Harvard Health Experts and Contributors

Toni Golen, MD

Editor in Chief, Harvard Women's Health Watch; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing; Contributor

Dr. Toni Golen is a physician specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, practicing in Boston. Dr. Golen completed her residency training at George Washington University Medical Center in 1995, and is an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. She has a special interest in health care quality and patient safety, and serves as the interim chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Dr. Golen is also co-director of labor and delivery, as well as vice chair of quality, safety, and performance Improvement. In these roles she is responsible for the development and implementation of quality improvement projects that advance the equity, safety, accessibility, and patient-centered focus of care that is provided to patients and their families. Dr. Golen is a past member of the board of directors of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, and lives in Wellesley with her husband and children.

Lais Lopes Almeida Gomes

Contributor

Dr. Lais Lopes Almeida Gomes is a dermatology research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a pediatric dermatologist in Brazil. Her clinical and research interests include atopic dermatitis and global health. She is part of the Manstein lab at the Cutaneous Biology Research Center.

Joyce Gomes-Osman, PhD, PT

Contributor

Dr. Joyce Gomes-Osman is a physical therapist and a neuroscientist. After completing her physical therapy degree in her native country of Brazil, she obtained her PhD at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, and a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Gomes-Osman is an Assistant Professor at the Departments of Physical Therapy and Neurology at University of Miami and maintains her affiliation with the Berenson-Allen Center for Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School. She divides her time between working in the Laboratory, and teaching neurophysiology and non-invasive brain stimulation. As a rehabilitation neuroscientist, Dr. Gomes-Osman is driven to answer questions that can impact people’s ability to live more functional and independent lives. She has published many research studies focused on figuring out ways to make rehabilitation therapies more effective for instance, by combining it with nerve stimulation and non-invasive brain stimulation. In addition to her interest in physical health, her work in recent years has focused on better understanding how we can promote brain health for individuals who are aging. This interest in brain health has stemmed both from scientific curiosity, and from experiencing the reality behind the statistics, witnessing memory deficits as a family member. She finds great joy in mentoring the next generation of physical therapy clinicians and clinician-scientists, whether it be in the classroom, or carrying out studies to disentangle the complex relationships between physical exercise, brain health and postural control in older adults and individuals with various neurological conditions. On her free time, she enjoys spending time with her family and is passionate about cooking and growing tropical plants, including exotic orchids.

Peter Gonzalez, MD

Contributor

Peter Gonzalez, MD, is a clinician and educator in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Rachael Moeller Gorman

Health Writer

Rachael Moeller Gorman is a science and health writer with more than 20 years of experience. She loves telling the stories behind the science, and her work has appeared in Smithsonian magazine, The Scientist, and Men’s Health; four of her EatingWell magazine features won James Beard Journalism Awards. She earned her bachelor’s degree in biology and neuroscience from Williams College, and a master’s degree in environmental studies from Brown University.

David C. Grabowski, PhD

Contributor

David C. Grabowski, PhD, is a professor in the department of health care policy at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on long-term care financing, organization, and delivery of services. He is a member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, and he was on the recent CMS Coronavirus Nursing Home Commission.

Shelly Greenfield, MD, MPH

Contributor

Shelly F. Greenfield, MD, MPH, is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and the Kristine M. Trustey Endowed Chair of Psychiatry at McLean Hospital, where she also serves as the chief academic officer. She is the chief of the division of women’s mental health, and the director of clinical and health services research and education in the alcohol, drug, and addiction treatment program at McLean Hospital. Dr. Greenfield is an addiction psychiatrist, clinician, and researcher. Dr. Greenfield has served as principal investigator and co-investigator on federally funded research focusing on treatment for substance use disorders, gender differences in substance disorders, and health services for substance disorders. She received a National Institute on Drug Abuse–funded career award in substance use disorder patient-oriented research (2005–2016). Funded by grants from NIH/NIDA, she developed and tested a new manual-based group therapy for women with substance use disorders, the Women’s Recovery Group (WRG). The WRG is an evidence-based treatment, and the manual for dissemination was published in 2016, Treating Women with Substance Use Disorders: The Women’s Recovery Group Manual. She is immediate past president of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry, and current member and past chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Addiction Psychiatry. She is immediate past editor in chief of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry, a position in which she served for 16 years (2002–2018). Dr. Greenfield was a member of the advisory committee on services for women for the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2011–2017). She has been elected to the American College of Psychiatrists and the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, and is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. She received the R. Brinkley Smithers Distinguished Scientist Award from the American Society of Addiction Medicine, and the A. Clifford Barger Award for Excellence in Mentoring from Harvard Medical School.

Peter Grinspoon, MD

Contributor; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing

Dr. Peter Grinspoon is a primary care physician, educator, and cannabis specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital; an instructor at Harvard Medical School; and a certified health and wellness coach. He is the author of Seeing Through the Smoke: A Cannabis Specialist Untangles the Truth About Marijuana, as well as the groundbreaking memoir Free Refills: A Doctor Confronts His Addiction. He is a board member of the advocacy group Doctors for Cannabis Regulation. He is also a TedX speaker and commonly lectures on the topics of cannabis, psychedelics, addiction, opioids, and physician health.

Staci Gruber, PhD

Contributor

Dr. Staci Gruber received her PhD from Tufts University, and is currently an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the director of the Cognitive and Clinical Neuroimaging Core at McLean Hospital. Over the last several decades, her research has focused on the application of neurocognitive models and brain imaging to characterize risk factors for substance abuse and psychiatric conditions. Specifically, she has extensively researched the impact of recreational cannabis use on the brain using neurocognitive measures, clinical assessments, and brain imaging techniques. Given inherent differences between recreational and medical cannabis use, Dr. Gruber founded the Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery (MIND) program, designed to clarify the specific effects of medical cannabis use through observational, longitudinal, and survey studies, as well as innovative clinical trials. Recently, Dr. Gruber launched the Women’s Health Initiative at MIND (WHIM), the first cannabis-focused program designed specifically to address women’s health and disorders that disproportionately affect women as well as some transgender and nonbinary individuals.

Perihan Esra Guvenek-Cokol

Contributor

Perihan Esra Guvenek-Cokol, MD, is double board-certified as a child/adolescent and adult psychiatrist. She specializes in emerging mental illness in teens and young adults. Her expertise is in the early stages of psychotic and bipolar disorders, along with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders. Dr. Guvenek-Cokol serves as the medical director for McLean Hospital's Child and Adolescent OCD Institute (OCDI Jr.) and the Support, Treatment, and Resilience (STAR) program, an outpatient program for teens and young adults. She is an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Samar Hafida, MD

Contributor

Samar Hafida, MD, is an adult endocrinologist at Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, MA. Her special interests include weight management and the effect of metabolic surgery in the management of type 2 diabetes. In addition to her clinical work, Dr. Hafida is passionate about medical education and delivery of diabetes care to health systems. She is assistant director of global education and is involved in several education initiatives geared to a wide variety of learners and provides consultation to health systems on reforming diabetes care and improving outcomes.

Kathleen Haley, MD

Contributor

Kathleen J. Haley, MD, is a physician in the Pulmonary and Critical Care Division at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She graduated from the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine and then completed an Internal Medicine Residency at the New England Deaconess Hospital followed by fellowships in Pulmonary Medicine at the New England Deaconess Hospital and Critical Care Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Haley is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Associate Physician at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she attends in the Medical and Thoracic Intensive Care Units. Additionally, she serves as the Medical Director for the BWH Ventilator Service at Spaulding Hospital Cambridge. She is active in clinical research, where her interests include asthma and chronic critical illness.

Daniel L. Hall, PhD

Contributor

Daniel L. Hall, PhD, is a licensed clinical health psychologist, Harvard Medical School integrative medicine research fellow, and a clinical fellow in psychology in the department of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). He works with clinical research teams at the MGH Behavioral Medicine program, the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine, the MGH Cancer Center, and the division of general medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Dr. Hall’s research examines how medical patients experience and cope with uncertainty and stress arising from cancer and other chronic illnesses. He is currently testing a multimodal mind-body intervention to help ease fear of cancer recurrence.

Florencia Halperin, MD

Contributor

Florencia Halperin, MD, is the co-founder and Co-Director of the Center for Weight Management and Metabolic Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Chief of Endocrinology at Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital. Her clinical research is focused on the delivery of weight loss interventions, as well as on the metabolic effects of bariatric surgery. Her clinical research is complemented by her clinical practice focused on the management of obesity and diabetes.

Matthew Hamilton, MD

Contributor

Dr. Matthew Hamilton is an associate gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He currently serves as the director of the inflammatory bowel disease fellowship and IBD education programs.

Syed Moin Hassan, MD

Contributor

Dr. Hassan is currently a sleep medicine fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, and a research fellow at Harvard Medical School. He is also the recipient of the Academic Sleep Pulmonary Integrated Research/Clinical Fellowship (ASPIRE) from the American Thoracic Society. His research interests include sleep-disordered breathing and pulmonary hypertension.

Kathryn Hatch, MD

Contributor

Kathryn M. Hatch, MD is the Director of Refractive Surgery at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and the Site Director of Mass. Eye and Ear Waltham. She is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. She is an accomplished surgeon in all-laser refractive surgery techniques including, LASIK and PRK, complex and refractive laser-assisted cataract surgery with intraoperative aberrometry, corneal crosslinking and Intacs (intrastromal corneal ring segments) for keratoconus and post-LASIK ectasia as well as advanced techniques in corneal transplant surgery. Since joining the staff, she has assisted in bringing new technologies to Mass. Eye and Ear including refractive laser-assisted cataract surgery with intraoperative aberrometry, collagen crosslinking, inlays for presbyopia, the Visumax laser (the only laser which performs the small incision lenticule extraction procedure, or SMILE, for the refractive surgical treatment of myopia), and lipiflow for dry eye disease. Dr. Hatch is considered a key opinion leader in the treatment of keratoconus and has been performing collagen crosslinking since 2011. She was an investigator in phase IV clinical trial in which she was performing minimally invasive crosslinking for greater than 5 years. In 2016, she became the first person at Mass. Eye and Ear to perform crosslinking with the FDA-approved technology and is one of the busiest crosslinking specialists in the US. She is embarking in a research project to assist in developing a screening tool for keratoconus and post-LASIK ectasia. Additionally, Dr. Hatch has experience in the treatment of ocular surface disease and dry eye, corneal dystrophies and anterior segment reconstruction. She performs cutting-edge corneal transplantation surgery, including both full thickness penetrating keratoplasty and partial thickness transplant surgery, DSAEK (Descemet Stripping Automated Endothelial Keratoplasty), DMEK (Descemets Membrane Endothelial Keratoplasty), and DALK (Deep Anterior Lamellar Keratectomy). She also performs IEK (Intralase Enabled Keratoplasty) and IE-DALK (Intralase Enabled Deep Anterior Lamellar Keratoplasty) and was the first eye surgeon in New England to perform IE-DALK. Dr. Hatch is an active fellow of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and a diplomat of the American Board of Ophthalmology. She is a member of several organizations including the New England Ophthalmic Society, the Cornea Society, the American Society of Progressive Enterprising Surgeons, the American European College of Ophthalmic Surgeons and the Massachusetts Medical Society. She has been in invited speaker at several regional, national and international meetings. In 2016 and 2017, Dr. Hatch was selected as one of the 300 Premier Innovators in refractive cataract surgery in the United States by Ocular Surgery News.

Marissa Hauptman, MD, MPH

Contributor

Dr. Marissa Hauptman is a board-certified pediatrician and associate director of the Pediatric Environmental Health Center; associate director of the Boston Children's Hospital Pediatric and Reproductive Environmental Health Fellowship Program and the Region 1 New England pediatric environmental health specialty unit at Boston Children’s Hospital, where each week she provides multidisciplinary care for children with lead exposure; and an instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Hauptman’s research focuses on using spatial analysis techniques to research and improve environmental and social health disparities in children with chronic diseases. She earned her MD from New York University School of Medicine, and also holds a masters in public health from Brown University.

Chester Hedgepeth, III, MD, PhD

Contributor

Chester M. Hedgepeth, III, MD, PhD, is a cardiovascular specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Hedgepeth also serves as the executive chief of cardiology for the Care New England Health System, and chief of cardiology at Kent and Memorial Hospitals in Rhode Island. Dr. Hedgepeth received his medical degree from Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed an internal medicine residency and fellowships in cardiovascular disease and electrophysiology at BWH. He is board certified in both internal medicine and cardiovascular disease. Dr. Hedgepeth founded, and currently leads, the BWH/Kent Hospital cardiac telemedicine service, which provides consultative support for Kent Hospital. His clinical and research interests include coronary artery disease, cardiomyopathies, congestive heart failure, cardiac arrhythmia, and the mechanisms of arrhythmic death after myocardial infarction. His research has received support from the National Institutes of Health.

Jeffrey S. Heier, MD

Contributor

Dr. Jeffrey S. Heier is the director of the retina service and director of retina research at Ophthalmic Consultants of Boston. He is the past president of the Retina Society, a member of the American Society of Retina Specialists executive committee, the past president of the New England Ophthalmological Society, and a member of the Macula Society. He is one of the leading retinal clinical researchers in the country for new treatments in retinal disease. He is a scientific advisor to many biotechnical or pharmaceutical companies, lectures nationally and internationally, and has authored numerous peer-reviewed works. Dr. Heier received his medical degree from Boston University, completed an internship and residency at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center, and a vitreoretinal fellowship at OCB/Tufts School of Medicine. He served as a physician in a combat support hospital in the Persian Gulf War, where he was awarded a Bronze Star.

Joyce Hendley

Staff Writer

Joyce Hendley is a staff writer who contributes articles to Harvard Health Publishing’s flagship website and its four newsletters: the Harvard Health Letter, Harvard Heart Letter, Harvard Women’s Health Watch, and Harvard Men’s Health Watch. She is an award-winning writer and editor who is passionate about exploring the connections between food and health. A longtime nutrition journalist and a former food editor, her work has appeared in dozens of health-focused sites, publications, and cookbooks, including EatingWell, WW, Diabetic Living, The American Diabetes Association, and the Institute of Natural Medicine. Based in Cortez, Florida, Joyce is also an adjunct lecturer in public communication at the University of Vermont. She holds a master’s degree in nutrition and food science from New York University.

Brandi Henson, PsyD

Contributor

Brandi S. Henson, PsyD, is an Attending Psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry at Boston Children’s Hospital and a Clinical Instructor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Her clinical and research interests are in the neurodevelopmental trajectories of children and adolescents with congenital heart disease and associated genetic syndromes.

David Hepner, MD, MPH

Contributor

David Hepner, MD, MPH, is medical director of the Weiner Center for Preoperative Evaluation at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and associate professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School. He is an associate faculty member of Ariadne Labs. His clinical and research interests in preoperative assessment, and his vision of a society in the area of preoperative assessment and its impact on surgical outcomes, led him to be one of the cofounders in 2005 of the Society for Perioperative Assessment and Quality Improvement, an international multidisciplinary society. Since then, he has been an active participant in improving surgical outcomes by sharing best practices, promoting research, and enhancing communication among health professionals across multiple disciplines. Dr. Hepner is a founding member of the Emergency Manual Implementation Collaborative, whose goal is to foster the dissemination and effective use of emergency checklists to enhance patient safety. He has helped lead expert panel interactive discussions on progress toward effective use of emergency manuals in hospitals across the country and helped develop an implementation toolkit. Dr. Hepner received his BA from Clark University, his MPH from Harvard School of Public Health, and his MD from Medical College of Wisconsin. His clinical training includes internship in medicine at the Washington University School of Medicine, and residency in anesthesiology and fellowship in obstetric anesthesia at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Kevin Hill, MD, MHS

Contributor

Dr. Kevin Hill is director of addiction psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He earned a master’s in health science at the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at the Yale School of Medicine. He most commonly treats patients who have problems with alcohol, cannabis, or opioids, and teaches medical students and physicians how to treat patients with addictions. The author of Marijuana: The Unbiased Truth about the World’s Most Popular Weed and coauthor of Medical Cannabis: An Evidence-Based Guide, Dr. Hill’s research interests include the development of medications to treat cannabis use disorder as well as cannabis policy, and he has published widely on these topics in such journals as JAMA, The American Journal of Psychiatry, JAMA Internal Medicine, and Lancet Psychiatry. He serves on the editorial boards of Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research and the American Journal on Addictions.

Eric Holbrook, MD

Contributor

Eric H. Holbrook, M.D. graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelors in Science and from the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse with a Masters in Science and a Degree in Medicine. He completed a National Institutes of Health post-doctoral fellowship and residency in otolaryngology at the Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University. He completed further training with a fellowship in Rhinology and Sinus Surgery at the University of Nebraska Medical Center under Dr. Donald Leopold. He has been a member of the full time faculty at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (MEEI) since 2003, is an Associate Professor of Otolaryngology at the Harvard Medical School, and serves as the Chief of the Rhinology Division at MEEI. His principal clinical interests are diseases of the nose and sinuses, chronic rhinosinusitis, endoscopic skull base surgery, and olfactory disorders. His research interests include immunohistochemical characterization of human olfactory tissue, effects of odor exposure on olfactory regeneration, and manipulating human olfactory stem cells for potential restoration of function.

Harvard Health Experts and Contributors

List of Experts

Toni Golen, MD

Lais Lopes Almeida Gomes

Joyce Gomes-Osman, PhD, PT

Peter Gonzalez, MD

Rachael Moeller Gorman

David C. Grabowski, PhD

Shelly Greenfield, MD, MPH

Peter Grinspoon, MD

Staci Gruber, PhD

Perihan Esra Guvenek-Cokol

Samar Hafida, MD

Kathleen Haley, MD

Daniel L. Hall, PhD

Florencia Halperin, MD

Matthew Hamilton, MD

Syed Moin Hassan, MD

Kathryn Hatch, MD

Marissa Hauptman, MD, MPH

Chester Hedgepeth, III, MD, PhD

Jeffrey S. Heier, MD

Joyce Hendley

Brandi Henson, PsyD

David Hepner, MD, MPH

Kevin Hill, MD, MHS

Eric Holbrook, MD