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VA Healthcare-VISN 4

 

CEPACT Biographies

 

Rachel Werner, MD, PhDRACHEL WERNER, MD, PhD,  is a general internist and health economist at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center.  She is a national leader in measuring and improving health care quality, and the intended and unintended effects of these efforts on heterogeneous populations. With a strong clinical and econometric background, she is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers; the Dissertation Award and the Alice S. Hersh New Investigator Award from Academy Health; and the John D. Thompson Prize for Young Investigators from the Association of University Programs in Health Administration.  (return to Who We Are) 

 


David Asch, MD, MBADAVID ASCH, MD, MBA,  is a leader in understanding and improving clinical decisions and health care quality and equity. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Alice S. Hersh New Investigator Award, Academy Health (1997); the Outstanding Investigator Award, American Federation for Clinical Research (1999); and the VA Undersecretary’s Award for Health Services Research (2008). He is an elected member of the Association of American Physicians and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.  (return to Who We Are) 


Judith Long, MDJUDITH LONG, MD, is Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, as well as core faculty for the VA Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP), and a member of both the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics and the University of Pennsylvania's Institute for Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism. Dr. Long trained in Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and completed a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholarship at Yale. Dr. Long's research focuses on social determinants of health and health care, especially as they pertain to socioeconomic and racial disparities. Dr. Long assesses these issues in the context of chronic disease, especially diabetes, using established measures to guage disease-specific medical outcomes, with an emphasis on issues of access, environment, and race in diabetes control.  (return to Who We Are) 


ANNELIESE BUTLER, MSS, brings a background in social research and social work to her position with CEPACT, where she works primarily in the Qualitative Core. She has previously worked on several qualitative research studies at the University of California - San Francisco, as a study coordinator at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and as a direct service provider to youth and families across a number of settings. Anneliese holds a BA in Cultural Anthropology from Bryn Mawr College and an MSS from the Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work & Social Research. (return to Who We Are) 

ANNE CANAMUCIO, MS, is a statistician and programmer for CEPACT working with all aspects of data analysis, including researching data sources, data acquisition, data preparation and statistical analysis.  She earned a BS in Mathematics from Penn State University and a MS in Statistics from the University of New Mexico.  Anne has over 25 years of experience working with data in government, academic and private sector settings. (return to Who We Are) 

HENRY GLICK, PhD, is Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and in the Wharton School. He has substantial experience in conducting economic assessments as part of clinical trials and has written extensively about the methods for conducting such assessments with over 100 peer-reviewed articles and several book chapters on these issues. He is the lead author of Economic Evaluation in Clinical Trials (Oxford Press), which is the first book to be entirely dedicated to this topic and describes methodology of economic assessments in trials including chapters on study design; methods for collecting economic data; methods for obtaining unit cost estimates for costing out within-trial medical service use; and analysis of costs and cost effectiveness. (return to Who We Are) 

JENNIFER GUTIERREZ, MA, has worked on a range of studies from arthritis and joint replacements, to diabetes and serious mental illness during her six years with the Center for Health Equity, Research, and Promotion (CHERP). She received her undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and a graduate degree in clinical and counseling psychology from LaSalle University. (return to Who We Are) 

BOŻENA LAMPARSKA, MM, MEd, joined the VA after working for 20+ years in Philadelphia’s community mental health system as a therapist and in public health as a program manager. Although new to qualitative research, she brings experience with data management and analysis to her position with CEPACT.  She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in both music and psychology. (return to Who We Are) 

MICHELE LEMPA, DrPH, is the Administrative Director of CEPACT. She has experience and expertise in community engagement and coalition building, participatory research, and qualitative data collection and analysis. Michele earned a bachelor's degree in English from Rutgers University, a master's degree in Public Health from University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and a doctoral degree in Public Health from Tulane University. (return to Who We Are) 

STEVE MARCUS, PhD, is an epidemiologist, statistician, computer scientist and a core investigator at the VA Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP). He is also Associate Professor in the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. Current research includes a project recently funded by NIMH assessing the incidence, nature and preventability of patient safety events in 38 Pennsylvania inpatient psychiatric units or general hospitals. His primary focus of research is in mental health services, studying the outcomes, quality of care, and pharmaco-epidemiology of patients with serious mental disorders. (return to Who We Are)

DAVID OSLIN, MD, is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Oslin is the Director of the VISN 4 Mental Illness, Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC) and the Associate Chief of Staff for Behavioral Health at the Philadelphia VAMC. MIRECC and the Behavioral Health Laboratory support research on comorbidity and integrated care respectively and facilitate a number of research projects for post-doctoral fellows and faculty. Dr. Oslin is the author of over 80 research publications and 31 chapters, books, or editorials. Dr. Oslin’s research interests includes studies on access to behavioral health intervention care, treatment outcomes for addictive disorders,  the pharmacogenetics of addiction treatment, and the implementation and dissemination of evidence based practices for integrating primary and mental health care. (return to Who We Are)  

MARY PELAK, MSW, a Program Specialist with CEPACT, received an undergraduate degree in English from Beloit College and a graduate degree in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice. She has previously worked in nonprofit organizations focusing on education and community engagement. (return to Who We Are)  

DEBASHREE SENGUPTA, BA, is a Program Specialist for CEPACT. Debashree has helped inner-city youth with sickle cell anemia and asthma develop skills to prevent and manage their symptoms. She has also worked to increase Harlem Hospital patients' access to community resources. Her experiences have introduced her to patient-centered approaches to medical care. Debashree received a BA in Biology and History from Columbia University. (return to Who We Are)

JUDY A. SHEA, PhD, is Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, at the University of Pennsylvania as well as Associate Dean of Medical Education Research and Director of the Office of Evaluation and Assessment in the Academic Programs Office, School of Medicine.  Prior to coming to Penn she was a Senior Psychometrician at the American Board of Internal Medicine.  She serves dual roles, working with faculty and fellows to design and evaluate research projects, and directing the evaluation of the medical school curriculum and faculty.  Much of her work focuses on evaluating the psychometric properties of curriculum evaluation tools and developing measures to assess components of health such as health literacy, patient satisfaction, and health-related quality of life. She has methodological expertise with chart reviews, validity assessments, meta-analyses, outcome assessment, instrument development, survey research, and qualitative designs. (return to Who We Are) 

CHRISTIAN TERWIESCH, PhD, is Professor of Operations and Information Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He also is a Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics. His research on Operations Management and on R&D and Innovation Management appears in many of the leading academic journals, including Management Science, Operations Research, Marketing Science, and Organization Science. He is also active on various editorial boards for journals including Management Science and Production and Operations Management. (return to Who We Are) 

GALA TRUE, PhD, is a medical anthropologist and folklorist whose research focuses on understanding and reducing health disparities and access to care through a patient-centered perspective. As Co-Director of the Qualitative Research Core of CEPACT, Dr. True employs qualitative and mixed methods research approaches to evaluate and document implementation of PACT across VISN 4. Another area of Dr. True’s research involves investigating the use of narrative and ethnography to understand barriers to mental health care for veterans returning from combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. She is also part of a team funded by the NIH Office of Research Integrity to develop interventions to ensure research integrity of community-based research studies that employ community members to conduct front-line research activities. Dr. True collaborates with a number of investigators at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center and the University of Pennsylvania to integrate qualitative and mixed-methods research approaches with public health research. (return to Who We Are)