Harvard Health Experts and Contributors

Francesca Coltrera

Editor, Harvard Health Blog

Francesca Coltrera is editor of the Harvard Health Blog, and associate editor of multimedia content for Harvard Health Publishing. She is an award-winning medical writer and co-author of Living Through Breast Cancer and The Breast Cancer Survivor’s Fitness Plan. Her work has appeared in Newsweek, O Magazine, Good Housekeeping, SELF, and the Boston Herald, among other venues. She is interested in many health topics, including coronavirus and COVID-19, emotional and physical wellness, parenting and children’s health, women’s health, exercise, longevity, cancer, caregiving, and end-of-life issues.

Amy S. Colwell, MD, FACS

Contributor

Amy S. Colwell, MD, FACS, is a board-certified plastic surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School. She is nationally recognized for her work with direct-to-implant breast reconstruction, and reconstruction after nipple-sparing mastectomy. Dr. Colwell also has specific interests in restoration of the face and body after aging, weight changes, and pregnancy. Dr. Colwell is the co-editor of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. She is chair for the American Society of Plastic Surgeons spring meeting, and has been co-chair for the Reconstruction Symposium of the American Association of Plastic Surgeons for the past three years. Dr. Colwell has co-authored over 100 publications and 18 book chapters. She was awarded the prestigious Leonard R. Rubin award for the best paper presented at the American Association of Plastic Surgeons Meeting in 2011 and again in 2023.

Amy Comander, MD

Contributor

Dr. Amy Comander is a breast oncologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. Dr. Comander is director of breast oncology and cancer survivorship at the Mass General Cancer Center in Waltham, MA and at Newton Wellesley Hospital, and medical director of the Mass General Cancer Center in Waltham. She is director of lifestyle medicine at the Mass General Cancer Center, which is the first cancer center to have a dedicated lifestyle medicine program. Given her strong interest in cancer survivorship and lifestyle medicine, Dr. Comander is dedicated to improving the quality of life, well-being, and outcome of individuals with cancer through important lifestyle interventions, including exercise, diet, and mind/body interventions. She promotes healthy lifestyles for both her active treatment patients as well as those in the survivorship phase of care. In collaboration with Dr Beth Frates, she has launched “PAVING the Path to Wellness,” a 12-week lifestyle medicine-based survivorship program for women with breast cancer. Along with Dr. Frates and Dr. Michelle Tollefson, she has published the “PAVING the Path to Wellness” workbook.

Hilary Connery, MD, PhD

Contributor

Hilary Connery, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and serves as the clinical director for McLean Hospital’s division of alcohol, drugs, and addiction. Dr. Connery’s expertise includes treatment of opioid use disorders and integrated treatments for co-occurring substance use disorders and other mental illnesses. Her current research efforts are directed toward public health prevention strategies for addressing self-injury mortality, and patient-focused investigation regarding suicidal motivations contributing to drug overdose. Dr. Connery is a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and has served within the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry as New England area director, co-chair of the policy committee, and as a national mentor within the national mentoring program through Providers Clinical Support System. In these roles, she actively advocates for more effective responses to the drug overdose and suicide epidemics, and also nationally mentors clinicians in evidence-based treatment of substance use disorders.

Kathryn Corelli, MD

Contributor

Dr. Kathryn Corelli is an internal medicine physician, menopause specialist, and associate medical director of strategy and new program development at Mass General Brigham Population Health, and an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School. She completed her residency in internal medicine and primary care at Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by a two-year population health leadership fellowship at Mass General Brigham. Her work focuses on systems-level transformation, preventive care, and value-based health care delivery. Dr. Corelli has a clinical interest in menopause and female sexual dysfunction, and is a certified menopause society practitioner with The Menopause Society.

Julie Corliss

Executive Editor, Harvard Heart Letter

Julie Corliss has been the executive editor of the Harvard Heart Letter since 2013. She also writes for the Harvard Health Letter, Harvard Women’s Health Watch, and Harvard Men’s Health Watch, as well as for Harvard Health Publishing’s flagship website. Julie’s work has been published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, UptoDate, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Bulletin, and the Massachusetts Medical Society. Julie is co-author of Break Through Your Set Point: How to Finally Lose the Weight You Want and Keep it Off. Julie earned a BA in biology from Oberlin College and a master’s certificate in science communication from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Jennifer Crystal, MFA

Senior Writer and Patient Experience Representative

Jennifer Crystal is the Senior Writer and Patient Experience Representative for the Lyme Wellness Initiative. She holds a BA from Middlebury College and an MFA from Emerson College, and has completed a summer of study at the Bread Loaf School of English and a workshop in narrative medicine at Columbia University.

Gregory Curfman, MD

Assistant Professor of Medicine, Former Editor-in-Chief, Harvard Health Publishing

Dr. Gregory Curfman is Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and former editor-in-chief of Harvard Health Publishing. He is also on the affiliated faculty of Harvard Law School. Before joining Harvard Health Publishing, Dr. Curfman was the Executive Editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, which has the highest impact factor of any medical journal. Dr. Curfman is board certified in internal medicine and cardiology. He earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, and trained in internal medicine and cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He directed the Coronary Care Unit at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Cardiovascular Health Center, a heart disease prevention program at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Sharon G. Curhan, MD, ScM

Contributor

Dr. Sharon Curhan is a physician and epidemiologist in the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. As a clinical researcher in life course epidemiology, healthy aging and longevity, and chronic disease prevention, she leads several large investigations aimed at identifying risk factors for developing shingles (herpes zoster), and the adverse health and quality of life effects that shingles can have, including cardiovascular disease and dementia. Her research is based in large ongoing cohort studies, including the Nurses’ Health Studies, Growing Up Today Study, and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. She is also the co-founder and director of the Conservation of Hearing Study (CHEARS), a large longitudinal investigation study of ear and hearing disorders, and has published extensively on risk factors for hearing loss and tinnitus. Dr. Curhan received her MD from Harvard Medical School and her master of science in epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

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Harvard Health Experts and Contributors

List of Experts

Francesca Coltrera

Amy S. Colwell, MD, FACS

Amy Comander, MD

Hilary Connery, MD, PhD

Kathryn Corelli, MD

Julie Corliss

Jennifer Crystal, MFA

Gregory Curfman, MD

Sharon G. Curhan, MD, ScM