Search: Faculty | Fellows | Staff | Research Assistants | Affiliates | Former Faculty and Fellows
15 Faculty
| 7 Fellows
| 23 Staff
| 22 Research Assistants
Faculty
Kenneth Freedberg, MD, MSc
Dr. Freedberg is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital.
He is the Director of MPEC, Director of the Program in Clinical Epidemiology and Outcomes Research at the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research, and Director of the Program in HIV Research in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. His research interests focus on HIV and tuberculosis, as well as other chronic disease clinical outcomes and health policy, utilizing the methods of comparative effectiveness, cost-effectiveness analysis, clinical epidemiology, and implementation science.
Dr. Freedberg earned an MD from Harvard Medical School and also holds an MSc from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Aima Ahonkhai, MD, MPH
Dr. Aima Ahonkhai is an Infectious Diseases and HIV physician scientist. She is an Associate Physician in Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and also serves as Associate Director of the Bio-behavioral and Community Science Core and Director of the Community Engaged Research Program for the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research.
Dr. Ahonkhai’s cross-cutting research focuses on the convergence of epidemiologic, behavioral, and implementation research to understand drivers of health disparities among people living with HIV. Her work also aims to develop equity-focused solutions to improve HIV care outcomes in marginalized and minoritized populations, both globally and locally in the United States. She is particularly interested in the health needs of adolescents and young adults, and utilizing novel strategies (digital health tools, behavioral economics, multimedia communication, etc) in partnership with communities to improve care.
Dr. Ahonkhai earned her MD from Johns Hopkins University, and MPH from Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Ingrid Bassett, MD, MPH
Dr. Bassett is an infectious disease physician and clinical investigator with a focus on developing and evaluating innovative strategies for improving engagement in HIV and TB care and prevention in South Africa. Using a variety of methods, including observational cohort studies, randomized trials, mixed methods, and implementation science, she has been collaborating with South African researchers and clinicians since 2004. Dr. Bassett is particularly interested in community-based interventions outside of the “bricks and mortar” health care system. She is the recipient of an NIH midcareer investigator award (K24) dedicated to mentoring early career investigators.
Dr. Bassett serves as the Co-Director of the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research. She is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and earned her MD from Harvard Medical School and MPH from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She also served as the Co-Director of MPEC from 2019-2023.
Lisa Bebell, MD, MSc
Dr. Bebell is an Assistant Professor at HMS and Associate Physician at MGH.
As a physician, she practices Critical Care Medicine and Infectious Diseases, though she spends most of her time carrying out research on peripartum infections. Her current research focus is better understanding the role of the placenta in transplacental antibody transfer and early life health outcomes, particularly among HIV-exposed, uninfected children. Lisa also investigates growth stunting, early life development, and antimicrobial resistance in resource-limited settings.
She received her MD from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, MSc in Biostatistics from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and completed her residency at the University of California, San Francisco.
Andrea Ciaranello, MD, MPH
Dr. Ciaranello is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an infectious disease physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. She serves as director of the Perinatal Infectious Disease Program at MGH and Director of the Program in Health Economics and Modeling at the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research.
She is also Co-Chair of the US Department of Health and Human Services Panel on Treatment of Pregnant Women with HIV Infection and Prevention of Perinatal Transmission and has served as technical consultant for UNAIDS and WHO about simulation modeling and cost-effectiveness related to pediatric HIV and mother-to-child HIV transmission.
Her research interests involve the use of simulation models to examine the long-term clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness of strategies to care for women, children, and adolescents living with and at risk for HIV.
Dr. Ciaranello earned an MD from the Yale School of Medicine and an MPH from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Caitlin Dugdale, MD
Dr. Dugdale is an adult infectious disease physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, and MPEC research faculty.
Her research focuses on the cost-effectiveness of interventions to promote maternal and child health and reduce vertical transmission of HIV in resource-limited settings.
She earned her MD from the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Esther Freeman, MD, PhD
Dr. Freeman is a physician-scientist performing epidemiological research in the area of HIV dermatology and global health. Her area of interest is in HIV-associated malignancies, including Kaposi’s sarcoma. She has received the most highly cited author award in Epidemiology in AIDS. She is a consultant in the area of HIV-associated skin disease to the World Health Organization and the Director of Global Health Dermatology at MGH.
Since 2020, Dr. Freeman has been researching the effects of COVID-19 on the skin, in collaboration with the American Academy of Dermatology and the International League of Dermatologic Societies. Dr. Freeman established the American Academy of Dermatology registry of COVID-19 skin complaints, which was one of the first to identify the symptom of COVID toes. In addition to her research on COVID-19 dermatology, her work has been cited extensively in the lay press, including the New York Times, The Washington Post, and National Public Radio.
Dr. Freeman is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and earned her PhD in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and her MD from Harvard Medical School.
John Giardina, PhD
Dr. Giardina is a Faculty Decision Scientist/Biostatistician at MPEC.
His research broadly focuses on incorporating heterogeneous risks, preferences, and outcomes into health decision analysis. His past work includes projects on the assessment of individualized treatment rules constructed using machine learning methods, use of individual-level patient data to improve the reliability and accuracy of disease and policy simulation models, and applied decision analyses of individualized treatments for chronic diseases. He has also conducted model-based analyses of COVID-19 mitigation measures in schools and has studied the use of shared decision-making for orthopedic surgery.
Dr. Giardina received a PhD in health policy and decision science from Harvard University and an MA in economics from the University of Connecticut.
Emily Hyle, MD, MSc
Dr. Hyle is an infectious disease physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and Associate Professor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Her research interests include using cost-effectiveness analysis to investigate policy-relevant questions for the clinical care of people with HIV, including point-of-care technologies, virologic resistance, and non-communicable diseases among people with HIV, in the US and resource-limited settings. Dr. Hyle also collaborates with the Global TravEpiNet Consortium to investigate the cost-effectiveness of pre-travel medicine.
Dr. Hyle earned her MD from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a DTMH from the Gorgas Institute in Lima, Peru and an MSc in Epidemiology for the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Jennifer Manne-Goehler, MD, DSc
Dr. Manne-Goehler is an adult infectious diseases physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Her research interests lie at the intersection of HIV and metabolic disease. She serves as a co-investigator on the Health and Aging in Africa: A Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH Community in South Africa (HAALSI) cohort study and is a co-founder of the Global Health + Population Project on Access to Care for Cardiometabolic diseases (HPACC). Her current projects include NIH-funded research on the prevention of metabolic disease in people with HIV and application of computer vision methods to improve evaluation of diabetes risk in this population.
Dr. Manne-Goehler has also served as an advisor to the World Health Organization regarding their global diabetes strategy. She maintains secondary research interests in Chagas disease and gender equity in academic medicine.
Dr. Manne-Goehler is a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and received her MD from Boston University and her DSc from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Suzanne McCluskey, MD
Dr. McCluskey’s research focuses on the epidemiology and management of HIV treatment failure and antiretroviral drug resistance in resource-limited settings with projects based in Mbarara, Uganda and KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. Her current work aims to explore novel strategies to more accurately differentiate between patients failing therapy with resistant versus wild-type virus and to evaluate the impact of HIV drug resistance and adherence patterns on the effectiveness of dolutegravir-based anti-retroviral therapy regimens in sub-Saharan Africa.
Dr. McCluskey is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and an Assistant in Medicine in the MGH Division of Infectious Diseases, where she serves on the Infectious Diseases consult service. She received her MD from the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine.
Anne Neilan, MD, MPH
Dr. Neilan is a medicine and pediatrics-trained adult infectious disease physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. Her clinical and research interests focus on adolescents and young adults.
In her work at MPEC, she uses computer simulation modeling to inform optimal care strategies for adolescents with HIV and at risk of HIV. She is also the Director of the Modeling Core for the national Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions and a member of American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Pediatric HIV/AIDS.
She earned her MD and MPH from The Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Italy and a Fogarty Scholar in Peru.
Crystal North, MD, MPH
Dr. North’s research focuses on characterizing the epidemiology of chronic lung disease in resource-limited settings. She currently leads projects based in Mbarara and Kampala, Uganda and collaborates on projects in Bangladesh. Her current projects include NIH-funded research on the influence of environmental and infectious exposures on lung health among people living with HIV. Dr. North maintains secondary research interests in COVID-19 clinical epidemiology and treatment outcomes.
Dr. North is a pulmonologist and critical care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, an Associate in Global Health at MGH Center for Global Health, and a visiting scientist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She earned her MD from the University of Washington and her MPH from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Krishna Reddy, MD, MS
Dr. Reddy is a pulmonologist and critical care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
His research program focuses on informing clinical and public health policy for tuberculosis, HIV-related comorbidities, and tobacco and nicotine in the US and internationally. He applies methods of simulation modeling, clinical epidemiology, and cost-effectiveness analysis to study policy-relevant clinical and economic outcomes.
Dr. Reddy earned an MD from Harvard Medical School and an MS from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Spain and a Fogarty Scholar in Peru.
Mark Siedner, MD, MPH
Dr. Siedner practices clinical infectious disease at Massachusetts General Hospital, and holds faculty positions at Harvard Medical School, the Africa Health Research Institute in KwaZulu-Natal, and the Mbarara University of Science and Technology in Uganda.
He leads implementation science trials for interventions to improve care delivery and longitudinal cohort studies of people with and without HIV to understand the intersection between infectious and non-communicable diseases. He is also an active and proud mentor of dozens of trainees on both sides of the Atlantic, helps direct research training grants, and was a recipient of the Harvard Medical School Young Mentor Award.
Dr Siedner received his MD and MPH from John Hopkins University.
Fellows
Ali Castle, MD
Dr. Castle is an Infectious Diseases fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Her research interests focus on how tuberculosis and HIV affect the risk for noncommunicable diseases in resource limited settings. She is working with Drs. Siedner, Bassett, and Wong to study the relationship of tuberculosis and risk for diabetes in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
She received her MD at Stony Brook University School of Medicine and completed an Internal Medicine residency at MGH.
Megan Curtis, MD
Dr. Curtis is a research fellow and infectious diseases physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
She will conduct research with Dr. Ciaranello and collaborators at Boston Medical Center evaluating the cost-effectiveness of Hepatitis C management strategies for pregnant women with opioid use disorder and their infants.
Dr. Curtis completed her MS in Global Health Sciences at UCSF, MD at Tulane University School of Medicine, and residency in internal medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle. For her second year of her infectious diseases fellowship, she was the Brigham and Women’s Hospital HIV Fellow with focused training in the clinical care of patients living with HIV.
John Chiosi, MD
Dr. Chiosi is an Infectious Diseases fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital.
He is interested in the infectious complications of substance use disorder, including injection drug use. He is working with Dr. Ciaranello to develop a simulation model of infectious morbidity and mortality among people with opioid use disorder in order to project the clinical and economic impact of the opioid use epidemic in the US.
He earned his MD from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and completed his residency and chief residency in Internal Medicine-Pediatrics at Tulane University.
Jana Jarolimova, MD, MPH
Dr. Jarolimova is a research fellow at MPEC and a physician in Infectious Diseases at MGH. She previously completed her internal medicine training in the MGH Global Medicine residency program.
She is interested in care delivery for sexually transmitted infections and HIV in resource-limited settings. Her previous work focused on rural primary care delivery, HIV, and disparities in reproductive health, primarily in western Uganda. She is working with Dr. Bassett to study implementation of STI care and HIV prevention in South Africa.
She received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and MPH in Clinical Effectiveness from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Amir Mohareb, MD
Dr. Mohareb is an Instructor at Harvard Medical School and an infectious diseases physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. His research focuses on HIV and Hepatitis B management in resource-limited settings. He also has clinical and research interests in forcibly displaced populations.
He earned his MD from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Cameron Nutt, MD
Cameron Nutt is an infectious disease fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He previously worked with the nonprofit organization Partners In Health and the Ministries of Health of Rwanda and Liberia, contributing to health care delivery research in Rwanda and supporting Partners In Health’s response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. His recent research has included two trials of the antiviral remdesivir in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic and a registry-based analysis of the impact of race-based algorithms for renal function estimation on racial disparities in kidney transplant evaluation. Cameron’s current work under Dr. Suzanne McCluskey focuses on barriers to antiretroviral therapy adherence in the era of integrase inhibitor-based HIV treatment in Uganda and South Africa, and on evolving patterns of HIV drug resistance in these settings.
He received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Jodi Pinkney, MD
Dr. Pinkney is an Infectious Diseases fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital.
She is interested in the cost effectiveness of interventions that address COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy, HIV prevention and HIV treatment in the US Black population including non-US born immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. She will be co-mentored by Drs. Emily Hyle and Bisola Ojikutu while conducting qualitative and simulation modeling studies in this area.
She earned her medical degree and DM from the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. She completed her Internal Medicine residency at the University of South Carolina.
Staff
Dara Baltin, MBA – Staff Manager
Dara joined MPEC in January 2020. She works closely with MPEC’s Operations Manager and the research and operations teams to recruit candidates for all posted positions at MPEC. Dara works across teams to improve recruiting processes in place for each position, and is currently working with the Center’s internal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion group to provide better outreach to universities and research centers around the country.
Dara graduated from Hofstra University with a BA in Psychology and made a career change from the field of human services. She earned her MBA from Suffolk University in 2023.
Shana Carvalho – Operations Coordinator
Shana joined the MPEC team in May 2019.
She has a background and experience in global curriculum development and early childhood education.
She earned a BS in Public Health from the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
Wanyi Chen, PhD – Research Scientist
Wanyi joined MPEC in December 2021.
Her research interests lie in the areas of Health Economics Outcomes Research and Medical Decision Science using methods including decision-analytic modeling, statistical simulation, and cost-effectiveness analysis. She has extensive experience in building Markov, agent-based, and micro-simulation models for complex disease and healthcare systems and using these models to identify effective health policies aimed at improving quality of care/operational efficiency. At MPEC, she is supporting methodologic advancements within the CEPAC model, serves as an in-house technical consultant for model users, and uses the model to address HIV policy questions as new clinical evidence and/or research needs arise.
She has a PhD in Interdisciplinary Statistics and Operations Research from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a MS in Operations Research from Columbia University, and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Southeastern University in China.
Melissa Comenduley – Grant Administrator
After spending a few years away from corporate life, Melissa joined MPEC as a Staff Assistant in November 2021. Melissa’s professional background includes a diverse set of experiences, including financial derivatives trader, undergraduate advisor, research assistant, project manager, and Chief of Staff.
Melissa earned her BS in Accountancy from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Lithuania in 2009.
Lotanna Dike, MPH – Research Project Manager
Before joining MPEC in June 2021, Lotanna conducted research projects on implementation outcomes of evidence-based interventions for chronic diseases in low and middle-income countries. She also worked as Research Associate at William James College, where she evaluated programs that improve access to culturally sensitive behavioral health care for the underserved population.
Her background in public health and medical microbiology informed her interest in syndemics. More specifically, she is interested in implementation outcomes and cost-effectiveness research of evidence-based interventions that address syndemics with the potential to inform policy and improve global public health.
Lotanna holds an MPH in Global Health from New York University, Certification in Project Management and Health Economics in Global Health from the University of Washington, and a BS in Medical Sciences from Igbinedion University, Nigeria.
Clare Flanagan, MPH – Senior Research Project Manager
Clare Flanagan joined MPEC in June 2019. Before joining MPEC she worked on the endTB study with Partners In Health. She has a background in the implementation and management of research projects.
Clare holds an MPH in Global Health & Population from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a BA in Government and Women’s & Gender Studies from Georgetown University.
Nicole Holt, MPH – Compliance Manager
Nicole joined MPEC in 2014 after previously working as a Project Coordinator and Lab Manager at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. She has a background in the coordination and implementation of research studies. She holds a BA in Psychology and History from Brown University and earned a MPH from Oregon State University with a focus in Health Promotion.
In her role as Compliance Manager for MPEC, Nicole works with investigators to ensure compliance with NIH and institutional policy regarding protection of human subjects in research, data protection and management, conflict of interest reporting, and public access publication requirements. She also assists with the preparation of grant submissions and progress reports.
Through close collaboration with MPEC faculty, fellows, and staff, Nicole ensures research projects are compliant through the lifecycle. She especially enjoys working with junior investigators and conducting compliance trainings and consultations with new fellows and staff.
Satoshi Koiso, MDP, BVSc – Research Specialist
Satoshi joined MPEC in July 2022 with a passion for using data and quantitative analysis to improve evidence-based policymaking in global health for socially disadvantaged people worldwide. Before joining MPEC, he worked as a Graduate Student Researcher at Center for Effective Global Action to estimate the economic impacts of deworming randomized controlled interventions on intergenerational child mortality in Kenya. He also has experience working in the health and public sector, incorporating statistical analysis and project management in global teams at Accenture and the Ministry of Agriculture in Japan.
Satoshi earned a Master of Development Practice with a focus on Global Health and Data Analysis from UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy and a Bachelor of Veterinary Science (DVM equivalent) from the University of Tokyo.
Jodi Kurtz, MScM, MA – Senior Administrative Manager
Jodi joined MPEC in 2012 and has a wide array of experience with sponsored research administration and operations management. She has a BS from Carnegie Mellon University, an MA from the University of Washington, and an MScM with a specialization in Research Administration from Emmanuel College.
In her role as Administrative Manager for MPEC, Jodi is responsible for setting direction and coordinating the operational and financial aspects of the center. She collaborates closely with Center leadership to continually assess and direct management of personnel, finances, research, and strategic planning.
After attaining the designation of Certified Research Administrator in 2014, Jodi has been committed to supporting research administration training and education across the MGH community. She is a founding member of the Partners 2.0 Training Steering Committee, presents at the Harvard CFAR K workshop, hosts annual training sessions for new investigators, and teaches research administration fundamentals to new staff members.
Eliza Passell, MPH – Database Design and Management Coordinator
Eliza joined MPEC in July 2023 after completing an MPH in epidemiology and biostatistics and environmental health at Boston University School of Public Health. In past research roles, she has worked on studies related to the effects of alcohol consumption on TB treatment outcomes, the psychiatric and neurological sequelae of traumatic experiences, cognitive fluctuation in patients with type 1 diabetes, and other topics in global health. She received her BA from the University of Chicago in 2018.
Pamela Pei, PhD – Research Scientist
Pamela joined MPEC in 2011. She has a PhD in Operations Research from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a MS/BS in Applied Mathematics, and BA in Economics from Johns Hopkins University.
She is currently working with Dr. Reddy on assessing the value of a new TB diagnostic test, and with Dr. Hyle on an elimination of the HIV epidemic project.
In her role, Pamela lends her operations research skills to help develop various in-house modeling tools for the team. She is responsible for developing value of information tools, which comprises a feature that allows for probabilistic sensitivity analysis; a multi-cohorts tool to help expedite the processing of analyses that require multiple cohorts to be considered simultaneously; and a Markov-based module that tracks the epidemiology of HIV over time.
Leslie Pierce, MPH – Research Project Manager
Leslie came to MPEC in September 2023 with several years of experience evaluating HIV care and support services across the Northeast. Just prior to her arrival, she had worked closely with Dr. Ahonkhai on studies focused on drivers of HIV care and outcomes in Nigeria and Tennessee. She will continue to support and assist in the growth of this ongoing research at MPEC.
Leslie has a BS in Biology from San Diego State University, an MPH in Global Health from Boston University, and is currently pursuing a DrPH at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Lizzie Qian, MPH – Data Analyst
Lizzie joined MPEC in August 2019. She assists the group with statistical data analysis projects and generating data inputs for the CEPAC model.
She holds an MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from Boston University School of Public Health and has a Bachelor of Medicine in Preventive Medicine from Tianjin Medical University in China and completed her rotation at Tianjin Baodi Hospital.
Livia Qoshe – Programmer Analyst
Livia graduated from Princeton University in 2021 with a BA in Neuroscience and Computer Science. Prior to joining the MPEC team in September 2021, she conducted research in computational psychiatry, studying reinforcement learning and the role of risk sensitivity in state-induced stress and anxiety.
Lien Quach, PhD – Research Scientist
Lien Quach is a Gerontologist who earned her PhD from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 2017. Born in Vietnam, she practiced medicine there for ten years after earning an MD from Hanoi Medical University.
Her research interests focus on the social determinants of health, specifically on how patterns of social (dis)connection relate to mental health and physical function in later life. Her work seeks to understand the unique roles social isolation, network characteristics, and social support play in health outcomes in older adults. Dr. Quach’s research investigates the mechanisms underlying these relationships while exploring how social disconnectedness and perceived isolation separately and in combination influence mental and physical health conditions, as well as disease management.
She also has expertise in designing and analyzing surveys using appropriate statistical approaches, including survival analyses, generalized estimating equations, moderation and mediation analyses, and measurement modeling techniques. Dr. Quach seeks to engage in translational research with the goal of improving the quality of care for older people. Her understanding of institutional dynamics in the US and international settings enables her to foster collaborative approaches to multi-disciplinary teams in conducting social and clinical research.
Zahra Reynolds, MPH – Research Project Manager
Zahra joined MPEC in July 2019. She will work closely with Dr. Siedner. She previously worked as a Research Associate at MEASURE Evaluation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she designed and managed studies improving the availability of data on male HIV case finding in Namibia and Eswatini, characterizing the male partners of adolescent girls and young women in Swaziland, and understanding the behavioral risks of key populations with HIV in Guyana in order to improve programming for high risk populations.
Zahra has a BA in History of Art from Bryn Mawr College and an MPH in Maternal and Child Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Brianna Robinson – Staff Assistant II
Brianna joined MPEC as a Staff Assistant in September 2024. As a recent graduate from Johnson & Wales University, she was able to explore her academic and professional interests in a plethora of areas that suited well with her degree. From working as a Reference Student Assistant at the university’s library to serving as a member of the College of Business Student Advisory Council (B-SAC). Over the course of her time at JWU, she obtained her BSBA in International Business as part of the Class of 2024. She also comes from a professional background that ranges from retail all the way to corporate operations and technology.
Justine Scott, MPH – Senior Research Project Manager
With a background in public health and biomedical research, Justine has focused on research program management for MPEC since 2016. She contributes to strategic and operational management across the Center and manages a team of research assistants and other research staff. She oversees a portfolio of CEPAC modeling projects and provides program management across the modeling team. Motivated by the pursuit of global health equity, she is interested in research that addresses health disparities and social determinants of health both domestically and internationally.
Justine holds an MPH in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a BA in Biology and Government from Colby College.
Violeta Stanojevic, MA, MPhil – Grant Administrator
Violeta joined MPEC in January 2022 after a research career in the field of diabetes and obesity at MGH.
She holds a BS degree in Molecular Biology and Physiology from Belgrade University in Serbia, and MA and MPhil degrees in Biological Sciences from Columbia University.
Virginia Talbot – Programmer Analyst
Virginia joined MPEC in June 2020, and helps to build and maintain simulation models. Her strong background in pure as well as applied mathematics adds a unique perspective and high level of flexibility to her programming and data analysis projects. A British-American dual citizen, Virginia also has strong family ties to Southern Africa and to the healthcare field, which lend special meaning to her work with the group.
She began her Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics at Williams College and later transferred to Lesley University, where she completed it in 2019.
Yao Tong, MS – Data Analyst
Yao joined MPEC in December 2020 after graduating from Yale University with an MS in Biostatistics. She also received a BA in Economics and Communication Studies from the University of Michigan, and an MS in Comparative Media Studies from MIT. She is passionate about leveraging data analytics to facilitate global health research, which led to her decision to join MPEC.
At MPEC, she works with the biometry unit to provide statistical support to research projects. Currently, she works with Drs. Neilan and Shebl on enrollment in a pediatric biorepository during the COVID-19 pandemic. She is also working with Drs. Siedner and Dustin Rabideau to examine HIV treatment adherence, virologic suppression, and drug resistance among individuals initiating antiretroviral therapy in Uganda and South Africa. In addition to these projects, Yao helps analyze recruitment data for MPEC’s internal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives.
Elizabeth Van Blarcom, JD – Senior Grant and Finance Manager
Leaving her work as an attorney behind, Ellie joined MPEC in 2018 and has a wide array of experience with sponsored research administration and fiscal management. She has a BA from Juniata College and a JD from New England Law ǀ Boston.
In her role as Grant and Finance Manager for MPEC, Ellie provides oversight and management to the Center’s sponsored research portfolio throughout the award life cycle. Working closely with the Center’s Principal Investigators and outside collaborators, she ensures the successful execution of sponsored awards through counseling Investigators on fiscal strategy, monitoring activities and addressing questions of collaborating subaward sites, and conducting monthly assessments of fund activities.
Aaron Wu – Programmer Analyst
Aaron graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 2022 with a BS in Physics. During undergrad, he was involved with biophysics research investigating the physics of biologically active materials. Aaron joined MPEC in August 2022.
Hamid Reza Zarei, PhD – Research Scientist
Hamid holds a PhD in Industrial Engineering from Northeastern University. During his doctoral studies, he developed an optimization-based matching platform to assign medical staff to long-term care facilities during COVID-19. He also conducted a longitudinal analysis to evaluate the platform’s impact on its users’ staffing levels and created a new matching algorithm that better adapts to environmental randomness.
Dani Zionts, MScPH – Research Project Manager
Dani joined MPEC in May 2020 after years working in health care delivery and implementation science research at Stanford University. She has a BA from Brandeis University and an MScPH from McGill university, focusing on epidemiology.
As a Clinical Research Program/Project Manager in the Implementation Program, key responsibilities include growing and supporting the expanding Implementation Program and identifying, training, and supervising the research assistants who start their careers at MPEC. She works closely with Dr. Bassett and other Implementation Program investigators and RAs to advance their research, notably in the fields of community-based HIV and sexual health care in South Africa; domestic sexual health services; and COVID-19.
Research Assistants
Nicola Anderson
Nicola graduated from Tulane University in 2024 with a BS in Cell and Molecular Biology and a minor in Environmental Studies. As an undergraduate, she worked on a public health study researching the effects of household air pollutants on cardiovascular and respiratory health. She also completed an honors thesis testing several drugs as potential therapies for age-related macular degeneration. She joined MPEC in July 2024.
Caroline Arena
Caroline graduated from Middlebury College in 2024, with a major in Environmental Studies and a minor in Global Health. Her previous research experience includes policy research on affordable housing for the Vermont Public Health Association, qualitative research regarding the environmental impact of Antarctic tourism, and glacier modeling in the NYU Environmental Fluid Dynamics Lab. Caroline has also worked at a housing shelter in Vermont and for MaineHealth’s food insecurity team. She joined MPEC in June 2024.
Taing Nandi Aung
Taing joined MPEC in August 2021. Taing is Clinical Research Coordinator/Research Assistant at MPEC and a Clinical Project Manager at the Infectious Disease Clinical Research Unit (ID CRU). Originating from Myanmar (Burma), Taing graduated from Brown University in May 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in Biology and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai with a master’s degree in Clinical Research in 2021. At MPEC, Taing supports HIV/AIDS studies based in South Africa and Uganda led by Drs. Ingrid Bassett, Suzanne McCluskey, and Jennifer Manne-Goehler. At ID CRU, Taing works primary on the RECOVER Study on Long COVID.
Kevin Chi
Kevin graduated from Bowdoin College in 2021 where he studied biochemistry and English. He has experience working for projects in global public health, whose topics include antimicrobial resistance and Typhoid fever & COVID-19 surveillance. During his time at Bowdoin, Kevin has completed a study to better understand the mRNA transport pathway in Candida albicans, yeast responsible for candidiasis.
Elif Coskun
Elif graduated from the Boston University School of Public Health with her MPH in 2022. During graduate school, she worked on modeling the elimination of mother to child transmission of HIV as well as determining the social determinants of disparities in excess mortality due to COVID-19 across the U.S.
Elif graduated from Northeastern University with a B.S in Political Science and Economics, and tries to bring in a policy perspective to her approach to public health.
Julie Deleger
Julie recently graduated magna cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis with a primary major in Anthropology: Global Health & Environment, a secondary major in Biology, and a minor in General Economics. During her time at WashU, Julie worked as a peer health educator with a focus on sexual health, through the university’s student health center, and spent some time as a research assistant for the Rural Embodiment and Child Health study, investigating social determinants of pediatric intestinal inflammation in the rural South. Julie also wrote a Senior Honors Thesis titled “‘I’m scared to come out of my shell’: contraceptive care for migrants in St. Louis”, which examined the unique challenges faced by migrants in accessing contraceptive care, using the social ecological model to analyze the individual, interpersonal, and institutional barriers at play. Julie joined MPEC in July 2023.
Caleb Eliazer
Caleb graduated from Baylor University in 2023 with a BS in Neuroscience and Economics and joined MPEC in July 2023. His previous research projects span a diversity of topics including: investigating the efficacy of protein-like polymers as a treatment for inflammation, understanding social function in dementia patients, and evaluating motor function in mouse models of Parkinson’s disease. He also has a strong interest in public policy and has worked with San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors on their initiatives to divest the city’s pension fund from fossil fuels.
Grady Florance
Grady graduated from Colby College in May 2024 with a BA in Computer Science and joined MPEC in the summer thereafter. While at Colby, he worked in water quality lab partnered with a nearby non-profit, the 7 Lakes Alliance. Specifically, Grady tried to derive insights about algae blooms using volunteer collected data.
Ruitian (Xeno) Hu
Xeno graduated from Duke University with a major in Chemistry and minors in French and Cultural Anthropology. His research experiences at Duke included identifying novel antimalarial drug targets and understanding the financial hardship surrounding people living with dementia. Xeno was also involved in community-based health engagement projects in China and Togo.
Maddie Humphrey
Maddie joined MPEC in 2024. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Sociology from Southern Methodist University in 2020 and completed her Master of Science in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2024. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Maddie worked with the Nantucket Health Department as a COVID Health Inspector, supporting local disease control efforts. Prior to pursuing her master’s degree, she served as a Development Coordinator for the Foundation for African Medicine and Education, a non-profit hospital based in Tanzania.
Lyra Johnson
Lyra graduated with a BA in Anthropology, Global Health Studies, and Music, as well as a Master’s in Public Health with a concentration in Global Health from Northwestern University. During her MPH, she completed a thesis project in Cape Town, South Africa, studying tuberculosis stigma among young children with TB and their caregivers. Additionally, she worked on global health professions education research projects during her MPH.
Megan Lam
Megan joined MPEC in July 2024 after graduating from Tufts University with a BA in Community Health. Their previous experience includes collaborating with community health practitioners and organizers to research national youth civic engagement, health insurance in the greater Boston area, and election policies related to voter suppression.
Grace Luu
Grace recently graduated from Occidental College with a major in Economics and a minor in Public Health. During her time in college, she researched the impact of administrative burdens on child Medicaid enrollment and completed an honors thesis on the effect of hospital closures on inpatient mortality. She also spent time as a health services intern, where she worked to connect individuals from low-income and unhoused backgrounds with healthcare resources.
Chase Mandell
Chase graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University in 2024 with a major in Political Science and minors in Spanish and Economics. During his undergraduate studies, he worked as a research assistant at both the Latin American Public Opinion Project and the Vanderbilt LGBTQ+ Policy Lab. He also completed an honors thesis examining the influence of religious elites on attitudes toward LGBTQ-inclusive education. Chase joined MPEC in July 2024.
Madhava Narasimhadevara
Madhava joined MPEC in June 2024 after graduating from the University of Massachusetts Lowell with a BA in Economics and minor in Mathematics. Alongside his work at MPEC, he is currently completing a post-baccalaureate at the Harvard Extension School in preparation for medical school.
Bhaavana Oruganty
Bhaavana graduated from Swarthmore College in May 2023 with a BS in Engineering and minor in chemistry. During her time at Swarthmore, she completed a senior thesis in synthesizing a hydrogel while optimizing its mechanical and electrical properties to improve hydrogel biocompatibility with patients during wound care and diagnostic procedures. Previous to MPEC, Bhaavana worked at The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, conducting high-throughput CRISPR screens in several cell lines and identifying cancer dependencies in various in-vivo tumor microenvironments. She currently also volunteers in community engagement with Our Health, a study seeking to understand the genetic basis to an elevated cardiometabolic risk in South Asian-Americans.
Eden Pletner
Eden graduated from McGill University in 2022 with a BSc in Anatomy and Cell Biology and a minor in Jewish Studies. She completed an Honours thesis investigating the role of the extracellular matrix protein fibronectin in early skeletal development and a rare subtype of skeletal dysplasia in the Reinhardt Lab her senior year. Prior to joining MPEC, she worked as an EMT in the Boston area, furthering her interest in health care systems and community service. Eden joined MPEC in June 2024.
Anjali Srinivasan
Anjali joined MPEC in July 2024 after she graduated from Brown University with a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. At Brown, she conducted research on a variety of topics including the effects of preoperative alcohol, tobacco, and opioid use on elective spinal surgery outcomes.
Karry Su
Karry joined MPEC in July 2023 after graduating from Vanderbilt University with BAs in Biological Sciences and Medicine, Health, and Society. During her undergraduate studies, she conducted research on efferocytosis and the role of the immune system in cardiovascular disease. She was also involved in health policy research and contributed to the implementation of value-based care through an internship with Lifepoint Health.
Sujata Tewari
Sujata joined MPEC in July of 2023 after graduating with a BA in Classical Studies from Bowdoin College. Her previous Global Health experience consists of participating in a cervical cancer screen and treat clinic in Mwanza, Tanzania, as well as volunteering in a government funded clinic in Cusco, Peru. She has also conducted research on the patient experience of using the DigniCap scalp cooling system for gynecological cancer patients.
Dessie Tien
Dessie joined MPEC in December 2022 after she graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in Plan II Honors and a B.S.A. in Neuroscience. Her research experiences at UT Austin focused on the use of brain-computer interfaces to advance the field of lucid dreaming.
Sydney Wishner
Sydney graduated from Amherst College in 2024 with a BA in Biochemistry and Biophysics and joined MPEC in July 2024. Previously, she performed research working to understand drug effectiveness and synergy in acute myeloid leukemia as well as virulence factors in Vibrio cholera. Additionally, she worked to discover the effects of COVID-19 on medical emergencies and healthcare-seeking tendencies in Kisumu, Kenya.
Xinwen Xu
Xinwen graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Mathematics from Franklin and Marshall College and holds a Master’s in Quantitative Biomedical Sciences from Dartmouth College. She led a research project that investigated the association between residential proximity to uranium mines and skin cancer incidence in the Navajo Nation. Additionally, she has conducted analyses on adolescent physical activity levels using ActiLife software and gene imputation with the PrediXcan model.
Affiliates
Seyedeh Nazanin Khatami, PhD
Nazanin is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. She joined MPEC in January 2022. As part of the MPEC modeling team, she is working closely with Dr. Krishna Reddy on developing a tuberculosis transmission module.
Nazanin received her PhD in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst. She also holds an MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UMass Amherst. Her research focuses on disease modeling, control, and optimization. During her PhD, she closely collaborated with the HIV Division at the CDC where she developed a sequential decision-making model to control HIV at a national level using reinforcement learning algorithms.
Laura Platt, MD
Dr. Platt is an Infectious Diseases physician at Brigham and Women’s hospital and a medical consultant at the Massachusetts Department of Health’s Office of HIV/AIDS.
Her interests include using methods of epidemiology and implementation science to reduce disparities in care for HIV and sexually transmitted infections. She is particularly interested in integrating infectious disease diagnosis, prevention, and treatment services into community-based settings to better reach key populations.
She earned her MD from Duke University and completed residency in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Katie Rich
Katie is currently a fourth year medical student at Harvard, who is spending this year working with MPEC mentored by Dr. Hyle. Her prior research has focused on access to care, with a focus on individuals with HIV and substance use disorders, as well as those who have been incarcerated. She has been involved in projects both domestically in Connecticut, as well as internationally in Peru and Ukraine. Before coming to Boston for medical school, she earned an MPH from Yale, where she was introduced to cost-effectiveness analysis through coursework, however, her prior work primarily used survey methods. While at MPEC she plans to focus her project to better understand disparities within the US HIV continuum of care, and to assess interventions to reduce barriers to HIV care.
Former Faculty and Fellows
Jason Andrews, MD, MS
During his time at MPEC, Dr. Andrews conducted research exploring strategies for diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases in resource-limited settings. His NIH-funded K01 award focused on developing models for tuberculosis transmission that incorporate the social contact structure in sub-Saharan African townships to elucidate the potential impact of interventions to control drug-resistant tuberculosis.
Dr. Andrews left MGH in 2013 and is now an Associate Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at Stanford University and a practicing infectious diseases physician.
Jessica Becker, MD
Dr. Becker was a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital, an Instructor at Harvard Medical School, and a member of the Harvard-wide Pediatric Health Services Research Fellowship. She completed her combined adult and child/adolescent psychiatry training at Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital in 2020. Her research focuses on the interface of medical and psychiatric disease in children and adults. She worked on several ongoing modeling analyses at this intersection with Dr. Freedberg and Dr. Reddy, and is working to develop a novel simulation model of pediatric mental illness under the guidance of Dr. Freedberg and Dr. Ciaranello. Prior to her clinical training, she completed her MD at Yale School of Medicine and her AB in Economics at Harvard College. She is currently completing her Master of Public Health degree at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Kimberly Blumenthal, MD, MSc
Dr. Kimberly Blumenthal is an Allergist/Immunologist and researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She performs drug and vaccine allergy research that uses methods of epidemiology, informatics, economics, and decision science.
Dr. Blumenthal left MPEC in 2019 to join the Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology’s (RAI) Clinical Epidemiology Program where she continues to collaborate closely with MPEC investigators.
Akash Gupta, MD
Dr. Gupta was an Infectious Disease fellow at MPEC, and previously completed his combined Medicine/Pediatrics residency at MGH. He is interested in the intersection of infectious disease, global health, and substance use. He worked with his mentor, Dr. Bassett, to evaluate the impact of substance use on retention in care among patients in tuberculosis and HIV treatment programs in Cape Town, South Africa. Prior to residency, he received his MD at Yale School of Medicine, and his BA in History and Environmental Biology from Columbia University.
Kelli O’Laughlin, MD, MPH
Dr. O’Laughlin was a faculty member of MPEC, an attending emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a faculty member at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. She conducts operational research in low-resource settings to expand access to HIV testing and related care for refugees living in Uganda.
In 2019, Dr. O’Laughlin transitioned to her new role as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and in the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington.
Fatma Shebl, MD, PhD
Dr. Shebl was the Director of Biometry for MPEC and a Member of the Faculty at Harvard Medical School. After receiving her PhD in 2008, she was a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health and then joined the faculty at the Yale School of Public Health, where she taught advanced analytic methods, biostatistics, and epidemiology courses. Dr. Shebl’s research interests are in the areas of infectious disease epidemiology and its intersection with chronic diseases and cancers. Dr. Shebl is also interested in maternal and child health and community trials. She specializes in applying advanced analytic methods and analysis of large datasets. Dr. Shebl earned her MD at the University of Alexandria in Egypt and her PhD from the University of Maryland in Baltimore.
Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH
Dr. Walensky was the former Co-Director of MPEC, and the Chief of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
While at MPEC, her research interests included the promotion of routine HIV counseling, testing, and referral as well as the economic evaluation of HIV prevention, diagnosis, and treatment policies both in the US and internationally. She is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), the American Association of Physicians (AAP), and the Department of Health and Human Services Panel on Antiretroviral Guidelines for Adults and Adolescents, the HIV Medicine Association Board of Directors, and she is past Chair of the NIH Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council. She has also been an advisor to the WHO and the UNAIDS.
Dr. Walensky earned an MD from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and an MPH from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In January 2021, Dr. Walensky became the 19th Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
