2020, Dr. Kale founded the Palliative Harm Reduction & Resiliency Clinic at The Ohio State University. The clinic, which is funded in part by a Care Innovation and Community Improvement Program, is dedicated to the management of cancer-related pain in patients with co-morbid substance use disorder and is among the first of its kind in the nation. Dr. Kale also serves as a member of the hospital-wide committee addressing the opioid abuse epidemic and the Opioid and Analgesics Pharmacy and Therapeutics subcommittee. He is a reviewer for the Journal of Palliative Medicine, Cancer, and the Journal of Cancer Survivorship. Dr. Kale received his medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and he completed his residency at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and his subsequent fellowship in Hospice and Palliative Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
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Erin Stevens, DO Clinical Assistant Professor
Dr. Stevens is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine's Division of Palliative Medicine. As a geriatrician and palliative care specialist, Dr. Stevens focuses on helping older patients adjust to aging-related needs and cancer symptoms. Her clinical work, quality improvement projects, and teaching are directed toward improving the delivery of care to patients who require a delicate balance of medical intervention and goal-aligned care.
Dr. Stevens is a member of the Cancer Control Program at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. There, she developed a geriatric palliative care oncology clinic called the CARE-Pall Clinic, which allows her to contribute to ongoing research in the field and help others best understand how to treat and meet the geriatric and palliative care of older adults undergoing active cancer treatment. She is interested in establishing qualify of life metrics; better understanding the decreased enrollment in clinical trials; and considering the role that cognitive impairment has on decision-making, adherence, and overall outcomes. One of her current projects, which is funded by an internal pilot grant sponsored by the Department of Internal Medicine, studies the relationship and outcomes of older adult allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplant recipients who have had a geriatric assessment with management. Her work has appeared in several peer-reviewed publications, including the Journal of Palliative Medicine and the Journal of Clinical Oncology and Trials.
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Brittany Waterman, MD Clinical Assistant Professor
Dr. Waterman is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine's Division of Palliative Medicine. She specializes in symptom management and end-of-life care, and she believes in providing exceptional care to patients who are faced with serious, life-limiting illnesses. She thinks it is important for patients and their families to have an active role in their care, and she enjoys helping her patients explore their values, preferences, and goals for their care. She strives to provide effective symptom management for patients throughout the course of their illness, as well as at the end of life.
Dr. Waterman's research interests include integrating palliative medicine into the care of patients with end-stage liver disease and other life-limiting illnesses. She received her doctorate from The Ohio State University College of Medicine, and she completed her residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., before returning to Ohio State for her fellowship. When she is not working, Dr. Waterman enjoys jogging, painting, hiking, and exploring Columbus.
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Department of Internal Medicine – Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine
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Nathan E. Brummel, MD, MSCI, FCCM, ATSF Associate Professor
Dr. Brummel is an associate professor in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine in The Ohio State University College of Medicine. His research program seeks to better understand and mitigate the processes that result in disabilities in basic self-care activities and mobility among the growing number of people who survive serious and life-threatening critical illness, with a focus on older adults. Through the conduct of observational studies and randomized clinical trials, he has described – and studied interventions to improve – the dramatic life alterations suffered by patients who develop long-lasting disability and frailty after critical illness that are hypothesized to be related to underlying and newly acquired vulnerabilities.
Dr. Brummel received a bachelor's degree in biology and a master's degree in biomedical sciences from Creighton University, completed a Master of Science in Clinical Investigation from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and earned his MD from the University of Missouri School of Medicine. He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center, where he also served as chief resident. He completed fellowship training in pulmonary disease and critical care medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he also completed his post-doctoral research training. Following his training, he served on the faculty in the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care and Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt, where he was an investigator with the Critical Illness Survivorship and Brain Dysfunction Center led by Dr. Wes Ely and Dr. Pratik Pandharipande. He is the prior recipient of a Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development award, the nation's preeminent aging-research focused career development award from the National Institutes of Health. He the founder and chair of two aging-focused, collaborative, critical care groups worldwide through the American Thoracic Society Aging in Critical Care Interest Group and the Society of Critical Care Medicine Geriatrics Knowledge Education Group.
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Department of Neurology
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Jim Burke, MD, MS Professor
Dr. Burke trained in Neurology and Vascular Neurology at the University of Michigan, completed health services research training through the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, and served on the faculty of UM before joining Ohio State to co-direct the HSR Neurology Division. Dr. Burke has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health, and his research has focused on a variety of topics including individualized treatment decisions, understanding racial disparities in stroke outcomes, and exploring how patient preferences affect health outcomes. Dr. Burke applies advanced statistical methodology to optimize diagnostic and treatment decisions for individual patients.
Dr. Burke's research has addressed a variety of topics, such as how to best target treatment to individual patients, evaluating the value of neurologic care, understanding how end-of-life preferences influence care, understanding how race disparities emerge after stroke, and evaluating population-level outcomes of varying treatment strategies.
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Kevin Kerber, MD, MS Professor
Dr. Kerber trained in neurology at the University of Michigan and neurotology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He completed a master’s degree in Health and Healthcare Research at UM. He was on the faculty of UM before joining Ohio State to co-found the HSR Neurology. His grant funding, from the National Institutes of Health and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, has included projects about the clinical epidemiology of dizziness, clinical decision rule development to identify stroke in acute dizziness presentations, health services randomized clinical trials to implement evidence-based care practices in routine care emergency departments, and the development and evaluation of patient-oriented behavioral interventions. He is particularly interested in the development and management of patient-focused resources.
Dr. Kerber currently is collaborating with Kaiser Permanente Southern California on an NIH-funded clinical trial of a provider- and patient-based implementation strategy to optimize management and outcomes for ED dizziness presentations. He has also evaluated payment policies and collaborated with other investigators across a variety of topics including stroke epidemiology, geographic variation in neurologists and neurologic care, and the value of neurologic care. Dr. Kerber serves as a Vice-Chair of Clinical Operations and the Director of the Neuro-otology program.
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
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William Grobman, MD, MBA Professor
Dr. Grobman is the vice chair of Clinical Operations for the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at The Ohio State University as well as a professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology with Ohio State's College of Medicine. As a maternal fetal medicine expert, his research is focused on strategies to better predict and prevent adverse pregnancy outcomes; he is also working on ways to optimize obstetric health care services. Dr. Grobman has served as PI on multiple projects funded by the National Institutes of Health and various foundation grants, and he has authored more than 450 peer-reviewed articles. He is the past president of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, is on the board of directors for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Along with CATALYST Executive Director Ann Scheck McAlearney, ScD, MS, distinguished professor of Family and Community Medicine and associate dean for Health Services Research, Dr. Grobman co-leads Better Birth Outcomes and Experiences Through Technology, Education and Reporting (BETTER). The BETTER program works to design and test ways to increase the health of pregnant people and their children by targeting the social determinants of health that can affect their risk for adverse outcomes. Dr. Grobman received his MBA from Northwestern University and his MD from Harvard Medical School.
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Kartik Venkatesh, MD, PhD Assistant Professor
Dr. Venkatesh is an obstetrician and gynecologist, a maternal fetal medicine specialist, and PhD perinatal epidemiologist. He is jointly appointed in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the College of Medicine and the Division of Epidemiology of the College of Public Health; he is also active in The Ohio State University's Institute for Population Research. His clinical practice focuses on diabetes in pregnancy, and he is the director of the OSUWMC Diabetes in Pregnancy Program, which is one of the oldest and largest integrated prenatal and diabetes care programs in the country serving more than 800 pregnant people with type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes every year across central and southern Ohio.
As a physician-scientist, Dr. Venkatesh's mission is to improve maternal and child outcomes in high-risk pregnancies using innovative approaches that integrate clinical trials, perinatal epidemiology, and precision medicine. His research focuses on diabetes in pregnancy and perinatal infectious diseases. Dr. Venkatesh has methodological expertise in clinical trials, longitudinal cohort studies, and clinical prediction models using both statistical methods and machine learning. He has authored more than 130 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts. Currently, Dr. Venkatesh is the PI/MPI of three large studies funded by the NIH (UG3), AHRQ (R01), and PCORI (Large grant): 1) NIH's ECHO Ohio prospective longitudinal cohort examining the impact of maternal cardiometabolic health in pregnancy on long-term child neurodevelopment; 2) AHRQ's ACHIEVE RCT studying the impact of continuous glucose monitoring, mobile applications, and addressing social needs on glycemic control for Medicaid-insured pregnant individuals with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes; 3) PCORI's DECIDE, a comparative effectiveness, patient-centered RCT, defining whether metformin is non-inferior to insulin for prevention of adverse pregnancy outcomes and safe through two years of postpartum follow-up among more than 1,500 individuals with gestational diabetes and their exposed infants at 20 U.S. centers. Dr. Venkatesh earned his MD from Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University; he also completed his PhD at Brown University.
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Department of Orthopaedics
Department of Pediatrics
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Jeff Bridge, PhD Professor
Dr. Bridge is a professor with the Department of Pediatrics in The Ohio State University College of Medicine; he is also the director of the Center for Suicide Prevention and Research in the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. In addition, he is the Nationwide Foundation Endowed Chair of Innovation in Behavioral Health Research.
Dr. Bridge is an epidemiologist whose clinical and research interests include the epidemiology of suicidal behavior in young people, neurocognitive vulnerability to suicidal behavior, and quality of care for youth at risk for suicide. In particular, he is interested in research regarding vulnerability factors of adolescent suicidal behavior and improving the identification, emergency management, and follow-up care of youth at risk for suicide. Dr. Bridge received his PhD in epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh.
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Jennifer Lee, MD Clinical Informatics Fellow
Dr. Lee is a clinical assistant fellow of pediatrics at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. She practices pediatric gastroenterology and clinical informatics at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. She wants to leverage technology to improve bedside clinical care and understand how the implementation of technology affects physician and patient experience through the health care system. Dr. Lee's recent studies focus on understanding physician practices regarding use of the electronic health record and studying the effects of operational changes to the EHR as well as point of care clinical decision support. She received her medical degree from the West Virginia University School of Medicine in Morgantown and completed her residency in pediatrics and fellowship in pediatric gastroenterology at the University of Tennessee Health Science center at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital/St. Judes Children's Hospital in Memphis. She completed a clinical informatics fellowship at the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center.
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Jack Stevens, PhD Associate Professor
Dr. Stevens is an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University and a clinical psychologist at Nationwide Children's Hospital. His primary research is related to treatment approaches for a number of diverse pediatric conditions.
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
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Ceren Yarar-Fisher, PhD, PT Associate Professor
Dr. Yarar-Fisher is an Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Research at The Ohio State University Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Director of Clinical Research at the Belford Center for Spinal Cord Injury. Her translational research program focuses on understanding the pathophysiology of traumatic spinal cord injury in the acute and chronic stages with the purpose of developing novel dietary and rehabilitation strategies to improve neuro-recovery, metabolism, and bowel function. Her laboratory develops and tests therapeutic diets and electrical stimulation programs to evaluate new ways to prevent neuronal death; promote recovery and function in the acute stages; and improve body composition, gut microbiome composition, and skeletal muscle and metabolic health in the chronic stages of SCI.
Dr. Yarar-Fisher has received funding from the National Institutes of Health and National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research to support her investigations in SCI. She was selected as one of the 10 Outstanding Young Persons of Turkey by Junior Chamber International for her work in Academic leadership and accomplishment. She served two years as Treasurer, Chair-Elect, and Chair in American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine (ACRM) SCI-Special Interest Group, and she is a member of ACRM, the Academy of Spinal Cord Injury Professionals, the American College of Sports Medicine, and the American Physiological Society.
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Kathryn A. Hyzak, PhD, MSW Provost’s Tenure Track Fellow-to-Assistant Professor
Dr. Hyzak is the Provost's Tenure Track Fellow-to-Assistant Professor faculty member in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. She is a trained implementation scientist with a specialization in traumatic brain injury (TBI) research-to-practice translation. Using mixed methodologies, Dr. Hyzak's research focuses on applying implementation science to improve the adoption, reach, fidelity, scalability, and sustainment of evidence-based practices (EBPs) for individuals with TBI and psychiatric comorbidities, as well as investigating multi-level determinants, implementation strategies, and mechanisms affecting EBP uptake with the ultimate goal of getting interventions into clinical practice more quickly. She enjoys team science approaches to answering system-level questions to improve care for individuals with TBI.
Dr. Hyzak's research has been funded through the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health. She was the recipient of the 2023 Merriss Cornell Distinguished Researcher Award for her dissertation examining implementation of TBI screening in behavioral health treatment settings. Dr. Hyzak is a member of the Chronic Brain Injury Task Force of the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine Brain Injury Special Interest Group, as well as the International Brain Injury Association, the North American Brain Injury Society, and the Society for Implementation Research Collaboration. Locally, she serves as an elected member of the Ohio Brain Injury Advisory Committee.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health
Department of Surgery
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Courtney Collins, MD Clinical Assistant Professor
Dr. Collins is a clinical assistant professor with the Department of Surgery at The Ohio State University.
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Samilia Obeng-Gyasi, MD Assistant Professor
Dr. Obeng-Gyasi is a physician specializing in surgical oncology with The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. She attended the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She completed her residency at the Cleveland Clinic and a fellowship at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
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Andrew Young, MD, FACS Assistant Professor
Dr. Young is an Assistant Professor of surgery at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. He completed his residency at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., in general surgery. Subsequently, he served in the U.S. Navy as a general surgeon for four years before returning to fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania to study trauma, critical care, and emergency general surgery.
Dr. Young's current research focuses on predictive modeling using machine learning in trauma and critical care. Clinical areas of interest include studying aging adults who suffer a traumatic fall, cervical spine fracture, antimicrobial stewardship in the surgical intensive care unit, and trauma quality improvement.
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School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences
Dr. Alain is a physical therapist and a data analytics specialist for CATALYST. His prior background consists of portfolio management and derivative trading, supply chain and inventory control, clinical care, and quality improvement. He received his bachelor's degree in Human Development and Family Science at The Ohio State University. He then went on to complete a clinical Doctor of Physical Therapy degree from Marshall University and was residency trained and board certified in geriatrics through a joint partnership between National Church Residences and Ohio State. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Health and Rehabilitation Sciences program at Ohio State focused on modeling the timing of post-surgical risks.
Dr. Deligkaris has a PhD in physics with specialization in computational sciences from Purdue University and is now a data analytics specialist for the Neurology Health Services Research Division and CATALYST. Dr. Deligkaris has years of experience programming, creating data visualizations, and conducting computational research resulting in peer-reviewed publications and presentations at national conferences. Dr. Deligkaris enjoys learning and mastering cutting-edge methods and algorithms. He works closely with Drs. Burke and Kerber on projects that aim to optimize neurological health outcomes and services.
Dr. Tarver is an assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, as well as a core faculty member with CATALYST. Dr. Tarver's research focuses on the use of health information technologies (e.g., patient portals, personal health records, and health information exchange) and understanding their potential to improve care coordination for people with cancer and who are part of underserved populations.
Dr. Rosko is a clinical associate professor with the Division of Hematology in The Ohio State University Department of Internal Medicine and the medical director of the oncogeriatric program at Ohio State’s Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. She also serves as the co-director of the Cancer and Aging Resiliency Clinic at the OSUCCC – James.
Dr. Quatman is an Associate Professor of Clinical Orthopaedics in the Division of Trauma. As an orthopedic surgeon, she specializes in orthopedic trauma care with a special emphasis on geriatric care. Dr. Quatman is passionate about integrating cutting-edge technology into clinical care to significantly improve patient outcomes. She is one of two surgeons in the country to complete a geriatric orthopedic training fellowship, helped create criteria for fellowship certification in geriatric orthopedic trauma care through the International Geriatric Fracture Society, was selected to participate in the National Institute of Health’s National Institute of Aging Bulter-Williams Scholar Program, and was a member of a research team that received the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation Clinical Research Award for 15 years of collaborative research on knee injury prevention strategies.
Dr. Fontanella is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at The Ohio State University and Principal Investigator at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Center for Suicide Prevention and Research. Dr. Fontanella is a mental health services researcher and a national expert in youth suicide in “boundaried” settings (e.g., health care settings, Medicaid). Her research focuses on characterizing demographic and clinical profiles of suicidal youth within such settings, understanding patterns and trends in utilization and quality of health and mental health care for suicidal youth, examining how this affects outcomes, and exploring strategies for suicide prevention in various health care settings.
Dr. DeLancey is an assistant professor in the Department of Urology. His research interests include hospital and provider quality ratings, tobacco cessation, and use of patient-reported outcomes to improve quality of care.