ThinkResearch Podcast

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.

Milind Tambe, PhD, is Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science and director of the Center for Research in Computation and Society at Harvard University. He is also director of “AI for Social Good” at Google Research India. Tambe is a fellow at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). He is a recipient of the International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) John McCarthy Award, the Columbus Fellowship Foundation Homeland Security Award, the ACM/SIGAI Autonomous Agents Research Award from the American Association of Medical Audit Specialist (AAMAS), and AAAI Robert S Engelmore Memorial Lecture Award. Additionally, he has received the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) Wagner Prize, and the Rist Prize of the Military Operations Research Society.

Mark Siedner, MD, is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and principal investigator of multiple NIH R01 grants focused on improving HIV care delivery for people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. These projects include clinical trials, implementation science, and translation research designs. He is also engaged in collaborative research programs in Mbarara, Uganda and KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Siedner serves as a research mentor to more than a dozen junior scientists on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and has been recognized for this work with the HMS Young Mentor Award.

Senthil K. Muthuswamy, PhD, is the director of the Cell Biology Program at the Cancer Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Muthuswamy was among the first to employ three-dimensional cell culture (referred to as organoids). His laboratory develops and uses organoid models to understand how cell polarity proteins regulate cancer initiation, progression, and therapy resistance. Ongoing work in his group involves using organoids for understanding how cell polarity proteins modulate cancer initiation, therapy resistance, biomarker discovery, and T cell–tumor cell interactions. In addition, his group works closely with clinical teams to investigate the utility of patient-derived tumor organoids for the personalization of treatment for cancer patients. Muthuswamy received his PhD from McMaster University, Canada, and completed his postdoctoral fellowship with Joan Brugge at HMS.