Dr. William Adams is an epidemiologist, medical informatician, and practicing pediatrician at Boston Medical Center (BMC). He is a Professor of Pediatrics, BU-CTSI Director of the Biomedical Informatics Core (BU-BIC), and Director of Community Health Informatics for the Boston HealthNet. His research focuses on developing and evaluating information technology (IT)-based solutions for improving health and the quality of healthcare for urban populations, particularly children, and includes EHR-based technologies, patient-centered IT, immunization decision support, predictive analytics, clinical data warehousing, and research data networking.
Dr. Tracy Battaglia is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health where she serves as the Director of the Women’s Health Unit, a DHHS designated Center of Excellence in Women’s Health. As a practicing internist and breast health specialist at Boston Medical Center, the largest safety net medical center in New England, her approach to addressing health disparities focuses largely on engaging the community as partners in action-oriented research. She has 20 years of experience designing, implementing, and evaluating health interventions that use community-engaged research methods in pursuit of health equity. She has published over 100 original peer-review articles related to equitable access to care, received career development awards from both NIH and the American Cancer Society, and served as PI on grants from the Avon Foundation, Susan G Komen for the Cure, the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and the National Center to Advance Translational Science. In 2020 Dr. Battaglia graduated with the inaugural class of the NCI Multilevel Intervention Training Institute to advance her skills in health system interventions. A pioneer in the development of oncology Patient Navigation programs that target under-resourced cancer patients, Dr. Battaglia has contributed to the scientific evidence solidifying the impact of navigation on reducing delays across the continuum of cancer care. As Director of the Community Engagement Program for the Boston University Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), she is responsible for creating a research environment that supports community engagement in all aspects of translational science. She is currently leading a cooperative study funded by the National Center to Advance Translational Science (NCATS) in partnership with the four Massachusetts CTSI hubs (Boston University, Harvard University, Tufts University, and the University of Massachusetts) to support a City-wide dissemination study to reduce breast cancer disparities through a patient navigation network. Her own experience as a two-time cancer survivor fuels her passion for community-informed and action-oriented research.
Dr. Megan Bair-Merritt is a Professor of Pediatrics and is a multi-PI of the BU CTSI. She is a general pediatrician and child health services researcher who has conducted social epidemiology and intervention research in the area of family violence for over 15 years. She has published 95 scientific and/or invited articles, 14 letters/editorials, and 10 book chapters that predominantly focus on family violence and child health. She has received three R01-level awards as PI (and 3 additional awards as Co-I) from the National Institute of Justice and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (federal funding for violence research generally comes from non-NIH institutes), an AHRQ T32 training grant, and multiple large foundation grants. She also serves as the Executive Director of Pediatrics’ Center for the Urban Child and Healthy Family and as Chair of Women’s Leadership through the Boston University Medical Group’s Office of Equity, Vitality, and Inclusion. Her scholarly work has moved forward the field’s understanding of how intimate partner violence (IPV) affects children, influenced how IPV screening and related interventions are implemented in the medical setting, and shaped conceptualizations of relationships with teen dating violence. Her publications have been cited in critical policy pieces and clinical guidelines including the Institute of Medicine’s consensus report Clinical Preventive Services for Women: Closing the Gaps, the World Health Organization’s Guidelines for Prevention and Clinical Intervention for Female Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence, the United States Preventive Services Task Force’s recommendation for Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse of Elderly and Vulnerable Adults: Screening, as well as the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines on IPV screening in the pediatric setting. She recently was invited to present about IPV homicide at the National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s Workshop on Firearm Injuries and Death.
Dr. David Center is the Gordon and Ruth Snider Professor of Pulmonary Medicine, Associate Provost for Translational Research, and Director of the BU Clinical and Translational Science Institute. For 36 years, he has been the Chief of the Pulmonary, Allergy, Sleep, and Critical Care Division having added Allergy and Sleeps accreditation to the program during his tenure. In that position, he supervises 50 MD and PhD clinical and research faculty and over 20 post-doctoral fellows in 3 major research areas (Health Sciences Research and Informatics, Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine, and Lung Inflammation and Immunity). He is a co-discoverer of Interleukin-16 which is the topic of BU-owned intellectual property licensed by multiple bioscience companies. He has been the PI of R01, P50, P01, UL, U54, U19, and T32 grants and the mentor for 8 K08s. He is the Founding Director of the Boston University Clinical and Translational Science Institute since its inception in 2008 and the PI of its NCATS-sponsored Clinical and Translational Science Award.
Melissa Hofman. In her role as Research Informatics Director, Melissa leads the BMC Clinical Data Warehouse (CDW) for Research and directs the overall research data strategy. Melissa directs research data infrastructure across BMC and BU, and she collaborates with individual research teams to provide data extracts for research studies. Melissa has a Master of Science in Information Science and has been with the BMC CDW for Research since 2018. She has a background in informatics, relational databases, systems design, and quality improvement. Melissa previously worked in data warehousing, data analysis, and informatics with UNC Children’s Hospital and TE21, Inc.
Dr. Benjamin Linas is Director of the HIV Epidemiology and Outcomes Research Unit in the Department of Medicine at Boston Medical Center and Professor of Medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine. His research investigates the comparative- and cost-effectiveness of interventions to identify and treat the medical complications of substance use disorders, including HIV, HCV, and overdose, and to maximize the benefits of evolving therapies for HIV and HCV in the “real-world.” Dr. Linas is board-certified in Infectious Diseases and provides primary care and sub-specialty management of HIV, HCV, and HIV/HCV co-infected patients in clinical practice.
Dr. Frederick L. Ruberg is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Radiology at Boston University (BU) School of Medicine and clinical cardiologist at Boston Medical Center (BMC), specializing in cardiac imaging and infiltrative heart disease. He attended the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, completed internal medicine training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a cardiovascular disease fellowship at Boston Medical Center/Boston University School of Medicine, and a fellowship in cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Dr. Ruberg has an active clinical practice as the senior cardiologist in the BU/BMC Amyloidosis Center. He is Associate Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine for Academic Affairs, Associate Director of the Cardiovascular Medicine Fellowship program, and director of the cardiac MRI program at BMC as well as the Integrated Pilot Grants Program of the Boston University Clinical and Translational Science Institute. Dr. Ruberg is also Senior Associate Editor of Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging and a Fellow of the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology. His NIH and industry-funded research program applies non-invasive cardiac imaging for amyloidosis identification and clinical care optimization.
Julia Raifman, ScD, SM conducts research on how health and social policies shape population health and health disparities. She created and leads the COVID-19 U.S. State Policy Database (CUSP), tracking more than 200 state policies to prevent COVID-19 and reduce economic hardship during the pandemic. Her research on unemployment insurance and food insufficiency helped inform the American Rescue Plan and she is a collaborator on a study indicating that lifting state eviction freezes was associated with increased COVID-19 cases and deaths, a finding that helped uphold a federal eviction moratorium until the fall of 2021. She has also documented how structural racism shaped disparities in susceptibility to severe illness due to COVID-19. Dr. Raifman leads the Health Inequities Strategic Research area at the Boston University School of Public Health and the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice Committee in the Health Law, Policy, & Management Department.
Dr. Christopher W. Shanahan, is a General internist with a focus on Primary Care Internal Medicine and Addiction. He is Board Certified in both Internal Medicine and Addiction Medicine. He is the Faculty Lead for Research Networking for Boston University’s Clinical Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI) and serves on its Senior Executive Committee and its Clinical Informatics unit. His research focus includes: chronic pain management, substance use disorders, community-based research networks, and research informatics and application development to improve medical care quality and eliminate health disparities in underserved urban populations.
Dr. Charles Telfer Williams, serves as Vice-Chair for Network Development for the Department of Family Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and as Medical Director of the Boston HealthNet (BHN), the network of 14 community health centers affiliated with Boston Medical Center. His main passion at work is quality improvement and leadership development. He is increasingly interested in sustainability, in its broadest meaning –considering everything from environmental impact to life-work balance for individuals. He has experience with practice re-design, including implementation of open access, a project redesigning the referrals process at Boston Medical Center (AHRQ 2008), and helping practices at Boston Medical Center achieve NCQA Level 3 PCMH recognition, improving blood pressure control and cancer screening.
As Vice-chair, his primary duties are guiding the growth and development of the Family Medicine practices across the BHN network, serving as a local resource for quality improvement, managing privileging, and serving as a liaison with the Community Health Center practices.
As the Medical Director of BHN, his focus is on improving the quality of care across the entire network which serves approximately 245,000 primary care patients to optimize their health sustainably. He has helped to lead the practice transformation of the Patient-Centered Medical Home efforts at BMC and in the CHCs through the state’s Primary Care Payment Reform Initiative. He is continuing this work with BMCs in Medicaid ACO development focusing on clinical systems.
His teaching interests include quality improvement, practice management, electronic health records, evidence-based medicine, leadership development, bioethics, and interviewing skills. Since 2001 He has overseen quality improvement for the Family Medicine department at BMC while serving as Medical Director for the hospital-based practice. In 2003 he became the founding Medical Director of the East Boston Community Health Center Family Medicine Department. He was a leader in the clinical implementation of different Electronic Health Records in both practices. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin – Madison (B.S. – Bioethics 1990, M.D. 1994) and the Brown Practice Medicine residency program, he also has research experience in Medical Ethics. He is a member of the American Board of Family Practice, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the Massachusetts Academy of Family Physicians, the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine, and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.
Outside of work, he plays the French horn with the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra. and stays in shape by playing squash and ultimate frisbee, dancing whenever possible, and coaching soccer.
Dr. Allen Walkey is a Pulmonary and Critical Care Physician, clinical epidemiologist, and health services researcher focused on identifying and implementing care practices that improve the health of patients and communities. His research seeks to improve processes and outcomes of critical care, better account for patient goals in the delivery and evaluation of healthcare and develop novel methods to evaluate healthcare implementation and improvement. He has a demonstrated track record of high-impact research (Google Scholar h-index 44, cited >8000 times), with >200 publications, many as the first or supervising author in top-tier journals such as JAMA, JAMA Internal Medicine, Lancet Respiratory Medicine, the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, and Journal of the American College of Cardiology. He has received Research Honors from the United States Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality for The Outstanding Research Article of 2011, as well as the Young Investigator Award from the American College of Chest Physicians, and the Robert Dawson Evans Junior Faculty Merit Award from Boston University School of Medicine. His mentorship has also been honored with a Research Mentor Award for the Department of Medicine, and the Junior Faculty Mentorship Award from Boston University. He currently mentors multiple NIH K- and F32-award recipients. He is currently Principal Investigator for multiple NIH- and US Department of Defense-funded R01 awards with the purpose of testing novel methods to predict and target cardiovascular events to improve outcomes after sepsis, and to evaluate opioid use in intensive care and its ramifications on post-ICU opioid-related complications. He is the co-principal investigator of the Society of Critical Care Medicine International COVID-19 registry, which has produced many high-impact research manuscripts. He has had leadership roles within multiple institutional and national societal committees, including the Boston Medical Center Health Equity Advisory Committee, Chair of the American Thoracic Society Critical Care Assembly Early Career Professional Committee, Nominating Committee, and Associate Editor for Annals of the American Thoracic Society. As founding Co-Director of the Evans Center for Implementation and Improvement Sciences, he develops, teaches, and leverages innovative design and analytic strategies to improve the rigor of efforts to change health care practice locally and nationally, and as founding Director of the Critical Care Epidemiology, Clinical, Health Services, Outcomes Research Unit for the BU The Pulmonary Center, He supervises a team of critical care health services researchers.
Susan Cheng, MD, MMSc, MPH
