Harvard Health Experts and Contributors

Jeremy Nobel, MD, MPH

Contributor

As a practicing general internist for many years, Dr. Nobel experienced “the front lines” of health care and its delivery. Currently, through his faculty appointments at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Harvard Medical School, Dr. Nobel’s teaching, research, and community based projects address the design of healthcare delivery systems that improve quality, cost-effectiveness and access. His work has been the basis of significant improvements in preventative, acute, chronic, rehabilitative, and end of life medical care that focus on understanding what quality healthcare means from a patient perspective, and how best to deliver it. Dr. Nobel is also a recognized leader in the field of medical humanities, an interdisciplinary endeavor that draws on a diverse range of fields, including the creative arts, to inform medical education and practice. He is the founder and president of the Foundation for Art and Healing (www.ArtandHealing.org) whose signature initiative, the UnLonely Project (www.UnLonelyProject.org), addressing the personal and public health challenges of loneliness and social isolation, has gained national visibility. His work is dedicated to exploring the important relationship between creative expression and health and well-being, bringing those benefits to individuals and communities through innovative programs and an active research agenda. Also a published poet, Dr. Nobel has received several awards for his poetry including the Bain-Swiggett Prize from Princeton University, and the American Academy of Poets Prize from the University of Pennsylvania.

Megan Noe, MD, MPH, MSCE

Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing

Megan Noe, MD, MPH, MSCE, is an assistant professor of dermatology at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. She graduated with research honors from Tufts University School of Medicine, and completed her dermatology training at the University of Iowa. The overarching goals of her research and clinical practice are to improve the care of adults with chronic inflammatory skin diseases.

Margaret O'Connor, PhD, ABPP

Contributor

Dr. Margaret O’Connor holds a number of leadership positions in academic medicine and community settings. She is president-elect of the International Neuropsychological Society, a group whose mission focuses on promoting neuroscience and brain health initiatives across the world. As director of neuropsychology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, she coordinates the clinical work of a large staff and she has mentored over 80 students. In association with Dr. Alvaro Pascual Leone, she developed therapeutic programs to ehance memory, attention and overall cognitive fitness throug the Brain Fit Club. Dr. O’Connor is cochair of the Medical & Scientific Advisory Committee of the Alzheimer’s Association of Massachusetts, and she is on the board of directors for the Association. She is director of research for DriveWise, an evidence-based driving asesssment program that has provided road tests for over 700 people. She has been involved in a number of public forums and legislative initiatives on impaired driving, and she has produced videos to educate the public about this important topic. Dr. O’Connor is an associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, where she has been engaged in teaching and research. With NIH and private foundation support, she conducted investigations of age-realted memory loss, as well as changes in cognition that occur in the context of degenerative brain conditions. Her specific interests have to do with long-term retention of autobiographical and news events.

Isioma D. Okolo, MBChB, MRCOG, DTMH

Contributor

Dr. Isioma D. Okolo is a Paul Farmer Global Surgery Research Fellow at the Program in Global Surgery and Social Change (PGSSC), and master of public health candidate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She is also an obstetrics & gynaecology senior resident in the National Health Service in Scotland. Twitter: @isiokolo

Barbara Okun, PhD

Contributor

Barbara Okun, PhD, is a professor of counseling psychology at Northeastern University, a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School, and a clinical psychologist and family therapist.

Nancy Oliveira, MS, RD, LDN, CDCES

Contributor

Nancy Oliveira is manager of the nutrition and wellness service at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. In addition, she is the primary science writer at The Nutrition Source website from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her clinical focus with patients includes diabetes, gastrointestinal disorders including IBS and IBD, food sensitivities, and chronic disease prevention.

Rose McKeon Olson, MD

Contributor

Rose McKeon Olson, MD, is a resident physician in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She has special research interests in gender-based violence, social medicine, and global health equity.

T. Salewa Oseni, MD

Contributor

T. Salewa Oseni, MD, is a breast surgical oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. She specializes in breast oncoplastic surgery, and has an appointment as an assistant professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School. Her research areas include management of high-risk DCIS and health care disparities. Dr. Oseni received her undergraduate training at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and her medical degree from the Case Western Reserve University. Following this, she was commissioned as an officer in the United States Navy, and completed her general surgery training at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. She received her fellowship training in surgical oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.

Andrew Oseran, MD, MBA

Contributor

Andrew Oseran MD, MBA is a clinical cardiology fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Oseran graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics in 2010. He received his MD from Georgetown University School of Medicine as well as a master’s in business administration (MBA) from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. He completed his Internal Medicine Residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in 2019. His research interests include questions related to the delivery of health care and understanding how domestic policy initiatives impact health care outcomes and cost.

Reena L. Pande, MD

Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Reena Pande is a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on the mechanisms by which exercise benefits people with cardiovascular disease.

Wendy E. Parmet, JD

Guest Contributor

Wendy E. Parmet is the Matthews Distinguished Professor of Law and Professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University, where she is also the faculty director of the Center for Health Policy & Law. Her research focuses on access to health care and the use of the law to protect public health.

Ann Partridge, MD, MPH

Contributor; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing

Dr. Ann Partridge is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is vice chair of medical oncology and director of the adult survivorship program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. As a medical oncologist and clinical and health services researcher, she has sought to improve the care and outcomes of patients with cancer by conducting research and by developing innovative clinical programming. She co-founded and directs the Program for Young Women with Breast Cancer. This novel program aims to improve care and health outcomes in young women with breast cancer at Dana-Farber, throughout New England, and beyond. In light of this highly successful program, Dr. Partridge was selected to lead the adult survivorship program to enhance care and programming for the growing population of cancer survivors. Her research focuses on communications with cancer survivors; risk perceptions; decision-making and quality of life; behavioral aspects of cancer care, including adherence with anticancer therapy; age and race disparities in breast cancer outcomes; understanding and intervening to improve survivorship care; long-term effects of cancer and cancer treatment; and the unique disease and issues facing young women with breast cancer. Her main focus in recent years is younger women with breast cancer. Dr. Partridge is principal investigator for the Young Women’s Breast Cancer Study (YWS), a multi-institutional cohort of young women with breast cancer. The study enrolled over 1,300 women ages 40 and younger at diagnosis. Dr. Partridge also serves in numerous leadership roles nationally and internationally. She is co-chair of the Breast Committee of the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology, chair of the scientific program committee for American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2018, and co-chair of the biennial ESMO-ESO sponsored Breast Cancer in Young Women Conference. She served as chair of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Breast Cancer in Young Women from 2010 to 2017. She has received numerous awards and grants, including a Champions of Change award from the White House, an ASCO Improving Cancer Care Grant, and the Edward J. Benz Jr. Award for Advancing the Careers of Women Faculty. After graduating from Georgetown University, Dr. Partridge received her medical degree from Cornell University Medical College, pursued an internal medicine residency at the Hospital for the University of Pennsylvania, and completed a medical oncology and hematology fellowship at Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare. She earned a master of public health degree at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Trisha Pasricha, MD, MPH

Contributor

Trisha Pasricha, MD, MPH, is a gastroenterologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, and an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is a recipient of a Research Scholar Award from the American Gastroenterological Association for her work studying the cellular underpinnings of gastrointestinal motility disorders. She is also a medical journalist whose work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic.

Vikram Patel, MBBS, PhD

Contributor

Vikram Patel, MBBS, PhD, is The Pershing Square Professor of Global Health at Harvard Medical School. He was the John Dirks Canada Gairdner Laureate in Global Health in 2019, and was listed in Time magazine’s 100 most influential persons in 2015. To get involved with the GMH@Harvard initiative, write to: GMH_admin@hms.harvard.edu.

Payal Patel, MD

Contributor

Dr. Payal Patel is a dermatology research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her clinical and research interests include autoimmune disease and procedural dermatology. She is part of the Cutaneous Biology Research Center, where she investigates medical applications of laser technology.

Chirag Patel, PhD

Contributor

Chirag Patel, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. His long-term research goal is to address problems in human health and disease by developing computational and informatics methods to reason over both genomic, metagenomic, and exposomic information, spanning molecules to populations toward more precise medicine, specifically type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Dr. Patel received his graduate degrees in biomedical informatics (MS, PhD) from Stanford University. https://www.chiragjpgroup.org/

Daniel Pendick

Former Executive Editor, Harvard Men's Health Watch

Daniel Pendick is a former executive editor of Harvard Men’s Health Watch. He previously served as editor and chief writer for the Cleveland Clinic Men’s Health Advisor and Mt. Sinai School of Medicine’s Focus On Healthy Aging. Dan earned a master of arts degree in the history of science and medicine from the University of Wisconsin in 1992, and was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT in 1998–99. He is also a lecturer in the Professional Writing Program at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he teaches the next generation of physicians and biomedical researchers how to communicate more effectively with each other and the general public.

Numa Perez, MD

Contributor

Dr. Perez is a general surgery resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, and one of the 2018–20 Healthcare Innovation Research Fellows at the MGH Healthcare Transformation Lab. His research lies at the intersection of healthcare outcomes and disparities, and the use of mobile healthcare technology to improve patient experience while upholding equity. After completing his surgery residency, Dr. Perez hopes to pursue a career in pediatric surgery.

Edward Phillips, MD

Contributor

Dr. Edward M. Phillips is an assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School, and the founder and director of the Institute of Lifestyle Medicine at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston. He’d like to see you end your war with food by tuning into the new WBUR podcast “Food, We Need to Talk,” an Apple Podcasts favorite. He is also co-host of the award-winning WBUR podcast “The Magic Pill.” Connect with him on Twitter @EddiePhillipsMD.

Shiv Pillai, PhD, MBBS

Contributor

Shiv Pillai, PhD, MBBS, is a professor of medicine and health sciences and technology at Harvard Medical School, director of the Harvard immunology PhD and master’s in medical sciences programs, director of MD student research for the Harvard-MIT health sciences and technology program, and program director of an NIH-funded autoimmune center of excellence at Massachusetts General Hospital, based at the Ragon Institute.

Srini Pillay, MD

Contributor

Srini Pillay, M.D. (www.drsrinipillay.com) is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry (Part-Time) at Harvard Medical School. After graduating as the overall top medical student in South Africa, he completed his residency in psychiatry at McLean Hospital—Harvard’s largest freestanding psychiatric hospital. There, he won more national awards than any resident in his class, and was one of the top three award winners in the US. Srini has completed fellowships in Psychopharmacology, Structural Brain Imaging and Functional Brain Imaging. In addition, he was Director of the Outpatient Anxiety Disorders Program at McLean Hospital. Srini was nationally funded by NIDA and was a co-investigator on many NIMH grants during his seventeen years of studying functional brain imaging at McLean Hospital, where he was Director of the Panic Disorders Research Program in the Brain Imaging Center. During this time he maintained an active clinical practice and still does. Srini is invested in translating research findings in psychiatry for the general public. A keen but non-nihilistic critic of certainty in any realm, he is invested in honoring qualitative and evidenced-based approaches from thoughtful examinations of psychological vulnerabilities. Srini received the “Books for a Better Life” award for his book, “Life Unlocked: 7 Revolutionary Lessons to Overcome Fear (Rodale, 2010). As an expert in brain-based leadership development and CEO of NeuroBusiness Group (www.neurobusinessgroup.com), he has also written “Your Brain and Business: The Neuroscience of Great Leaders (FT Press, 2011.)” Srini is also a LinkedIn educator who teaches people how to manage their depression in the workplace: (https://www.lynda.com/search?q=srini+pillay) Srini has contributed to developing leaders at The World Bank, IMF, United Nations, Fortune 500 Food and Beverage Companies, Lockheed Martin and many others. He is internationally recognized as an expert in applied brain science and human behavior, having been invited to speak throughout the US, London, Greece, Paris, Switzerland, Romania, Bulgaria, Brazil and India. His expertise has also frequently been sought out by the media having been featured on CNN, Fox, NPR, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Forbes, Fortune, Business Insider and various other outlets. His upcoming book, a deeper examination of focus, distraction and human complexity will be published by Random House (Ballantine) in the Spring of 2017. Srini is also a musician and poet.

Melanie Pogach, MD

Contributor

Melanie Pogach, MD, MMSc, is a critical care and sleep medicine physician, the associate director of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Sleep Center, and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is committed to clinical care, education, innovation, and research as they apply to respiratory and sleep health. Her clinical passion lies in understanding and treating complicated sleep-breathing disorders, circadian dysregulation, and chronic respiratory failure. She has developed a chronic respiratory failure management program, and is conducting clinical research on noninvasive ventilation in patients with advanced COPD.

Rani Polak, MD, Chef, MBA

Contributor

Dr. Rani Polak is the founding director of both the Culinary Healthcare Education Fundamentals (CHEF) Coaching program at the Institute of Lifestyle Medicine, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, and the Center of Lifestyle Medicine at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel; as well as a Research Associate at the Department of PM & R, Harvard Medical School. Prior to this position he completed a Research Fellowship in Lifestyle Medicine at Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School, and a residency in Family Medicine at the Hebrew University Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel. Rani had the good fortune to be the founder of the Hadassah Healthy Cooking and Lifestyle Center and the Israeli Society of Lifestyle Medicine. His first lifestyle intervention won the Hebrew University’s Kaye Award Prize for innovation and his book, Delicious Diabetic Recipes, is a gold best seller. Dr. Polak’s focus, along with clinical care, is on nutrition education, and on clinical and translational research relating to culinary medicine and medical education. His current work is concentrated on the Culinary Coaching approach, which aims to improve nutrition through culinary training combined with health coaching principles. This approach was used through: 1) Patients CHEF Coaching telemedicine program, aimed at improving eating behavior of patients with cardio-metabolic risk factors. This was implemented at HomeBase, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and at dozens of practices nationwide, and 2) Clinician CHEF Coaching tele-training program, aimed at training clinicians in how to provide effective Culinary Healthcare Education. This was implemented in the Yale Preventive Medicine/Internal Medicine residency program, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, and was recently approved by Harvard Medical School for Continuing Medical Education credits. Dr. Polak’s work has been featured in many media outlets including Scientific American, Herald Tribute, Jerusalem Post, and USA Today.

Heather Potts, PhD

Contributor

Heather Potts, PhD, is a licensed psychologist who earned her doctorate in school psychology at Syracuse University. She completed her internship at Southern Illinois University (SIU) School of Medicine's department of pediatrics and at Springfield Public Schools, and her postdoctoral fellowship at SIU. Prior to her graduate studies, she earned a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling from The George Washington University, and provided counseling and transition services to high school students with disabilities. She joined the outpatient psychiatry services team at Boston Children's Hospital in January 2020 to deliver clinical psychological services and specialty care for children and adolescents with ADHD.

Mark Proctor, MD

Contributing Editor

Mark Proctor, M.D. is the Director of the Brain Injury Center and Interim Neurosurgeon in Chief at Boston Children’s Hospital. He is past-Chairman of the Board of the Thinkfirst National Injury Prevention Foundation, and continues to serves on the Board. He has major clinical interest in brain and spine injury, congenital spinal disorders and craniofacial malformations. He is Chairman-elect of the Pediatric Section of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, and incoming President of the New England Neurosurgical Society.

Recent Blog Articles

Harvard Health Experts and Contributors

List of Experts

Jeremy Nobel, MD, MPH

Megan Noe, MD, MPH, MSCE

Margaret O'Connor, PhD, ABPP

Isioma D. Okolo, MBChB, MRCOG, DTMH

Barbara Okun, PhD

Nancy Oliveira, MS, RD, LDN, CDCES

Rose McKeon Olson, MD

T. Salewa Oseni, MD

Andrew Oseran, MD, MBA

Reena L. Pande, MD

Wendy E. Parmet, JD

Ann Partridge, MD, MPH

Trisha Pasricha, MD, MPH

Vikram Patel, MBBS, PhD

Payal Patel, MD

Chirag Patel, PhD

Daniel Pendick

Numa Perez, MD

Edward Phillips, MD

Shiv Pillai, PhD, MBBS

Srini Pillay, MD

Melanie Pogach, MD

Rani Polak, MD, Chef, MBA

Heather Potts, PhD

Mark Proctor, MD