CATALYST Leadership

• Ann Scheck McAlearney, ScD, MS Executive Director of CATALYST

  Dr. McAlearney is the Executive Director of CATALYST and a professor in the Department of Family 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 Research Manager

  Alice Gaughan has over 20 years of experience performing research at The Ohio State University. She has extensive experience building strong relationships leading to successful collaborations between healthcare and research teams. She is passionate about performing research that results in impactful change for the benefit of patients. She serves as a Research Manager for CATALYST and also provides project management for the team’s research activities funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, including the Institute for the Design of Environments Aligned for Patient Safety (IDEA4PS).

  Before joining CATALYST, Alice served as a program coordinator in the Clinical Trials Office at Ohio State's Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute, where she was responsible for the implementation of new clinical trials. She also spent time as a senior research associate in the Department of Veterinary Biosciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine. She started her research career in the College of Medicine at the Comprehensive Transplant Center, where she performed basic science, clinical, and translational studies aimed at understanding the mechanisms of transplant rejection. Alice received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Bethany College and a Master of Science degree in medical microbiology and immunology from Ohio State. 

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CATALYST core faculty

• Timothy Huerta, PhD, MS Professor

  Dr. Huerta is a professor of both family medicine and biomedical informatics in The Ohio State University College of Medicine and brings both breadth and depth of experience in quantitative methods, health services research and multidisciplinary collaboration. Dr. Huerta is a well-published, nationally recognized expert on 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.

  Prior to 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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• Cynthia Sieck, PhD, MPH Assistant Professor

  Dr. Sieck is an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine. Dr. Sieck brings 20 years of experience in design and evaluation of interventions for individual health behavior change to CATALYST. Her current research interests include understanding patient perspectives related to health encounters, patient education within the Patient-Centered Medical Home, use of EHR/PHR and evaluation of health behavior change interventions.
  
  Before joining the faculty, she was involved as a research specialist in a variety of health services research studies in The Ohio State University College of Public Health and served as research director for the Wright State University School of Professional Psychology. Dr. Sieck received her PhD in health behavior and health education from the University of Michigan School of Public Health and a master's of public health and community health services from the University of Pittsburgh.

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• Daniel Walker, PhD, MPH Assistant Professor

  Dr. Walker is an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine. His research focuses on investigating the structures and managerial competencies that improve health system capacity to implement new technologies, models of care delivery and quality improvement interventions. Drawing on training in strategic and organizational theories, his research aims to produce practice oriented conclusions that can benefit healthcare delivery.
  
  Dr. Walker’s current research explores these issues in relation to the exchange of health information across the care continuum, the implementation of patient portals in the inpatient environment, the development of accountable care organizations, changes in delivery system configuration and best practices for quality improvement. 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 Dornsife School of Public Health.

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• Naleef Fareed, PhD, MBA Assistant Professor

  Dr. Fareed is an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics. He leverages his training in health services research to primarily explore how the adoption, implementation, and use of health information technologies influence healthcare delivery. He also conducts studies that assess the effects of policies, interventions, and strategies on healthcare outcomes. His recent work incorporates the patient perspective and methods through which technology can be used to collect patient data. His work has been published and presented in highly regarded venues in the health services research field.
  
  Prior to joining the faculty at Ohio State, Dr. Fareed was an assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Administration at The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Fareed received his PhD from Virginia Commonwealth University in health services organization and research and a master’s degree in business administration in healthcare management from Union Graduate College.

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• Megan Gregory, PhD Assistant Professor

  Dr. Gregory is an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics in the College of Medicine. Her research examines individual, social and organizational factors and conditions that impact healthcare teams. Dr. Gregory also seeks to develop, implement and evaluate interventions, tools and educational programs (including simulation) to improve healthcare teamwork. Prior to joining The Ohio State University, Dr. Gregory was an Advanced Fellow in Health Professions Education, Evaluation and Research at the Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness & Safety with the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. She received her Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from the University of Central Florida, where she worked for the Institute for Simulation and Training.

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• Saurabh Rahurkar, DrPH, BDS Assistant Professor

  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.

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• Willi (Will) Tarver, DrPH, MLIS Assistant Professor

  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.
  
  Before coming to Ohio State, Dr. Tarver was a VA Medical Informatics Fellow in the Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center's Health Services Research and Development Center for Health Information and Communication in Indianapolis. He received his Doctor of Public Health in Health Care Organization and Policy from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

CATALYST affiliated faculty

• Jennifer Hefner, PhD, MPH Assistant Professor

  Dr. Hefner is an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine, having received both her Master of Public Health and PhD in health services organization and policy from the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on applying management and organizational theories to the study of healthcare transformation in hospital settings. Currently, Dr. Hefner is working on understanding management strategies that are effective in reducing healthcare-associated infections, evaluating healthcare quality measures and studying the impact of patient portals on healthcare workflow.

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• C. Tory Hogan, PhD Assistant Professor

  Dr. Hogan is an assistant professor in the College of Public Health's Division of Health Services Management and Policy and holds a joint appointment with the Department of Family Medicine. Dr. Hogan is currently exploring research on the relationship between management structures and patient quality outcomes, utilizing mixed methods. Her previous researched focused on hospital integration and performance using mixed methods. Dr. Hogan received her PhD from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in health services administration.

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• John F. P. Bridges, PhD Professor

  Dr. Bridges is a professor in the departments of Biomedical Informatics and Surgery at The Ohio State University. In addition to his role as part of CATALYST, he is a core faculty member with the Center for Surgical Health Assessment, Research and Policy (SHARP). His research furthers the translation and implementation of heathcare advances into medical practice, and he has worked to demonstrate the value of incorporating patient and caregiver viewpoints into the consideration of both the risks and benefits of treatment options. In addition to his work advancing the science of patient engagement, Dr. Bridges founded a journal, The Patient – Patient Centered Outcomes Research, as a venue dedicated to comprehending patient perspectives in medicine. Dr. Bridges earned a PhD in economics from the City University of New York Graduate Center.

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CATALYST clinical faculty

• John Oliver DeLancey, MD Assistant Professor

  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.
   
  Dr. DeLancey completed his MPH in epidemiology at Emory University and worked as a cancer epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society prior to completing his MD at the University of Michigan and Urology residency at Northwestern University.

• Aslam Ejaz, MD Assistant Professor

  Dr. Ejaz is an assistant professor of surgery in the Division of Surgical Oncology. A strong clinical practice, participation in the education of medical students and surgical trainees, and dedicated efforts in clinical research are the cornerstones of his academic surgery practice.

  As a practicing complex general surgical oncologist, Dr. Ejaz’s clinical practice is focused on the treatment of patients with liver, biliary, pancreas, and other gastrointestinal malignancies through innovative, minimally invasive robotic surgery techniques. As a health services researcher, his research efforts are focused on assessing and improving the delivery of high-value cancer care. He is involved in the development of several clinical trials focused on a multidisciplinary and personalized approach to cancer care.

  Dr. Ejaz earned his Master of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2014 and received his medical degree from the Howard University College of Medicine in 2010. His career goal is to become an independent, funded investigator by developing, evaluating, and implementing evidenced-based innovative approaches for patients who require major cancer surgery.

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• Jennifer Lee, MD Clinical Informatics Fellow

  Dr. Lee is a fellow in clinical informatics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and a practicing pediatric gastroenterologist 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 healthcare system. Dr. Lee's recent studies focus on understanding physician practices regarding use of the electronic health record (EHR), 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 at the University of Tennessee Health Science center at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital/St. Judes Children's Hospital in Memphis.

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• Peter Kneuertz, MD Assistant Professor

  Dr. Kneuertz is a thoracic surgeon with The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. He received his medical degree from the University of Cologne Medical Faculty in Cologne, Germany. His residencies took place at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore and the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, and he completed his fellowship with the Weill Cornell & Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

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• Eliza Beal, MD, MS General Surgery Resident

  Dr. Beal is a general surgery resident at The Ohio State University. She received a bachelor's degree in biological anthropology from the University of Michigan and earned her medical doctorate at the The Ohio State University College of Medicine. 

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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.

CATALYST research staff

• Sarah MacEwan, PhD

  Dr. MacEwan is a post-doctoral researcher in CATALYST. She provides support for the dissemination of CATALYST’s research projects. Dr. MacEwan received her PhD from Duke University in biomedical engineering. Before joining CATALYST, she conducted postdoctoral research in molecular engineering at the University of Chicago.

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• Gennaro Di Tosto, PhD

  Dr. Di Tosto is a post-doctoral researcher collaborating on CATALYST’s healthcare analytics initiatives across several projects. His current work explores innovative methods for leveraging analytics and data science to improve healthcare 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. 

• Rebecca Carter, PhD

  Dr. Carter is a post-doctoral researcher at CATALYST with a focus in cardiovascular medicine. Her research interests include complex data analysis, epidemiological crowdsourcing, text-mining, kernel-based learning, and feature selection. Dr. Carter received her PhD from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Before joining CATALYST, she engaged in research at Bristol Myers Squibb, Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center, and University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center.

• Matthew DePuccio, PhD, MS

  Dr. DePuccio is a post-doctoral researcher with CATALYST. He collaborates with faculty in the Department of Family Medicine and the Department of Biomedical Informatics in the College of Medicine. He supports the planning, data collection, and dissemination of CATALYST research that focus on improving health care quality and reducing health care disparities. Dr. DePuccio has expertise using quantitative and qualitative research methods to examine the implementation of innovative primary care delivery models. He received his PhD in health services organization and research from Virginia Commonwealth University and holds a Master of Science degree in health policy and management from the University at Albany.

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• Pallavi Jonnalagadda, DrPh, MPH

  Dr. Jonnalagadda is a post-doctoral researcher working with Drs. Naleef Fareed and Sauraabh Rahurkar. Her current projects using big data approaches to examine the role of health information technology in improving outcomes pertaining to public health, healthcare delivery, and healthcare 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.

• Kyi Phyu Nyein, PhD

  Kyi Phyu Nyein, PhD, is a post-doctoral researcher under the joint mentorship of Dr. Megan Gregory and Dr. Clayton Rothwell at CATALYST. She received her PhD in industrial/organizational psychology from the Florida Institute of Technology in 2019. She is a scientist and researcher at heart, and she believes in bringing science to the real world to benefit and help individuals, teams, and organizations. Her current research interests include interpersonal trust dynamics, particularly trust violation and repair, and team dynamics and their intersections with technology in promoting health services and implementation science research efforts.

• Alison Aldrich, MSI, MPH

  Alison Aldrich, MSI, MPH. Alison is a senior research data analytics 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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• Christine Swoboda, PhD, MS

  Dr. Swoboda is a senior research data analytics specialist in the Department of Family 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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• Lindsey Sova, MPH

  Lindsey received her Master of Public Health from The Ohio State University. She is a project manager 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 is the implementation lead for HT2 and provides project management for the team’s MyChart research activities and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Taxonomy Project.

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• Sadie Chen, MLIS

  Sadie is a resource planning analyst. She received a Master of Library and Information Science from Kent State University. Sadie worked for several years as a librarian, taxonomist, and digital archivist. She is responsible for developing Tableau dashboards for various projects. 
   

• Lauren Phelps, MPA

  Lauren received her Master of Public Administration with a concentration in Health Services Management and Policy from The Ohio State University. She is a project manager for the Total Engagement and Activation Measure (TEAM) project at CATALYST and is responsible for overseeing daily operations of study as well as assisting with related research activities. Lauren has over 20 years of experience developing, implementing, or evaluating health care policy and programs in both the private and public sectors. She also serves as a Research Evaluator with the Center for Health Outcomes, Policy, and Evaluation Studies within the Ohio State College of Public Health.

• Seth Scarborough, MAS

  Seth received his master’s degree in applied statistics from The Ohio State University. He is a research data analyst for CATALYST and is responsible for cleaning and analyzing data across a number of projects. Currently, Seth is working with survey data from the HT2 and TEAM projects.

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• Harish Gureddygari, MS

  Harish graduated with a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Cincinnati. He has experience in predictive analytics and has joined CATALYST as a research data analyst. Currently, Harish is working on the MyExperience project.

• Jaclyn Volney, MPH

  Jaclyn received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Public Health at The Ohio State University. She conducts qualitative coding on the CATALYST’s project with the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and also assists with managing transcription projects across CATALYST studies.

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• Natasha Kurien, MPH

  Natasha received her bachelor's degree from Case Western Reserve University in Biochemistry and Chemistry, and she received her Master of Public Health from Dartmouth College. As part of CATALYST, she is working on the PCORI and TEAM projects.

• Anne Akhimien, MD

  Anne received her bachelor's degree from Howard University in nutritional sciences, minoring in both biology and chemistry. She received her medicine degree from The Ohio State University College of Medicine. As part of CATALYST, she is currently working on the MEDTAPP and SMART projects; she also assists with the OEI project.

• John Lawrence, MS

  John earned his master’s in biomedical engineering from the University of Cincinnati. He joins us after three years at Epic Systems, where he worked in ambulatory and was a senior developer of the Provider Efficiency Profile. He currently is working on the SMART, HINTS and My Experience projects.

• Abigail Petrecca

  Abigail is a clinical research assistant for CATALYST. She received her Bachelor of Science in biology from Washington and Lee University. She assists with provisioning tablets for the HT2 study.

• Meg Suttle

  Meg received her Bachelor of Science in psychology from The Ohio State University. She assists with qualitative analysis across various CATALYST projects. 

Administrative and professional staff

• Pam Thompson Administrative Assistant

  Pam Thompson 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 with the center. 

• Robert Strouse Director of Digital User Experience

  Robert Strouse is the Director of Digital User Experience (UX) at CATALYST. His primary responsibility is to collaborate with cross-functional, multidisciplinary teams and build meaningful experiences between the healthcare systems CATALYST seeks to create and the humans who will interact with them. Nearly two decades of experience in the design of products, interfaces, systems, and policies have enabled Robert to identify and create targeted solutions to complex user-centered design problems. His mandate is to create experiences that people find useful, usable, and desirable. 
   
  Before joining CATALYST, Robert was a UX Specialist and Designer at Nationwide Children’s Hospital (NCH), where he is a patented inventor and proven innovator. While at NCH, Robert created a variety of interfaces that supported research staff in the collection and analysis of research data, a custom VR system that reduced a child’s anxiety in clinic, several mobile apps, and over a dozen medical devices. He helped shape policy within the hospital. Robert also has had the opportunity to research, co-design, and test interfaces for military command and control; a novel Burn ICU EHR; and an app that allowed an untrained marine to coordinate and negotiate a resupply mission with an autonomous helicopter. Robert is also a regular contributor on several peer-reviewed publications.

• Tyler Griesenbrock Scientific Editor

  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 serves 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. Tyler received his bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Dayton, and he spent 10 years in the newspaper industry.