ThinkResearch Podcast

Elena Aikawa, MD, PhD, is professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, director of the Vascular Biology Program at the Center for Interdisciplinary Sciences, founding director of the Heart Valve Translational Research Program, and associate head of section of Cardiovascular Life Sciences at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She holds editorial positions at Circulation Research, Journal of Extracellular Vesicles, PLoS ONE, and Arteriosclerosis Thrombosis and Vascular Biology. Aikawa’s research focuses on the development of new therapies to prevent, treat, and cure calcific aortic valve stenosis.

Anna Etchin, PhD, is an advanced nurse fellow in polytrauma/traumatic brain injury (TBI) rehabilitation at the Translational Research Center for TBI and Stress Disorders within the VA Boston Healthcare system. She is committed to improving the holistic wellbeing of veterans as they reintegrate into civilian life. Her program of research focuses on post-9/11 U.S. veteran resilience and health functioning, particularly within the context of childhood and deployment trauma. Etchin’s clinical background is in geriatric, psychiatric, hospice and palliative, and long-term care nursing with the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs. She is a baccalaureate-level registered nurse and received her PhD in nursing from Northeastern University.

Hardeep Ranu, PhD, is a project manager for Translational Innovator and is responsible for managing a diverse set of clinical and translational research project teams. Ranu joined Harvard Catalyst from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she managed the TaqMan genotyping core for 13 years. As the genotyping project manager, Ranu worked with faculty of Harvard Medical School, Chan School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School affiliated hospitals, and external institutions to design and develop genotyping projects. Her role as genotyping project manager involved coordinating with two funding entities, the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC) and Partners Healthcare|Personalized Medicine as well as working with senior management and faculty from DF/HCC to write and prepare reports for DF/HCC submissions and renewals.

Melissa Dell, PhD, is the Andrew E. Furer Professor of Economics at Harvard University. She is also a senior scholar at the Harvard Academy for Area and International Studies and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Her research focuses on economic growth and political economy. She has examined the factors leading to the persistence of poverty and prosperity in the long run, the effects of trade-induced job loss on crime, the impacts of U.S. foreign intervention, and the effects of weather on economic growth. She has also developed deep learning powered methods for curating social science data at scale, released in the open-source package Layout Parser. This work supports many of her current projects, which rely on digitizing historical sources too large for manual digitization. She received an AB in economics from Harvard, an MPhil in economics from Oxford University, and a PhD in economics from MIT.

Walid Yassine, DMSc, MMSc, is a research fellow at the Laboratory of Behavioral Neuroimaging at McLean Hospital and a research fellow in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on several neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders. Yassine uses different approaches including imaging, behavioral assessment, and artificial intelligence to better understand the brain. His ultimate goal is to be able to assess risk factors, discover objective biomarkers, elucidate disorder spectrum and symptom overlap, and provide targeted therapeutic interventions in various disorders of the mind. Currently, he is focusing on better understanding the different effects of drugs on the brain.

Gina Rae Kruse, MD, MPH, is an assistant professor in medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in the Division of General Internal Medicine and director of the Implementation Lab in Harvard’s Implementation Science Center for Cancer Control Equity. She is also an implementation director for a Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics in Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) NIH supplement. Through community partnerships, RADx-UP studies the expansion of SARS-CoV-2 testing in underserved populations in Massachusetts. Kruse earned her MD from Baylor College of Medicine and completed her residency in internal medicine and primary care at MGH. She completed a general medicine fellowship at Harvard Medical School and a postdoc fellowship in cancer prevention from the Department of Social and Behavioral Science at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Eddie Taborda, MS, is a senior clinical research coordinator for the Kraft Center’s Implementation Laboratory (I-Lab) within the Implementation Science Center for Cancer Control Equity. He is also the operations manager for Massachusetts General Hospital mobile efforts focused on the initiative Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics in Underserved Populations (RADx-UP), and COVID-19 vaccine coordinator for Mass General Brigham mobile vaccine operations. Taborda graduated from Northeastern University with a MS in exercise science.

Rosa Torres is a patient care coordinator at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Everett Family Care. She has a lifelong passion for community service, and during the pandemic was able to work in community outreach and expand into leadership roles.

Daniel Cortez is the community engagement specialist for the Chelsea Police Department in Chelsea, Massachusetts. He works closely with residents, community leaders, elected officials, business owners, and community-based organizations, along with police to create meaningful relationships and partnerships aimed at improving the safety and wellbeing of the community. Previously, Cortez worked as manager of community-based initiatives on substance use disorders for Massachusetts General Hospital’s Chelsea Health Center, where he guided a group of community leaders in a comprehensive, city-wide plan aimed at reducing substance use disorders. These efforts led to increased awareness of the issue and improved access to care in Chelsea.

Ishita Basu, PhD, assistant professor, University of Cincinnati neurosurgery department, is a neural engineer with more than a decade of experience in brain signal analysis and modeling. Her research uses techniques from engineering and computational neuroscience to design innovative treatment paradigms for major neurological and psychiatric disorders. Originally from the east coast of India, Basu received her PhD from the University of Illinois in Chicago. She went on to complete postdoctoral fellowships at Johns Hopkins University and Massachusetts General Hospital. Her future vison is to integrate a diverse group of biomedical engineers, neuroscientists, psychiatrists, and medical students to advance the field of neural engineering and neuromodulation in mental disorders.

Subha Ramani, MBBS, MPH, MMed, PhD, FAMEE, is a general internist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and adjunct associate professor at Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Professions. At  Brigham and Women’s Hospital, she serves as director of a program for research, innovations, and scholarship for the Department of Medicine, director of the scholars in medical education pathway for the Internal Medicine Residency program, and lead for global perspectives and community for the Brigham Education Institute.

Dr. Ramani graduated with an MBBS degree from University of Madras, India, and received master’s degrees in medical education from the University of Dundee, Scotland, and in public health from the Boston University School of Public Health. She received her PhD in health professions education from Maastricht University, Netherlands.