Dr. Bruen is an Assistant Clinical Professor for the College of Health Sciences Clinical Nutrition Unit and serves as the Director of the MS Clinical Nutrition and Dietetic Internship program.  Prior to joining University of Memphis, Dr. Bruen enjoyed a progressive career as Clinical Nutrition Manager in the greater Nashville, TN area. In her past role as a Clinical Nutrition Manager, Dr. Bruen implemented one of Tennessee’s first CDC fully recognized Diabetes Prevention Programs with grant funding from the American Association of Diabetes Educators and the State of Tennessee.

Throughout her career she has implemented many quality improvement programs utilizing nutrition to promote evidence-based practice in the acute care setting. Some of these projects included nutrition to enhance recovery after surgery, programs to identify treat and prevent malnutrition, informatics development / implementation and appropriate use of nutrition support.  Dr. Bruen is passionate about implementing evidence-based practice in the clinical setting and the promotion of RDs as healthcare leaders. Her research interests include diabetes treatment and prevention as well as critical care nutrition. She has enjoyed serving in leadership roles for both the state and local Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics associations.

Dr. Bruen has served as a mentor and preceptor for students for over 20 years and desires to continue to make a positive impact on the future of the profession through her role in the Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics Internship at University of Memphis and is looking forward to her new endeavors with MIT Catalyst.

Victor Ekuta is a Mount Sinai Innovation Partners Fellow, Enventure Research and Innovation in Healthcare Consulting Fellow, and a Doximity Research Fellow. In these roles, he draws on his research background to evaluate innovations in therapeutics, medical devices, and digital health. Victor is also an Instructor for the MIT Office of Engineering Outreach Programs, where he combines his love of mentorship with diversifying STEM.

Before joining MIT, Victor investigated Alzheimer's Disease as a 2017 Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School, researched transcranial magnetic stimulation as a 2018 Penn Memory Center Minority Scholar in Aging Research, and joined more than 100 global experts to contribute to a report on the future of healthcare and medicine, Trust or Consequences 2040: Will innovations in health and medicine deliver? as a 2019 Trust Colab Participant.

Victor earned his BA in Biology and Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology (PNP) from Washington University in St. Louis. Following graduation, Victor completed a Post-baccalaureate Research Fellowship at the National Institutes of Health before beginning medical school at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

For his work, Victor has been a 2020 TEDMED Research Scholar, Tylenol Future Care Scholarship recipient, 2020 American Academy of Neurology Future in Neurological Research Scholar, 2019 Alzheimer’s Disease Drug Discovery Foundation Young Investigator, and 2011 Gates Cambridge Scholarship Finalist, among others.

Victor is passionate about medical innovation and is excited to join the other Catalyst Fellows in translating scientific discoveries into healthcare solutions that make an impactful difference in improving patient lives.

Rey Johnson is passionate about applying technology to improve health. He currently works at 3M Health Information Systems, where he has held both analyst and software engineering roles. Rey has built computer systems for creating and managing medical terminologies and led efforts to improve the interoperability of health data. His writing on federal efforts to enhance health data interoperability and other topics has been featured in 3M’s “Inside Angle” blog. Rey co-invented a system for efficiently and securely capturing, managing, and proving patient consent for data sharing across multiple stakeholders—a technology necessary to enable full health data interoperability in the United States. Rey gave an initial presentation of this work at the AMIA Clinical Informatics Conference in May 2020. 3M has filed a non-provisional patent application on the system. Rey will receive a Master of Science degree in Biomedical Informatics from the University of Utah in May 2021. His studies have focused on the application of data science, machine learning, and user-centered design to healthcare. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance. Rey is a member of the Industry Advisory Board for the Biomedical Informatics Department at the University of Utah. He is also a member of the American Medical Informatics Association.

Lars Lofgren is currently a graduate research fellow in the Anesthesiology Bioengineering Laboratory associated with the department of Anesthesiology at University of Utah Health Sciences. Along with Drs. Kai Kuck and Natalie Silverton, he is working on developing new methods to monitor acute kidney injury risk in real-time to reduce the incidence of the disease and improve patient outcomes. Prior to his work as a research fellow, Lars completed his undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering at the University of Utah. As the lead engineer, he also worked on developing a novel method to monitor women’s menstrual cycles to help women identify times of peak fertility. His team was awarded the grand prize at Bench to Bedside 2018, and he was a co-founder of PreOv. He now serves on the Bench to Bedside leadership team and is responsible for program outreach and growth. As part of the leadership team, he has developed partnerships with local industry leaders and entrepreneurial programs at other universities. He has held positions at two industry-leading medical device development companies in the Salt Lake valley. His work led to more efficient processes and the on-time launch of a regulatory compliant medical device. As a Catalyst fellow, Lars is excited to address unmet medical needs and work on projects that will make a difference in healthcare.

Samantha B. Miles is the Informatics and Education Registered Nurse for the Community Care department at the Memphis VA Medical Center. She is responsible for the implementation of Community Care applications, analytics, workflow development and education for clinical processes. She is also serving as Project Faculty Advisor for the VHA American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 10x10 course. Ms. Miles earned a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology, a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and a Master of Science in Nursing Informatics from Middle Tennessee University. Ms. Miles has been board certified in Nursing Informatics since 2010. She served as the Nursing Informatics Clinical Research Liaison between the University of Tennessee Health Sciences College of Nursing, Memphis VAMC and Baptist Health Sciences. Clinical practice encompassed CVICU, Emergency Care, Hospice and Home Health.

Alison Quinn is the acting Inpatient Psychiatry Supervisor for the Memphis VA Medical Center in addition to serving as a staff physician in their psychiatry service. She is responsible for overseeing the acute inpatient psychiatry ward, consult liaison service, and the emergency department mental health team in addition to continuing clinical services as an inpatient psychiatrist for veterans evaluated through the Memphis VA Medical Center. She holds a Doctorate of Medicine from the American University of the Caribbean and a Master’s Degree in Biohazardous Threat Agents and Emerging Infectious Diseases from Georgetown University. She completed her residency in adult psychiatry at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in 2020. Alison hails from a military family and has lived and traveled all over the world. She is soon to be a mother of two, with her second child due in early 2021. She lives with her husband of nearly 10 years in their home in Memphis, Tennessee.

Ritu Raman, Ph.D., is an engineer with a passion for biohybrid design: building machines powered by biological materials that work with the human body to fight disease and damage. She has led several initiatives to introduce the next generation to this emerging discipline, including authoring a general audience book titled Biofabrication (MIT Press, Fall 2021). Ritu is currently a postdoctoral fellow advised by Prof. Robert Langer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, funded by a L’Oréal USA Women in Science Fellowship and NASEM Ford Foundation Fellowship. She received her B.S. magna cum laude from Cornell University and her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an NSF Fellow. She holds many awards for scientific innovation, including being named a Kavli Fellow by the National Academy of Science and being named to the MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35 and Forbes 30 Under 30: Science lists. Ritu grew up in India, Kenya, and the United States where she learned to appreciate and thrive in diverse and dynamic environments. She is passionate about increasing diversity in STEM and has championed many initiatives to empower women in science, including being named a AAAS IF/THEN ambassador and founding the Women in Innovation and STEM Database at MIT (WISDM).

Jason Ramirez is a board-certified Anesthesiologist with the VA Medical Center in Salt Lake City, UT. He holds an undergraduate degree in Environmental Health from Colorado State University. Dr. Ramirez obtained his M.D. from the University Of Colorado School of Medicine. Graduate Medical Education included completion of a Transitional Year Internship at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Washington and primary Residency training in Anesthesiology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. In addition, Dr Ramirez completed advanced Fellowship training in the fields of Regional Anesthesiology at the University of Florida and Hospice and Palliative Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Dr Ramirez has practiced medicine in the academic, community and government settings. He has also participated as a short-term medical volunteer in both Haiti and Kenya. Dr. Ramirez has presented on various topics in Anesthesiology, Pain Medicine and Palliative Medicine at the local, state and national levels as well as overseas. Dr Ramirez lists a rotation with the Spokane Medical Examiner’s Office, both of his Fellowships and overseas medical trips as some of his most influential professional experiences. Hobbies include hiking, mountain biking and fly fishing. Professional interests include Pain Medicine and Technology. Dr. Ramirez joined the Salt Lake City VA 2014. While at the Salt Lake City VA, Dr Ramirez has served as the Director of Palliative Medicine and Associate Chief of the Holistic Medicine Service. His current role is as a staff physician with the Anesthesia Service at the VA.

Anita Ranade currently serves as Chief of Business Office at VA Boston Healthcare System. In this capacity, she leads 150 of her teammates across three main facilities and five community-based outpatient clinics all working together to serve those who have served us: our nation’s veterans.

Anita’s diverse healthcare experience ranges from the large-scale implementation of electronic health records to regular interaction with patients in a retail pharmacy setting which has provided her with a unique viewpoint that directly shapes her leadership style as an enthusiastic change management practitioner.

A California native, Anita completed her undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley focusing on Public Health and received her Master of Public Health (MPH) at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Anita looks forward to learning, collaborating, and innovating alongside her Catalyst Fellow colleagues with the goal of making an impact. She is specifically interested in the fields of healthcare access and equity.

Paul “Paolo” Renigar, Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching, is trained in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and cryptologic linguistics. Currently he is an Education Program Specialist for the Department of Veterans Affairs where he leads the Mentorship Program, oversees the educational Technology Systems Management platform for clinical and non-clinical staff, provides advisory services, and plans, delivers and develops courses based on local, regional, and national criteria. His main interests are in: critical discourse studies, multimodal semiotics, critical pedagogy, computer assisted learning and in the way language is used to sediment social and political structures of power. He is a qualitative researcher, language analyst, trilingual interpreter/translator, versatile researcher, proofreader, and concept-builder fluent in analyzing a broad range of topics, including trends in clinical, academic, and political settings and emergent technologies for educational purposes. An organized packager and idea generator and stickler for details, he leads innovative projects independently and collaboratively and enjoys bringing media to life to make complex topics relevant and accessible to a variety of audiences. His most recent research focuses on the integration of social justice within the foreign language classroom and experiences of radicalization through social media. He continues to challenge the dichotomy that separates scholarship from activism while using education as a bottom-up method of promoting social and political progress. His future research plans include topics that span innovation in healthcare for underserved communities, the social justice dilemmas created by postmodern interpretations of language and identity, and the impact of discourse on the delivery of healthcare.

Fatima Gloria Shahzad has worked in clinical research for over a decade. Early in her career, she worked for an NIH-funded randomized control trial evaluating therapies for knee osteoarthritis at Tufts Medical Center and a study focused on reducing cancer risk behaviors at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Fatima concentrated on behavioral health and policy during her MPH and on entrepreneurship and marketing during her MPH/MBA at Johns Hopkins. As part of her graduate work, Fatima designed, implemented and authored a study on the behaviors and motivations of e-cigarettes users. After completing her graduate work, Fatima worked at Doximity, a physician-network company, in marketing and went on to manage several clinical trials evaluating impact of digital medication reminders for different therapeutic areas at a medication adherence startup. Fatima also worked at Medumo (acquired by Philips), a startup focused on improving patient experience and providing clear instructions for procedures and visits.

Currently, Fatima’s full-time role is with the NIH-led All of Us Research Program which seeks to enroll 1 million or more people from across the U.S. to help speed up medical and precision medicine research. At All of Us at the Department of Veterans Affairs, she advocates for Veterans and leads engagement and retention efforts. Following her passion for storytelling, Fatima has served as a board of advisor and producer for documentary The Human Trial, which follows researchers and patients in pursuit of a cure to type 1 diabetes. Having lived with type 1 diabetes since she was 13, Fatima has served in several other diabetes-related capacities, including as a former board of director for the Diabetes Hands Foundation and currently as a community advisory board member for a study focused on online support for people living with diabetes.

Jack Tsao, M.D., D.Phil. is Professor of Neurology, Pediatrics, and Anatomy & Neurobiology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN, USA and Director of the Polytrauma/OIF/OEF Clinic at the Memphis Veterans Affairs Medical Center, a researcher at the Children’s Foundation Research Institute at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, and Fellow of both the American Academy of Neurology and American Neurological Association. Dr. Tsao received his undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Harvard College, a master’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge, England, a doctorate in physiology/pharmacology from the University of Oxford, England, a medical degree from Harvard Medical School, and a master’s in business administration from the University of Memphis.

Prior to finishing his medical degree, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Neurology at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He completed internal medicine internship and neurology residency at the University of California-San Francisco and then began 14 years of active-duty service in the United States Navy, where he was first stationed at Naval Hospital Jacksonville, Florida as neurology department head. While there, Dr. Tsao completed a behavioral neurology fellowship at the University of Florida. He was then assigned to the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, MD for 4 years before being selected to become the inaugural Director of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Programs for the United States Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Falls Church, VA, where he managed Navy and Marine Corps TBI policy and programs for 6.5 years prior to his transfer to the Navy Reserve in 2015.

He has published over one hundred peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and edited books on TBI and teleneurology. His clinical research is focused on treatments for phantom limb pain in amputees (his research team conducted the first randomized, controlled trial which demonstrated the utility of mirror therapy for treating phantom limb pain), for which he was awarded the 2014 United States Navy Hero of Military Medicine by the Center for Public-Private Partnerships at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, and the clinical effects of blast exposure and concussion. He is also past chairperson of both the Government Services Section and the Practice Committee Telemedicine Work Group of the American Academy of Neurology.

Taylor received his BS in Biology (2010) from Indiana University. After graduating, he worked for 2 years as a technician at Duke University where he studied tissue regeneration in zebrafish. He completed his PhD in Microbiology (2019) at the University of Wisconsin where he studied the impact of single nucleotide polymorphisms on population heterogeneity in Salmonella. As a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Utah, he is focused on improving serosurveillance methods and investigating the role of microbiota in disease susceptibility. Outside of lab, Taylor enjoys playing music, being outside, and spending time with his wife.

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.

Stephan Gaehde, MD, MPH is the Boston VA Medical Informatics Fellowship Program Director and Chief of Emergency Services.  His research interests are in emergency department prediction models,  development of data visualization tools to improve patient flow and patient centered interventions that support guideline adherence for patients with chronic diseases.  He has  mentored faculty on prior innovation projects and has expertise on the integration of interventions into organizational workflow. 

Dimitra is an experienced biotech professional with deep knowledge of personalized medicine projects, medical devices, diagnostics, Health IT and therapeutics. Dimitra is currently the Chief Business Officer (CBO) of MyGenomeRx, a consumer pharmacogenomics company and a management consultant of QRAL Group supporting BD, scouting and commercialization strategies. She teaches Innovation and Entrepreneurship for the Law School at Northwestern and is currently a member of the Innovation Faculty team for MIT's LinQ Catalyst program, mentoring and guiding innovators to accelerate and heighten the impact of their solutions on serious health and medical challenges. Dimitra currently serves as a Medical Device Diligence lead for Keiretsu Forum Investment firm and a Venture Partner for MBx Capital (formerly FundRx), a next-generation of healthcare and life science venture capital firm. MBx funds and develops high impact healthcare and life science startups pursuing novel research and new models of care. Dimitra is also a Director at Large for Women in Bio {WIB}, responsible for the Executive Women in Bio Committee in Chicago, and on the board of National WIB, an organization dedicated to promoting careers, leadership, and entrepreneurship of women in the life sciences.

She was previously with Baxter International, where she was hired as the Innovation Scout, supporting late-stage technology scouting and tech assessment for due diligence M&A deals. Prior to that, she was the Director of Commercialization for Northwestern University’s Innovation and New Ventures Office, where she actively pursued innovation management, commercialization and funding strategies as well business development opportunities for inventors, ranging from start-up ventures to strategic partnerships, and established and directed an I-Corps like program called INVOForward. Before joining Northwestern, Dimitra was the VP of R&D of Ohmx Corporation, a diagnostic company with novel POC (point-of-care) technology and prior to that she worked for Nanosphere (now Luminex) and Inverness Medical (now Alere / Abbott), in novel biosensor development. Dimitra earned a Ph.D. in Bioelectrochemistry from University College London (UCL), an M.Sc. in Biosensors from King’s College London; her post-doctoral work focused on nanoparticle based diagnostics. She is the author of numerous peer-reviewed publications and patents.

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.

Dr. Ravi Rasalingam is a Clinical Instructor at Harvard Medical School and a staff cardiologist at VA Boston Healthcare. He received his Bachelor of Human Biology and Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery degrees from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He completed Internal Medicine residency at the University of Rochester, New York and Cardiology Fellowship at Thomas Jefferson University, Pennsylvania. Dr. Rasalingam is a clinical educator and has been recognized for excellence by physicians training in echocardiography. While on faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, he was the inaugural editor of The Washington Manual of Echocardiography. His clinical expertise is in echocardiography,advanced cardiac imagingand valvular heart disease. His research interests are broad and primarily focus on novel applicationof echocardiographic techniques in early detection of coronary artery disease as well as assessment of patients with mechanical devices to support the heart when it fails. Hehas received a strategic alliance research grant to foster collaboration between groups of investigators across difference disciplines, departments and schools.

Andy Shin, JD, MPH is Chief Operating Officer for the AHA Center for Health Innovation a new endeavor by the American Hospital Association aiming to accelerate health system innovation through leadership development, national learning collaboratives, data analytics, market intelligence and strategic partnerships. As the commercial hub for the AHA, the Center for Health Innovation also engages stakeholders across the healthcare ecosystem from startups to the Fortune 100 to help advance the field towards a society of healthy communities, where all individuals reach their highest potential for health. Previously, he was COO of the Health Research and Educational Trust, the non-profit research and education affiliate of the AHA.

Prior to the AHA, Andy led strategy and partnerships for an international non-profit focused on resiliency and organizational cultures of wellbeing, based at Massachusetts General Hospital. His experience also includes consulting for multinational manufacturers, industry trade groups and the biopharmaceutical sector in addition to roles in equity research, business development and policy. He has also served in the federal government including as an Energy and Commerce committee staffer during drafting of the Affordable Care Act and helping to launch a government startup from the ground up, the CMS Innovation Center (CMMI), where amongst other responsibilities he led stakeholder engagement.

Andy serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Population Health Management. He was a Reynolds Foundation Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship with the Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School and is currently a MBA candidate in the MIT Sloan School of Management, Executive MBA Program.

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.

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.

Dr. Angela Joubert James is a Director of Global Development Project Leadership in Oncology at Astellas Pharma. Dr. James earned a B.A. in Biology from Rice University, an M.S. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from University of Houston and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Pharmacometrics and Pharmaceutical Sciences, respectively, from University of Maryland, Baltimore. Her expertise in Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacometrics led to roles of increasing responsibility in Clinical Pharmacology at Alcon Laboratories (formerly a subsidiary of Novartis), Celgene and Astellas Pharma. Her accomplishments include the design and implementation of the Clinical Pharmacology strategy to support successful development and approval of XOSPATA® (gilteritinib) for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory AML with a FLT3 mutation. In her current role, Dr. James leads cross-functional project teams to successfully execute on global strategies for the development of novel immuno-oncology agents.

Dr. James lives by the African proverb “Each one teach one” and is passionate about mentorship of students and early career scientists. She has moderated and participated in several panel discussions focused on career journeys and challenges in STEM careers stemming from gender and racial bias. Dr. James is the current Vice-Chair of Chicago Women, Past Chair and member of the Joint Steering Committee for the Oncology Community of the American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT). She sits on the Board of Directors for Youth Technology Corps, a Chicago-based non-profit organization that teaches real-world STEM skills to middle and high school students while nurturing their civic responsibilities through donations of refurbished computers to their community members.

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.