ThinkResearch Podcast

Jessie M. Gaeta, MD, is the chief medical officer of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP), where she has practiced internal medicine since 2002. She oversees the clinical practice of this unique community health center that serves 12,000 people annually across dozens of clinical sites, including homeless shelters, the street, and one of the first medical respite programs in the country. Gaeta also directs BHCHP’s Institute for Research, Quality, and Policy in Homeless Health. Her passions include ending homelessness and bending the curve on overdose deaths.

Sheila Dillon, MBA, cabinet chief of housing and director of the Department of Neighborhood Development for the City of Boston, is a member of Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s cabinet and acts as advisor on housing issues in the city. She oversees the management of the Boston Home Center, the Neighborhood Housing Development team, the Real Estate Management and Sales team, and spearheads the city’s efforts around housing Boston’s homeless. In addition, she leads the Office of Housing Stability, and is charged with protecting residents’ tenancies in Boston’s competitive real estate market.

Karen Emmons, PhD, is professor of social and behavioral science at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and faculty lead of Harvard Catalyst’s Community Engagement program. She is a behavioral scientist with a strong track record of funded research in community-based approaches to cancer prevention in a variety of settings that serve under-resourced communities, including low income housing and community health centers. Her work targets a range of cancer risk factors, including nutrition, physical activity, sun exposure, tobacco and second-hand smoke exposure, and cancer screening.

Alexa Kimball, MD, MPH, is CEO and president of Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, co-chair of the Beth Israel Lahey Health Performance Network Board, on the Board of Trustees of Beth Israel Lahey Health, and professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School. Her research includes psoriasis and hidradenitis suppurativa.

Katy Stephenson, MD, MPH, is director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research Clinical Trials Unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Stephenson is a physician-scientist who specializes in infectious diseases and immunology. The goal of her research is to develop novel biomedical interventions to prevent and treat HIV and emerging infectious diseases such as Zika virus and COVID-19.

Yonatan Grad, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH), and an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). Using a combination of genomics, microbiology, mathematical modeling, and epidemiological tools, his lab investigates how pathogens evolve and spread. In collaboration with hospitals and public health institutions, his projects include studying outbreaks, as well as the biology and epidemiology that underlies the emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance. He earned his MD and PhD at Harvard Medical School, trained in internal medicine at BWH, and in infectious diseases at BWH and Massachusetts General Hospital. He completed his research fellowship at the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at HSPH with Marc Lipsitch.

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.

Jane Wilkinson is senior director of alliance and project management of the Genomics Platform at the Broad Institute, where she manages the platform’s external collaborations and alliances. Wilkinson has over 20 years of high-throughput genomics experience from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Genome Center where she was a key leader on the Human Genome Project, and at Monsanto Company where she led a new directive in plant genomics. During her time at the Broad, she has worked on various genomic initiatives including cancer, mendelian, and infectious and common diseases.

Lotfi Merabet, OD, PhD, is a clinician-scientist who is investigating how the brain adapts to visual impairment. He is director of the Laboratory for Visual Neuroplasticity at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Schepens Eye Research Institute. He is staff optometrist in the vision rehabilitation service at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and associate professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School.

Janet Mullington, PhD, is the program director of the Clinical Research Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), and professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. Mullington has a national and international reputation of excellence in the area of the role of sleep in human health and disease, with a focus on inflammation and host defenses. She also works to better understand the impact of sleep on cardiovascular, endocrine, and neurobehavioral function.