CATALYST leadership

• 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 Assistant Director

  Alice Gaughan is Assistant Director of the CATALYST Center at The Ohio State University. She drives health services and implementation sciences research administration, research strategy development, and operations at CATALYST. With over 20 years of experience performing research at Ohio State, she has extensive experience building strong relationships leading to successful collaborations between health care and research teams. She is passionate about performing research that results in impactful change for the benefit of providers and patients. For the Center to STOP-COVID, she serves on the Leadership Team, collaborating with the project teams to plan, design and execute the studies as well as serve as the point of contact for community partners and Advisory Boards supporting the Center.
   
  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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• 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.

• 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 faculty

• Courtney Hebert, MD, MS Assistant Professor

  Dr. Hebert is an assistant 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.  

   

• 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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• 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 Associate Professor

  Dr. Walker is an associate professor 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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• 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.

• 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.

   

• 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.

• 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.

• Dan Jonas, MD, MPH Director of the Division of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics, Professor of Clinical Medicine and Endowed Professor of Health Services Research

  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.

• 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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• Samantha Jaglowski, MD, MPH Medical Director of Clinical Informatics-Hematology

  Dr. Jaglowski is an associate professor of hematology. She is the Associate Division Director for Ambulatory Operations for Hematology, the Quality Director for the Blood and Marrow Transplant/Cellular Therapy Program, and the Clinical Operations Director for Cellular Therapy at The Ohio State University. She a hematologist specializing in stem cell transplants and engineered cell therapies for patients battling lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. She is focused on quality outcomes and the challenges that patients face once they receive life-saving therapies, as well as improving those therapies to try to reduce long-term complications of transplant. As a member of the Leukemia Research Program at the OSUCCC – James, her research is dedicated to cellular therapies for hematologic malignancies, including engineered cell therapies for B-cell malignancies as well as the treatment and prevention of complications of blood and marrow transplantation.

  Dr. Jaglowski's recent research includes a phase II study of ibrutinib for the treatment of chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD), which led to the FDA approval of ibrutinib for that indication and a phase II study of CTL-019, a CD19-specific CAR-T therapy for the treatment of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). She has co-authored more than 60 articles in well-respected publications, including Clinical Cancer Research, Blood, Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation, and New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Jaglowski started her career at Ohio State as an undergraduate zoology major, and she also received her medical degree and master's degree in public health from Ohio State.

   

• 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.

• 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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• Todd Barrett, MD Assistant Professor

  Dr. Barrett is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine in the Division of Palliative Medicine at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center who specializes in cardiac palliative medicine, mechanical circulatory support, and heart failure. He attended the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Kansas City, Kansas. He completed his residency at the University of Chicago Hospitals in Chicago and a fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

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• Jillian Gustin, MD Director of the Division of Palliative Medicine, 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.

• 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.

• 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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• Bethany Lockwood, MD Clinical Assistant Professor

  Dr. Lockwood is a clinical assistant professor with the Department of Internal Medicine's Division of Palliative Medicine. As a palliative medicine physician, she provides specialized patient and family-centered care for people living with serious illness. With training in both internal medicine and pediatrics, Dr. Lockwood has developed a specialized clinical and research niche in the palliative care needs of adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer.
  
  Dr. Lockwood is also passionate about improving the delivery of empathic, effective communication with patients and families, and is an educator in serious illness communication for a variety of trainees and clinicians across the medical center with extension of this to her medical education research. Dr. Lockwood received her medical degree from The Ohio State University, where she also completed her residency and fellowship.

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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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• Sharla Wells-Di Gregorio, PhD Associate Professor

  Dr. Wells-Di Gregorio is an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine, Division of Palliative Medicine, and is the Associate Vice Chair for Wellness for the Department of Internal Medicine. She is also the President-Elect of the American Psychosocial Oncology Society, the primary multidisciplinary organization for psychosocial oncologists in the U.S. In this role, she has overseen the creation of the Psychosocial Oncology Virtual Academy, which is designed to teach cancer-related psychosocial intervention skills to expand the psychosocial oncology workforce to mental health providers in underserved communities. For the past 15 years, she has taught psychosocial skills to hospice and palliative medicine fellows and previously directed the Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program. In 2021, she received the American Psychosocial Oncology Society Outstanding Education and Training Award. Her clinical work centers on the development and implementation of programs and interventions to improve communication and quality of life for patients and families living with advanced cancer. 
  
  Dr. Wells-Di Gregorio’s research focus is evidence-based symptom management and communication interventions for patients with serious illness. She has pilot tested a successful intervention, Finding Our Center Under Stress (FOCUS), with strong effects on insomnia, worry-uncertainty, depression, and fatigue interference for patients with advanced cancer. She has translated this into a virtual intervention and is planning a randomized clinical trial to evaluate this combined telemedicine-mHealth application. She completed her doctoral degree in clinical psychology at Northwestern University Medical School, her health psychology internship at UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, and a fellowship in biobehavioral oncology and advanced statistical methods at Ohio State.

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• Carmen Quatman, MD, PhD Associate Professor of Clinical Orthopaedics

  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. Quatman received her MD and PhD from the University of Toledo, and she trained at The Ohio State University for her residency.

• 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.

• Rajitha Venkatesh, MD Assistant Professor of Pediatrics

  Dr. Venkatesh is an assistant professor of Clinical Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, and she is also an attending pediatric gastroenterologist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and part of the Eosinophilic GI Disease Program. Dr. Venkatesh attended Wilkes University for her undergraduate education as a Wilkes Scholar. She attended SUNY Upstate Medical University for medical school and was selected as a NIH Fogarty Clinical Scholar. She completed residency training in Pediatrics at Yale-New Haven Children’s and fellowship training in Gastroenterology at Massachusetts General Hospital for Children.
   
  Her clinical interests span all gastrointestinal disorders with a special interest in eosinophilic GI disorders including eosinophilic esophagitis. She is the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition (NASPGHAN) Eosinophilic GI Disorders (EGID) Special Interest Group Chair. Her interests include innovation in clinical care including transnasal endoscopy for eosinophilic esophagitis. In addition, she has an interest in health care disparities and improving access to care specifically through telemedicine. She serves on multiple national committees including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Button Battery Taskforce as well as the AAP Section on Telehealth Care. She also serves as the Social Media Editor for JPGN Reports, a peer-reviewed open access journal that is a joint publication of NASPGAN and ESPGHAN.

• 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.

• Cynthia Fontanella, PhD Associate Professor

  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. Fontanella has extensive experience reviewing large administrative claims databases, hospital discharge datasets, and other research databases to answer important national policy questions related to service use and quality of mental health care. Fontanella has published in leading academic journals such as Jama Pediatrics, JAMA Network Open, and American Journal of Preventive Medicine. She is the MPI on a NIMH center on youth suicide prevention and has a strong record of NIH funding. Dr. Fontanella holds a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Villanova University, a master’s degree from Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research, and a Doctor of Philosophy in social work from University of Maryland at Baltimore. She also completed a NIMH funded postdoctoral fellowship in mental health services research at the Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research.

   

• Aslam Ejaz, MD Assistant Professor of Surgery, Division of Surgical Oncology

  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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• Samilia Obeng-Gyasi, MD Assistant Professor, Division of Surgical Oncology

  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.

• 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.

• John Oliver DeLancey, MD Assistant Professor, Department of Urology

  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.

• Catherine Quatman-Yates, PT, DPT, PhD Associate Professor of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences

  Dr. Quatman-Yates is an associate professor in the Department of Physical Therapy in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and Director for the Leading Improvement-Focused Teams for Advancing Health System Outcomes Lab (LIFT Lab). She is a physical therapist and researcher who focuses on health services research topics such as continuous-learning health systems to improve outcomes, effective fall prevention at home, increasing physical literacy in patients, and physical therapy evaluation and interventions after mild traumatic brain injury (TBI). Dr. Quatman-Yates leverages systems thinking/modeling and various investigative and analytic approaches to work toward ongoing improvement of patient outcomes for a variety of injuries and conditions.
   
  Dr. Quatman-Yates received her bachelor’s degree in Health and Physical Education from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, her MA and PhD in Sport and Exercise Management from The Ohio State University, and her DPT from the University of Toledo. She is diversely trained in the philosophies and methods for a variety of inquiry paradigms including classic experimental and quasi-experimental designs, naturalistic/qualitative approaches, complexity science approaches (e.g., social network analysis and non-linear time series analyses), and improvement/implementation science methods.

CATALYST affiliated faculty

• Eliza Beal, MD, MS Clinical Fellow

  Dr. Beal is a clinical fellow 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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• 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 health care teams to improve health care safety and quality. Dr. Gregory also seeks to develop, implement and evaluate interventions, tools and educational programs (including simulation) to improve health care teamwork. As part of this work, she studies the development and validation of survey measures.

  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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• Jennifer Hefner, PhD, MPH Assistant Professor

  Dr. Hefner is an assistant professor in the Division of Health Management and Policy in the Ohio State College of Public Health, having received both her Master of Public Health and Ph.D. in health services organization and policy from the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on applying management and organizational theories to the study of health care transformation in hospital settings. Currently, Dr. Hefner is working on understanding management strategies that are effective in reducing health care-associated infections, evaluating health care quality measures and studying the impact of patient portals on health care 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 and Community 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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• Susan Moffatt-Bruce, MD, PhD, MBA CEO of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada

  Dr. Moffatt-Bruce is the CEO of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, a cardiothoracic surgeon, a research scientist, and an academic administrator. The Royal College is the national professional association that oversees the medical education and certification of specialists in Canada and the accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools. Dr. Moffatt-Bruce started her role as CEO in January 2020.
  
  Dr. Moffatt-Bruce previously served as the Executive Director of University Hospital at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. In addition to her medical degree from Dalhousie University and completion of a cardiothoracic surgery fellowship at Stanford University, she earned an MBA and a master’s in operational excellence from The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business as well as a PhD from the University of Cambridge. From 2010 to 2017, she served as the chief quality and patient safety officer at Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center.
  
  In collaboration with Drs. Ann Scheck McAlearney and Timothy Huerta, Dr. Moffatt-Bruce secured a $4 million grant to develop a patient safety learning laboratory at the medical center, the Institute for the Design of Environments Aligned for Patient Safety (IDEA4PS) from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). This “learning laboratory” is studying how feedback of information can be used to inform the development of robust practices that lead to improved patient safety.

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CATALYST research staff

• 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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• 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.

• 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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• 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.

• 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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• Cortney Forward, PhD, MPH, MBA

  Dr. Forward is a project manager for CATALYST and helps to oversee the daily operations for research studies. Dr. Forward brings prior experience as a patient experience manager for The Ohio State University Department of Family and Community Medicine. She is dedicated to supporting the voice of the patient to bring patient- and family-centered care to the forefront of health care and research. Dr. Forward received her PhD and two master's degrees (MPH and MBA) from Walden University.

• Elizabeth Mayers, MS

  Elizabeth is a project manager for CATALYST. She received a Master of Science in Agronomy from the University of Florida and a Master of Science in Agricultural Communication, Education, and Leadership from The Ohio State University. She is working on her PhD in Public Health with a focus on Health Behavior and Health Promotion at Ohio State. Elizabeth has worked on several health marketing projects in nutrition and tobacco cessation and has now joined the Step Up research group in CATALYST.

• 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.

• Elizabeth Solinger, MACPR, CCRP

  Elizabeth Solinger oversees essential research tasks as a project manager at CATALYST by providing support and guidance in all aspects of research administration, design, management, and implementation. Prior to Elizabeth’s appointment with CATALYST, she worked in the Division of Human Genetics and in conjunction with Medical Oncology at The Ohio State University and Ohio State's Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute; her focus was in non-therapeutic breast cancer research. She also worked in the College of Public Health to support the research endeavors of the Ohio Policy Evaluation Network. Her roles, spanning over 15 years at Ohio State, have included direct patient interaction, research protocol initiation and management, REDCap platform administration, budget management, contract execution, process and workflow evaluation, and oversight of research assistants. Elizabeth takes a particular interest in the intersection of research and technology and the field of implementation science. She is also committed to utilizing research to work toward health equity.

  Elizabeth obtained a BS in forensic chemistry from Ohio University and later went on to receive a Masters of Applied Clinical and Preclinical Research with a focus in research management from Ohio State. She also maintains professional certification through the Society of Clinical Research Associates.

   

• 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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• 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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• 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.

• 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.

• Jamie Turner, MPH

  Jamie Turner is a master’s-trained health research leader with 19 years of experience implementing and evaluating health-related interventions, managing grants and contracts, and supporting human factors research studies. She has a Master of Public Health degree from Boston University and a Certificate in Strategic Public Health Leadership from Ohio State. In a previous role, Jamie was Lead Social Scientist in the Battelle Health Research group, managing tasks and studies funded by the Centers for Disease Control, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, industry sponsors, and the U.S. military. In addition, Jamie has field experience working for humanitarian organizations in areas experiencing civil conflict, and she holds a Certificate in Managing Disasters and Public Health Emergencies.

  Jamie is Research Manager for the Neurology Health Services Research Division and CATALYST. Jamie works closely with Drs. Burke and Kerber, managing research operations for the division and supporting division staff. Jamie is passionate about the aims of the research that seeks to address key questions about health equity, how patient-facing resources can improve outcomes, and why race matters.

• Gabriel Alain, PT, DPT, PhD(c)

  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.

• Mireille Bitangacha

  Mireille Bitangacha 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.

• Rachel Ernst

  Rachel Ernst 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.

• Leah Roth

  Leah Roth 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.

• 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.