Spring 2020

Mercy Asiedu is currently a Schmidt Science Postdoctoral Fellow at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, working with Dr. Regina Barzilay to develop machine-learning tools for breast cancer risk assessment. Prior to this, she received her PhD from Duke University Biomedical Engineering, with a certificate in Global Health at Dr. Nimmi Ramanujam’s Center for Global Women’s Health Technologies. While at Duke, she developed the Callascope, a device that reimagines the current gynecological exam and provides women with more autonomy over the exam, by enabling speculum-free, self-imaging of the cervix.  This invention came out of a need to develop a device to improve access to cervical cancer screening in resource limited settings and she validated it in clinical studies at Duke University Medical Center and in Greater Accra Regional Hospital. She won several awards for this invention including the Lemelson-MIT Graduate Student Inventor Award, Duke Health Innovation Shark Tank, CUGH/Wasserheit Young Leader in Global Health Award, and the CISCO Global Problem Solver Challenge. Prior to Duke, she obtained her BSc. in Biomedical Engineering with a minor in Business from the University of Rochester. Ultimately, Mercy’s career interests lie in using technological advances to bridge healthcare disparities. She is excited to be part of the Catalyst 2020 Fellows, for the opportunity to work in a multidisciplinary team towards developing and commercializing impactful, need-driven solutions for healthcare.

Hailing from Detroit, Michigan, Lola Baird, LICSW received her BA in English Literature from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Following an undergraduate internship with the Washtenaw County Office of the Public Defender, Lola developed a passion for advocating for underserved populations. Lola pursued a graduate degree in Social Work at Boston College and in 2011 received her MSW with a concentration in Clinical Mental Health. Lola has been a fulltime Social Worker with the VA Boston Healthcare System since February 2012 and has worked in many areas of the hospital system. Starting her career in the Community Residential Care program, Lola provided clinical case management services to Veterans with chronic mental illnesses who live in VA-contracted community group homes. Lola then transitioned to the General Mental Health clinic where she assisted with developing the practices and guidelines for Social Work Case Management within outpatient mental health clinics, provided regular and ad hoc mental health coverage in the Brockton Urgent Care clinic, and served for 2-years as the Military Sexual Trauma Coordinator for VA Boston. Lola currently serves as the Senior Social Worker and Program Coordinator for the Polytrauma/Traumatic Brain Injury clinic where her primary duties include planning, developing, implementing, and evaluating the Polytrauma/TBI program at VA Boston, along with coordinating service delivery for Veterans seen in the clinic.

Vyda Bielkus is the co-founder and CEO of Health Yoga Life (HYL) and is currently an Executive MBA candidate at MIT. HYL is a health & wellness company which operates yoga studios in Boston and Cambridge, offers yoga teacher training, an online health coach training and corporate wellness programming. Through its corporate division, HYL brings meditation and healthy lifestyle seminars, yoga classes, and coaching services to corporations of all sizes. Vyda co-developed the coaching tool, the Emotional Responsibility Method™, to help individuals make lasting lifestyle behavior change.  She has frequently been a featured expert in the media, including Boston Magazine and WCVB-TV. Additionally, to HYL, she is currently working on a digital health app to simplify diagnosing and treating UTIs while continuing to offer the gold-standard of care. Previously, Vyda worked in startup operations in niche industries helping them grow into fully functioning multimillion-dollar B2B and B2C enterprises. As a graduate of Wellesley College, she is committed to fostering women leadership and building empowered and inclusive work environments.

Mark Drinkwater is a board-certified Acute Care Nurse Practitioner currently serving veterans at the Boston VA Healthcare System in Emergency Services. Prior to his current position he was part of the Division of Neurosurgery at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Massachusetts. He holds a Masters of Science in Nursing awarded in 2008 from the MGH Institute of Health Professions, a Graduate Certificate in Bioinformatics from Northeastern University in 2002, and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Northeastern University in 1997.

Previously, he has worked as a dosing nurse in a methadone clinic, a Senior Pathology Technician at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Neuropathology, Associate Scientist in Quality Assurance manufacturing diagnostic reagents, a Heavy Anti-armor Weapons Specialist, and an Infantry Sergeant.

He currently works process improvement at VA Boston through participation in medical center committees, shared governance processes, and the VA Innovation Ecosystem. He is interested in medical informatics and the possibilities of wireless technology to improve resource allocation.

Amy Hanson is the Assistant Nurse Manager of a 36-bed, post-acute transitional care unit within VA Boston.  Amy’s journey began with the VA in 2011 as a Licensed Practical Nurse on a long-term care unit.  As the mission of the unit evolved into a post-acute transitional care unit, Amy was motivated to continue her education.  In 2014, she completed her Associates Degree in Nursing and became a Registered Nurse within the VA.  One year later, she earned the role of Assistant Nurse Manager, and currently maintains this role within the Community Living Center (CLC) in Brockton, MA.

Amy has been instrumental in demonstrating best practice and evidence-based care at the bedside.  Amy offers our Veterans support, advocacy and empowerment as she helps them achieve maximum rehabilitation and meet their medical needs.

Amy actively participates in many quality improvement projects and committees. Her contributions to improving accountability, communication, efficiency and reliability has aided in improving the Quality Metrics within the CLC, increasing the facilities star rating from one star to four stars. 

In 2012, Amy was awarded a Certificate of Appreciate in Recognition of a Job Well Done.  In 2013, she received a Special Contribution Award and Employee of the Month.  In 2016, Amy received a Certificate of Appreciation and was nominated for the Secretary’s Award for Excellence in Nursing in 2014 and 2018.  In 2019, Amy was recognized by her peers and received the MacGyver Award in nursing.  

Amy holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Simmons University.

Trina Johnson is a Doctoral Candidate studying Health Services Research at Boston University School of Public Health, and is also a graduate student researcher in the VA Boston Healthcare System.

Ms. Johnson has research interests that include examining and addressing disparities in access and treatment outcomes among people with co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorders as well as associated Hepatitis C and HIV. She aims to effectively integrate qualitative and quantitative research methods in both biomedical science and public health to better understand the relationship between mental illness and substance use disorders.

Aligned with this goal, the focus of Ms. Johnson’s dissertation research is to learn the impact of post-traumatic stress on treatment of opioid use disorder utilizing transdisciplinary methods in basic sciences and health services research. Part of this work includes the development of a co-morbid animal model of PTSD and OUD, quantitative analysis of administrative claims data, and qualitative analysis of data she is collecting from patients and providers.

Ms. Johnson is also incorporating her training as a health services researcher in her role as a member of the Board of Directors for the Berkeley Free Clinic in California, where she is leading efforts to design, implement, and analyze data from a community based evaluation survey that assesses the extent to which the health services offered at clinic meets the needs of current clients and members of the local community.

Nahun (Nani) Kim is a designer, design researcher, and an innovator who strives to highlight the value of human centered design in product development process. She obtained her BFA in Industrial Design at RISD in 2015, and is currently pursuing Master of Science in Engineering and Management at MIT Integrated Design and Management. At the MIT IDM Program, she is combining her design background with business and engineering to become a versatile designer that can manage diverse aspects of product development process from the research and ideation process to product launch.

During her career life previous to MIT, she worked at LG Hausys for four years as a surface product designer. As a surface product designer, she researched material needs in healthcare, commercial, and residential markets. Nani particularly focused most of her research on the healthcare market as it was a growing market with specific materials demands. She designed antibacterial acrylic solid surfaces adequate for healthcare application. To make surfaces more usable in healthcare applications, she also designed ADA compliant sink products that fit the user needs. Her surface products and sink products are applied in a number of healthcare facilities and senior living homes today.

As a Catalyst fellow, she will continue to answer to the healthcare market needs. She will utilize human centered design approaches in identifying unmet needs in the healthcare market.

Johnny Li is a PhD student in Computational & Systems Biology at MIT in Prof. Ernest Fraenkel’s lab in the Biological Engineering department. His doctoral work centers on developing machine learning algorithms for integration of clinical and multi-omics datasets to study disease subtypes of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). He is a central role as a leading computational biologist in the AnswerALS Consortium which is working to create 1000 stem cell lines from ALS patients and controls. This is the largest ALS study of this size using iPSCs. He has found several pathways implicated in C9orf72-ALS pathology and is now examining the causal relationships within these pathways to find candidates for drug interventions. Previously Johnny received undergraduate degrees in stem cell biology and computer science from Harvard College where he worked in Prof. Doug Melton’s diabetes lab studying the regulation of betatrophin, a hormone implicated in beta-cell proliferation. 

Johnny is passionate about incorporating individualized patient metrics into the healthcare pipeline to improve patient outcomes. He is excited to work with other Catalyst fellows to identify needs and solutions in the healthcare space. In an age where artificial intelligence is taking center stage in healthcare, Johnny believes his academic background in computational biology will prove to be a powerful asset in the Catalyst program.

Chelsey Solar is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Medical Informatics at VA Boston Healthcare System.  She obtained her Ph.D. in Clinical Health Psychology from East Carolina University and completed her clinical psychology internship at VA Boston, Behavioral Medicine Track.

Chelsey’s research and clinical background is in cognitive behavioral interventions for health behavior change and management of comorbid mental and physical health conditions.   She has extensive experience working as a member of interdisciplinary clinical and research teams to address outcomes in obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.   In particular, Chelsey is interested in eHealth and mHealth interventions.  As part of her graduate work, Chelsey co-created and scientifically investigated the feasibility and initial efficacy of a novel, targeted nutrition self-monitoring and goal setting mobile phone application.   She also competed in local and state-wide entrepreneurial competitions to better understand development of mHealth technology from an industry perspective. Currently, her research is focused on assessing and enhancing engagement in technology supported behavioral health interventions.  Additionally, she provides evidence-based psychotherapy to veterans at VA Boston within the Behavioral Medicine Clinic.

Smrithi Sunil is a PhD student in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Boston University. She received her BS in Biomedical Engineering with a minor in Electrical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University in May 2015. During her undergrad, she worked with Dr. Jeffrey Capadona on characterizing the inflammatory response that results from intracortical microelectrode implants. She worked on engineering solutions to minimize the deleterious effects of the inflammatory response and improve longevity of the implanted electrodes.

Her current research with Dr. David Boas is focused on understanding the impact of stroke on neurovascular coupling. She is using multimodal imaging techniques to characterize the structural and functional changes following a stroke in rodents. The goal of Smrithi’s project is to evaluate the evolution of structural and functional components of neurovascular recovery to understand the effects of these elements on neurovascular coupling and thereby better interpret fMRI signals in humans during stroke recovery.

Smrithi is constantly thinking about the translational potential and the direct impact of the research projects she is involved with and is passionate about developing impactful technologies to improve healthcare.

Eric Swart is a board certified orthopaedic surgeon at the University of Massachusetts. He has an undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Chemical Engineering, attended Harvard Medical School in the Health Sciences and Technology (HST) program, and completed his residence at Columbia University. He is fellowship trained in orthopaedic trauma surgery from the Carolinas Medical Center, and currently practices surgery as an assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery at the University of Massachusetts Level 1 trauma center in Worcester, MA.

Eric has been involved in research throughout his training, ranging from tissue engineering work at MIT to MRI development at MGH to powered robotic prosthesis development for amputees at MIT’s Media Lab. He conducted a dedicated clinical research training fellowship during his residency. His clinical interests include management of high energy musculoskeletal trauma as well as osteoporotic fragility fractures and other complex extremity injuries. His research interests involve the use of novel technology to measure mobility outcomes after surgery, pain control, and economic analysis.

Christine Zhang is a first-year MBA student at MIT Sloan School of Management and is pursuing healthcare certificate and business analytics certificate at MIT Sloan. Before coming to Sloan, she worked at McKinsey Shanghai Office for three years as a core member of McKinsey Greater China Healthcare Practice. Christine was dedicated to serving pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies and public/private hospitals in China on a wide range of commercial topics including product launch, portfolio management, market access, sales force effectiveness and innovation.

Her project experiences include:

• Designed product launch strategy for a local Chinese biotech for their first-to-market biological therapy for cancer
• Developed China market entry strategy for a biotech in US by designing China-specific market access strategy, analyzing market dynamics and forecasting financial implications
• Designed the first medical innovation center with the function of academic medical center and startup incubator in a development zone in China
• Developed a new management approach for an MNC pharmaceutical company to prioritize product portfolio and allocate resources
• Designed medical affair strategy for an MNC pharmaceutical company to support the launch of its first TKI drug in China

Christine has a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, with a graduation project in the economics of China healthcare system.

Kai Zhang is a project manager at QIAGEN where he leads, drives and motivates ten global cross-functional teams to ensure that diagnostics biopharma strategic alliance projects are appropriately specified, planned, resourced, and delivered within time and budget. At QIAGEN, Kai is also a Diversity and Inclusion Ambassador and Sustainability Committee Representative. Through those programs, he works with colleagues to promote diversity and inclusion and sustainability across the North America local offices and support global initiatives.

Kai earned his Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Kentucky and has a combined love in biomedical research and business. He has a strong passion in advancing health equity and making cost-effective diagnostics tools and treatments a reality for every patient, especially for those in the regions challenged by healthcare shortages. In graduate school, Kai served as the president of Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences Department’s student body, a graduate student Senator-at-Large for Student Government Association and on the Student Philanthropy Board and the University Appeals Board. He founded the Kentucky Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Awareness Association with colleagues, where he had led the team to deliver over 100 workshops and seminars to raise awareness regarding the effects of consuming alcohol during pregnancy in six Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia counties. Due to his community service and leadership experience, Kai received the Student of the Year Award and the Dr. Benjamin Nero Student Inclusive Excellence Award. Kai is also a seasoned public speaker and excellent at translating complicated concepts into clear, concise and simple terms that can be understood and retained by professionals in the field as well as layman. He has had the honor of being the recipient of several awards for research and business presentations and competitions. As a Fellow in the Catalyst Program, he would like to work with other team members to harness clinical ideas and translate them into impactful products and services to improve patient care.

Pam Bellino is an Improvement Advisor specializing in Patient Safety, Lean Healthcare Improvement, team facilitation, and system improvement initiatives.  She received her Master of Arts degree in Occupation Therapy in 1995. Ms. Bellino is a Coast Guard Veteran and has worked at the VA throughout her career. She has led the Patient Safety Program at VA Boston Healthcare System for the past 15 years. As an Occupational Therapist, Ms. Bellino can provide guidance to all healthcare disciplines in an unbiased manner to identify root causes and implement actions for system improvements. She has also participated in research projects related to delirium, medication reconciliation, and patient safety. Ms. Bellino is a faculty member of the VA Chief Resident in Quality and Safety program and Ambulatory Patient Safety and Quality Improvement medical resident program. She provides core patient safety skills training and mentorship to students by utilizing improvement tools such as Healthcare Failure Mode Effects Analysis (HFMEA), Root Cause Analysis (RCA), data analysis, and use of Lean improvement tools in their improvement work. In 2016, Ms. Bellino was selected as a Gold Status Fellow by the VHA Innovation Diffusion of Excellent Program for her innovative practice of the Deployment of IN Naloxone (Nasal Narcan) within Automated External Defibrillator (AED) Cabinets. This best practice is currently being spread nationally throughout the 168 Veterans Affairs Medical Centers in the country. Ms. Bellino presented her best practice in a Ted Style Talk within VA in August of 2018 at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. This has resulted in media coverage by a variety of sources including National Public Radio (NPR), Kaiser Health News and VA Insider.

Martha Gray, PhD, has a multifaceted career in which she has built programs to drive biomedical technology innovation, conducted research to better understand and prevent osteoarthritis, led a preeminent academic unit, and served the profession through work with organizations and institutions. Trained in computer science and electrical and biomedical engineering, and serving as an MIT faculty for nearly three decades, she has held numerous leadership positions. For 13+ years, she directed the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST), an academic unit with multiple research and training programs for careers in medicine, business, and research. Dr. Gray currently directs MIT linQ which operates several multi-institutional ventures focus on accelerating and deepening early-career researchers’ potential for impact. Over the course of these efforts, she and her team developed a principled methodology for needs identification and opportunity development.

Professor Jacob Hooker has built his career on the concept that measuring neurochemistry in the living human brain can have a profound impact on human health and wellbeing. Through the development of new tools and techniques, Prof. Hooker is advancing our fundamental understanding of diseases and disorders like Alzheimer’s and autism. His work has led to many landmark firsts—first human neuroepigenetic imaging technology, first linkage between glial activation and chronic low back pain, first demonstration of dynamic neurochemical imaging (fPET)—and catalyzes others to achieve advances of their own. He has dramatically expanded the capabilities of PET imaging by pioneering new radiotracer synthesis methods, radiotracers and concepts. At the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital, he founded and directs a first-in-class imaging facility that merges functional MRI and positron emission tomography for neurochemical study.  Prof. Hooker is currently the Phyllis and Jerome Lyle Rappaport MGH Research Scholar and an associate professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School.

To learn more about the work coming from his lab and his incredible collaborators, visit: https://hookerlab.martinos.org.

As part of the Edwin L. Steele Laboratory for Tumor Biology, the Padera Laboratory examines the pathophysiology of tumor associated lymphatic vessels and lymphatic metastasis. Lymphatic vessels are responsible for draining interstitial fluid from tissues and for transporting immune cells to lymph nodes to maintain the body’s immune surveillance. Lymphatic vessels also facilitate the dissemination of cancer cells from a primary tumor to regional lymph nodes. The mechanisms used by cancer cells to form lymph node metastasis are starting to be understood, with the hope of identifying treatment strategies to lower mortality due to disseminated cancer. In addition to studying lymphatic metastasis, the Padera Lab also studies the molecular control of lymphatic function which plays a role in regulating tissue-fluid balance as well as immune function. When lymphatic function is interrupted, the result is lymphedema and local immune compromise. By understanding the mechanism controlling lymphatic function, the Padera Lab hopes to develop therapies to relieve lymphedema and maintain competent immune surveillance.

Alice Pomponio is Managing Director of BrightEdge, the American Cancer Society’s philanthropic venture impact fund. Alice brings more than 25 years of experience in life sciences and public policy coupled with her passion for the American Cancer Society’s lifesaving mission as a patient advocate and volunteer leader. She is an expert in rare disease and precision oncology, disruptive technology adoption, and companion diagnostic/therapeutic co-development strategies with an eye toward value-based care. Prior to ACS BrightEdge she was an advisor at Red Sky Partners LLC and the founder and managing director of Accendo. At Red Sky Partners, Alice advised high-growth life sciences and health tech companies on go-to-market and product value strategies. In 2018, she founded Accendo to accelerate entrepreneurial consumer-facing approaches to patient access and affordability of quality care. She previously held strategy and operational leadership roles at Radius Health, AstraZeneca, and Sanofi Genzyme, where she launched multiple US and global specialty products and championed orphan drug and health equity initiatives across the globe. Her public sector experience spans innovation, trade, and healthcare policy through roles in the UK Government and US Office of Management and Budget. 

Alice holds a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from MIT. She serves on the boards of Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, MassEcon, and PhagePro Inc. Additionally, she teaches entrepreneurship as a faculty member of Harvard-MIT HST Sloan Healthcare Ventures and MIT Catalyst where she focuses on patient-centric impact innovation.

Nancy retired from Pfizer in 2018, after a diverse career, which included leadership roles in Corporate Strategy and Innovation, Digital Health, Business Development and Organizational Development.

Among her notable accomplishments at Pfizer, Nancy led the development of the 10-year Corporate Strategic Plan which drove innovation in oncology, vaccines and go-to-market capabilities. Nancy collaborated with external partners and start-ups to pursue product portfolio opportunities, especially in wellness, diagnostics and disease prevention. 

Nancy was also the founder of a health services company, Pfizer Health Solutions (PHS), a subsidiary delivering telehealth care to patients and clinical decision support to providers and payers, in the management of diabetes, CHF, depression, asthma and hypertension.  

Nancy’s professional background includes clinical research at Bellevue/NYU psychiatric hospital, marketing of biomedical devices, leadership development at IBM, and serving as a ward psychologist in a large psychiatric facility. She is a trained coach in team and leadership development. Nancy holds a BA in Psychology from the New School for Social Research and a MA in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University. 

Today, Nancy works with entrepreneurs in a variety of programs, including MIT Catalyst, which supports scientists and clinicians in the development of research-based innovations.

Ben Vakoc received a PhD in applied physics from Stanford University in 2001 where he researched the application of optical sensing devices for sonar applications. After his dissertation research, Dr. Vakoc participated in a venture funded start-up company, Novera Optics, which developed optical devices for the telecommunications marker. In 2002, Dr. Vakoc joined the Wellman Center for Photomedicine to participate in the development and translation of optical instrumentation to the clinic and biology laboratory.

Their laboratory focuses on the development and translation of optical technologies into either patient care or biological studies. In the clinic, they are developing coherent optical imaging platforms that can be deployed endoscopically to diagnosis and guide the treatment of disease. In the biological laboratory, they are developing these imaging technologies into tools that provide new insight into disease processes and therapeutic responses. The Lab’s methodology combines a core focus on optical technologies with broad-based engineering and cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Dr. Saurabha Bhatnagar leverages his deep knowledge of medicine, technology, human centered design, and quality to drive healthcare innovation globally. He is a computer scientist turned Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (PM&R) physician. Dr. Bhatnagar is the Chief Medical Officer, Head of Technology & Performance at UnitedHealthcare (UHC), a Fortune 5 company.

Prior to joining UHC, he served as the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) in the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). EHRM is a $16+ billion program deploying a new operational system across 150+ VA hospital systems and 1000+ outpatient centers of care impacting ~9 million Veterans annually and ~330,000 employees in all 50 states. During his tenure in the VA, he held enterprise-level, senior executive roles as the Assistant Deputy Undersecretary for Health for Quality/Safety/Value (Chief of QSV), Chief Medical Information Officer for EHRM, Deputy Assistant Deputy Undersecretary for Health for QSV (Vice Chief/Chief of Staff of QSV), & Innovation Officer. In these roles, he led the formulation and establishment of national healthcare policies, programs, and operational initiatives that fulfill the enterprise mission of providing safe, reliable, and high-quality healthcare.

Dr. Bhatnagar is faculty at Harvard Medical School, where he has served as Associate Director – PM&R Residency Program. Dr. Bhatnagar earned a bachelors in Computer Science with Honors from Illinois Institute of Technology (IllinoisTech) and doctorate from Chicago Medical School-RFUMS. He completed a PM&R Residency at Wayne State University-Oakwood and a Traumatic Brain Injury / Neurorehabilitation Fellowship at Harvard Medical School.

In 2019, IllinoisTech awarded him the Outstanding Young Alumnus award and VA awarded him the Deputy Undersecretary of Health Commendation. He has been a Visiting Professor and a keynote speaker globally focusing on health technology strategy & operations.

Bonnie Charland, PhD, MBA, RN, NE-BC has a multidimensional career in healthcare that includes clinical practice, nursing leadership and organizational excellence. She has worked in for-profit, non-for-profit and federal healthcare systems. Her research area of interest is in nursing systems and organizational excellence. She has LEAN Six Sigma Greenbelt certification and is a National Baldrige Examiner. Dr. Charland has responsibility for VA Boston’s Innovation Program which has seen many projects funded and shared Nationally. Additionally, she mentors clinicians in quality improvement, innovation and organizational excellence.

Dr. Heather L. Davidson currently serves as Deputy Chief of Staff at VA Boston Healthcare System. In her role as Deputy Chief of Staff, Dr. Davidson provides oversight of multiple clinical services, ad hoc quality improvement and systems redesign projects, and the leadership of the professional standards board and medical staff office.  She previously served as the interim Chief of Medicine for VA Puget Sound in Seattle, WA and acting Vice-Chair of Medicine at the University of Washington from 2011 through December 2013, and also served as an Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program while at the University of Washington. Her scholarly interests include interprofessional education and quality improvement. She is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and was awarded an Interprofessional Education Scholarship for her work as a Teaching Scholars Fellow at the University of Washington in 2011, and completed the Senior Executive Fellow Program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 2018. She earned her B.Sc. in biology from Brown University and her M.D from the University of Virginia School of Medicine, prior to completing her residency in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She currently holds an appointment as Assistant Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, and Lecturer in Medicine at Harvard University, and remains clinically active as a hospitalist physician on the inpatient medicine teaching services at VA Boston’s West Roxbury campus.

Melinda Decker is a global biopharmaceutical leader with a rare mix of both commercial and R&D expertise, developed over nearly 20 years in the pharmaceutical-biotech industry. She has broad therapeutic experience with biologic, small molecule and digital health products, across both specialty and primary care, and with both global and local markets.

Most recently she was the Oncology TA Head for AstraZeneca’s digital therapeutics team, focused on improving patient outcomes through digital health. In this role, she worked to integrate medicines with technology such as connected devices, sensors, and smart packaging across the entire development cycle of launched, pre-launched, late-stage pipeline, and early clinical development products. These tools helped improve adherence, manage adverse events, improve how clinical trials are run, and collect real-world evidence. Philadelphia Business Journal honored her as a 2018 Health Care Innovator for this work. Previously, she was AstraZeneca’s Diabetes TA head for digital health. Melinda joined AstraZeneca initially through MedImmune in 2011, where she led the Commercial Innovation department.

Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Melinda worked at Pfizer for 10 years, in various roles of increasing responsibilities, including commercial leadership roles, on key blockbuster products Enbrel, Protonix and Effexor. At Pfizer, Melinda held roles in global and US marketing, manufacturing, portfolio and alliance management, strategic planning and sales. She also had responsibilities in public and investor relations.

Melinda’s therapeutic experience is extensive, including Inflammation, Rheumatology, Dermatology, Oncology, Infectious Disease, Pediatrics, Gastroenterology, Diabetes, Neuroscience, and Respiratory.

She holds an MS in Biochemical Engineering and an MBA in Finance and Marketing, both from University of California, Davis.

Samuel Dinnar is a mediator, consultant and board advisor with more than 25 years of international experience as an entrepreneur, executive, board member and venture capital investor. He is an instructor at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, teaches negotiation and mediation at the Harvard Negotiation Institute, educates executives internationally with PON Global and is a research Associate with MIT’s Science Impact Collaborative.

Dinnar is founder and president of Meedance, a company providing negotiation, training, coaching and dispute resolution services to facilitate clients’ business success with improved results and relationships. He builds on two decades of general management, strategic growth and operations team leadership in hi-­‐tech and aerospace, including two start-­‐ups that revolutionized their industry, while dealings across various continents and cultures.

Dinnar’s academic education includes technical degrees in both aerospace engineering and computer sciences, and a PMD from the Harvard Business School. He is also an FAA-­certified flight instructor and rated jet pilot.

Dinnar is the co-­author of the 2019 award winning book “Entrepreneurial Negotiation: Understanding and Managing the Relationships that Determine Your Entrepreneurial Success” (Palgrave Macmillan), which serves as the foundation for a new course at MIT with same title.

Dinnar has helped develop and teach courses and advanced courses in Mediation, Negotiation & Leadership, both at Harvard and to many entrepreneurs and executives around the globe. Recently, in places such as London, Tel Aviv, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Athens, Nicosia, and Rome.

Connecting the Pharma & Healthcare industry with compliant innovation has been Febbo’s trademark in over 18 years of leading health service & technology companies. In 1999, he co-founded MedPanel, a market intelligence and communication provider to the biomedical & medical device industries. When Febbo sold it in 2007 to Merriman Capital, he held dual roles as COO of the bank and CEO of Digital Capital Network which he launched pioneering digital compliance & transparency in the financial industry.

Febbo is also founder of Plexuus, an early stage payment processing platform for medical professionals with Sunshine Act-related activities. Currently, he holds the position of CEO at OptimizeRX and continues to discover, innovate and connect both products and people to meaningful experiences to improve health outcomes. Febbo holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from Dickinson College, in Pennsylvania and serves on the board of The United Nations of Greater Boston, a non-profit focused on building global citizens within inner-city schools in Massachusetts.

Terence M. Keane, Ph.D. is Director of the National Center for PTSD-Behavioral Sciences Division and Associate Chief of Staff for Research & Development at VA Boston Healthcare System. He is Professor of Psychiatry and Assistant Dean for Research at Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Keane has published some 350 articles, books, and chapters on the assessment and treatment of PTSD. For the past 39 years his program of trauma research has been supported by federal funding agencies, such as VA, NIH, DoD, and SAMHSA. Most recently he was named the Co-Principal Investigator of the Consortium to Alleviate PTSD, an initiative supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense to improve the care of active duty military and veterans with PTSD. His contributions to the field have been recognized by many national and international honors including the 2013 Distinguished Research Contributions to Clinical Psychology Award from the American Psychological Association’s Society of Clinical Psychology and a similar award from the Canadian Psychological Association in 2015. In 2011, Dr. Keane received an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from Binghamton University, SUNY and in 2013 he received an honorary doctorate from the William James College for his major contributions to opening the field of psychological trauma to scientific inquiry. In 2015 he was named the recipient of the John Blair Barnwell Award from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the highest national award for those engaged in Clinical Research. He has served as President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, the Association of VA Psychologists, APA’s Division of Trauma Psychology, the Society of Clinical Psychology, and the Anxiety & Depression Association of America.

Barry Stein, MD MBA FSIR FACR RPVI, is the Chief Clinical Innovation Officer for Hartford HealthCare (HHC) where he also practices as a Vascular and Interventional Radiologist and is an Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He has held numerous leadership positions including Chief Imaging Informatics Officer at HHC, Vice Chair of Radiology, Chief of Cardiovascular MRI & CT, and Director of the Advanced Imaging and Quantitative Analysis Core Laboratory at Hartford Hospital. Barry graduated with his executive MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management. He received his post graduate medical training at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, where he did his Radiology residency, served as Chief Resident, and completed fellowships in MRI and Vascular & Interventional Radiology. He received his medical degree from the University of Stellenbosch, Cape Town, South Africa. Barry is board certified by the American Board of Radiology in Diagnostic Radiology and Vascular and Interventional Radiology and is a fellow of both the Society of Interventional Radiology and American College of Radiology. He is a recognized expert in cardiovascular MRI and CT and was one of the pioneers in Magnetic Resonance Angiography. Barry continues to remain engaged at MIT. He serving on the Sloan Alumni Board, as an invited lecturer on Innovation, quantitative and qualitative approaches to leadership, mentor for LinQ programs in the MIT Institute for Medical Engineering & Science, host to students from the MIT Initiative for Health Systems Innovation, as well as a co-principle investigator conducting clinical and operational heath systems analytics research in collaboration with Sloan faculty at HHC. He is currently focused on building a differentiated healthcare Innovation ecosystem at HHC, to accelerate transformative healthcare delivery ideas to impact.

Frances is head of IP strategy for Life Biosciences. In this role, Frances works closely with company scientists and outside counsel to define and implement a broad IP strategy. Previously Frances was Executive Vice President, Strategic Alliances at Nantkwest Inc, a clinical stage cell therapy company in the immune-oncology space, managing corporate and academic alliances and providing strategic direction for intellectual property protection. Prior to joining Nantkwest she was Executive Director, Strategic Development, Partners Healthcare, leading Partners HealthCare’s efforts related to international and national collaborations. Frances has unique experience in building and executing high value relationships gained from her prior Partners’ role in managing technology transfer and other strategic activities at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. During her 12 year tenure, she increased licensing revenues by a consistent 20% year over year and oversaw the launching of 73 startups in areas such as aesthetic dermatology, diagnostics and pharmaceuticals. She comes from the biotech industry, having played various technical and business development roles. She holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from McMaster University in Canada.