Lisa McElroy, MD, MS is an Associate Professor of Surgery and Population Health Sciences and Director of Health Services Research for the Department of Surgery at Duke University, where she serves as the Inaugural Onyekwere E. Akwari Endowed Associate Professor in Surgery. She received her research training via a T32 postdoctoral research fellowship at Northwestern University and earned a Master of Science in Health Services and Outcomes Research through the Institute for Public Health and Medicine. Her research program focuses on advancing data science methods to improve organizational decision-making across the transplant care continuum, aiming to implement multi-level interventions that promote access to transplant and ultimately improve health outcomes for patients from marginalized groups.
Yashashwi Pokharel, MS, MSCR, is a cardiologist and a health service researcher who currently serves as an assistant professor at Wake Forest University, School of Medicine in North Carolina. He completed clinical cardiology and a T-32 cardiovascular outcome research fellowship from Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, University of Missouri Kansas City following a postdoctoral training in lipid and lipoprotein fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Pokharel has previously received funding from the American Heart Association and is currently funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, including a K23 career development award, and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute. As a health service researcher, he is interested in reciprocal innovation in cardiovascular and cardiometabolic health in global and the US setting by using the principles of social medicine and community-engaged dissemination and implementation research.
Giovanni "Gio" Ramos, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Ramos directs the Mental Health Equity in Access and Treatment (mHEAT) Lab, whose goal is to reduce mental health disparities affecting racial and ethnic minorities by 1) identifying risk and resilience factors that influence the mental health of these groups, 2) enhancing the cultural and contextual fit of mental health treatments through data-driven adaptations and implementation strategies, and 3) using digital tools to increase the accessibility of mental health services.
Daisy Leon-Martinez, MD, is an Assistant Professor and Maternal-Fetal Medicine specialist whose research focuses on reducing maternal morbidity associated with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy through implementation science and patient-centered intervention development. Her work examines how integrating culturally responsive approaches into prenatal care can improve self-management and reduce disparities in obstetric outcomes.
Odmara L. Barreto Chang, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care at the University of California, San Francisco. She completed her MD/PhD at Stanford University, followed by Anesthesia residency and T32 NIH postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco. She is a translational neuroscientist who integrates clinical and bench research to understand perioperative neurocognitive disorders, the most common postsurgical complication in older adults. She is a distinguished scholar supported by the prestigious Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program, where her research focuses on perioperative risk factors contributing to postsurgical cognitive decline in older adults undergoing spine surgery. She aims to identify risk factors for postoperative delirium, considering patients’ baseline health status, surgical complexity, and social determinants of health. Dr. Barreto Chang’s ultimate goal is to improve patient outcomes and advance the field of anesthesia by developing and implementing effective care pathways to prevent delirium.
Noelene K. Jeffers, PhD, CNM, IBCLC, is an Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. Dr. Jeffers received her PhD from the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and completed postdoctoral training in maternal and child health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is the founder of the Birth Equity lab (birthequitylab.com), where she leads research that uses creative, multimodal, and data-informed approaches to understand how structural systems shape inequities in perinatal outcomes and experiences and to co-create culturally affirming perinatal care models. As a second-year K12 Clinical Research Scholar, her current work focuses on examining blood pressure trajectories among postpartum women. Through community-engaged partnerships with federally qualified centers, community-based organizations, patients, and families, her research also leverages human-centered design and implementation science to develop, test, and implement midwife-led models that improve postpartum care for women diagnosed with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.
Demilade Adedinsewo MB, ChB, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic Florida, specializing in women’s cardiovascular health, echocardiography, and the application of artificial intelligence to cardiovascular care. She is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Disease, and Echocardiography. She earned her medical degree from Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria and a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology and Global Health from Emory University. She completed a research fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control and holds a professional certificate in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on AI-enabled cardiovascular screening in women, particularly during pregnancy and postpartum. She leads multi-site studies and collaborates internationally. She is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the European Society of Cardiology.
Adali Martinez, MD, MPH, is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care at University of California San Francisco, with a clinical practice at San Francisco General Hospital, the county’s safety net hospital. She earned her medical degree at UCSF and master’s in public health with a concentration in health policy and management at UC Berkeley. She has since completed all clinical and research training at UCSF including her internal medicine residency, chief residency, pulmonary and critical care fellowship, and F32 postdoctoral research fellowship. Her research focuses on examining and addressing the factors that contribute to inequities in respiratory diseases. Her long-term goal is to build an implementation research program specifically to address disparities in lung cancer care through the evaluation of evidence-based interventions. Dr. Martinez was recognized with the Emerging Health Equity Scholar Award from the UCSF Multiethnic Health Equity Research Center.
Learn more about the RISE Program here: https://epibiostat.ucsf.edu/research-implementation-science-engagement-rise