Smith Center Faculty
Our Team
Our team unequivocally embraces inclusiveness and equity. We pledge to continue through our work and actions to shine a light on racial disparities in health access and outcomes, and to identify solutions for positive change. We commit ourselves to being anti-racist, challenging the status-quo and striving for a just world.
Investigators
Robert W. Yeh, MD, MSc, MBA is the Director of the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and the Katz Silver Family Endowed Chair and Associate Professor of Medicine in the Field of Outcomes Research in Cardiology at Harvard Medical School. His area of investigation focuses on evaluating cardiovascular devices and therapies in both clinical trials and observational studies, with an emphasis on understanding methods to improve the value of novel technologies as they are used in clinical practice. He serves as the Medical Director of Trial Design for the Baim Institute for Clinical Research. His clinical area of expertise is in interventional cardiology, with an emphasis in coronary chronic total occlusion intervention.
Dhruv Kazi, MD, MSc, MS serves as the Section Head of Health Economics and the Associate Director of the Smith Center. At BIDMC, he is the Director of the Cardiac Critical Care Unit. He is a general cardiologist and health economist who uses real-world data and mathematical modeling to examine the clinical and economic effects of diagnostic tests, new therapies, and public health measures on the cardiovascular health of the population. Dr. Kazi is interested in understanding how such interventions affect different sections of society, particularly the most vulnerable populations in the U.S. and overseas. He earned his MD from the University of Mumbai, his MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and his MS from the Stanford University School of Medicine.
Daniel Kramer, MD, MPH is the Section Head of Electrophysiology and Digital Health at the Smith Center and the Director of Pacemaker and ICD Service at BIDMC. In addition, he is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a faculty member of the Harvard Center for Bioethics. A former Beeson Scholar and Greenwall Faculty Scholar in Bioethics, Dr. Kramer's research focuses on clinical policy and ethics questions arising from the use of medical devices. Current work in progress includes an NIH-funded prospective study of clinical trajectories following ICD implantation, bioethical and regulatory considerations in digital diagnostics, and new clinical trials evaluating novel aspects of device-based therapy for arrhythmias.
Jordan Strom, MD, MSc was the inaugural fellow at the Smith Center and is now the Center’s Section Head of Cardiovascular Imaging Research. His work involves evaluation of the impact of public policies, care structures, and imaging on cardiovascular health outcomes, as well as the development of novel tools for pre-procedural risk stratification, especially for valvular heart disease. Dr. Strom is also an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a non-invasive cardiologist specializing in echocardiography and cardiovascular magnetic resonance at BIDMC.
Eric A. Secemsky, MD, MSc is the Section Head of Interventional Cardiology and Vascular Research at the Smith Center. He is the Director of Vascular Intervention in the CardioVascular Institute at BIDMC and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Secemsky's research focuses on the comparative effectiveness of coronary and vascular therapies, with an emphasis on the use of novel statistical methods. He also examines outcomes related to cardiovascular disorders and the use of risk prediction models to guide treatment.
Rishi Wadhera, MD, MPP, MPhil is the Section Head of Health Policy and Equity Research at the Smith Center, an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a general cardiologist at BIDMC. He received his MD from the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine and completed his Internal Medicine residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He received his MPhil in Public Health from the University of Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar and his Master's in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government as a Jerome Grossman Health Policy Fellow. His research works include the impact of national health policy initiatives on healthcare spending, care quality, and outcomes; the impact of these initiatives on racial disparities in care; and the effect of insurance expansions on care delivery and outcomes.
Issa Dahabreh, MD, MS, ScD is the Section Head of Epidemiology and Data Science at the Smith Center and an Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His research focuses on the development of novel methods of extending causal inferences from one or more trials to target populations and transporting clinical prediction models. Dr. Dahabreh earned his MD from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, his MS in clinical and translational science from the Sackler School of Biomedical Sciences at Tufts University, and his ScD in epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Mabel Chung, MD is an Assistant Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School and a cardiothoracic anesthesiologist and intensivist at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is currently a T32 trainee and research fellow at the Smith Center investigating perioperative outcomes in heart failure patients undergoing noncardiac surgery. Her clinical area of expertise is in cardiothoracic anesthesia and critical care with a focus on mechanical circulatory support, including ventricular assist devices and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.
Yang Song, MSc is the Lead Biostatistician at the Smith Center. He has 7 years of work experience using SAS and R for statistical research and programming, and he has supported more than 30 publications in clinical trials and research proposals in the field of cardiovascular health. Yang’s comprehensive statistical methods knowledge and hands-on programming skills facilitate his handling of a range of data sources, including new drug and medical device clinical trials, NCDR Registries, CMS Medicare Claims, and raw EHR data. As a current BU PhD student, his research interests include clinical trial designs and observational studies.
Timothy Anderson, MD, MAS is an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a general internist in the Division of General Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is a primary care physician and health services researcher focused on identifying strategies to improve the quality of care delivered to older adults with cardiovascular conditions during transitions of care and reducing the delivery of low-value prescribing and diagnostic testing. His research applies advanced observational research methods to clinical, administrative, and pharmacy databases in order to improve our understanding of the patterns and outcomes of prescribing across care settings.
Suzanne J. Baron, MD, MSc is an interventional cardiologist specializing in structural heart interventions and is the Director of Interventional Cardiology Research at Lahey Hospital and Medical Center. Her research focuses on evaluating the effects of cardiovascular devices on patient-reported outcomes and health care costs as well as using modelling based approaches to identify optimal patient populations for treatment with novel technologies.
Brett Carroll, MD is the Director of the Section of Vascular Medicine and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He directs the BIDMC pulmonary embolism response team, is the medical director of the BIDMC Aortic Center, and director of lymphatic medicine. His research interests include venous thromboembolism, aortic disease, and lymphedema. He utilizes large administrative datasets to evaluate vascular diseases.
Anica Law, MD, MSc is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Boston University. She is a pulmonary-critical care physician and a health services researcher with a focus on improving outcomes of critically ill patients. Her research leverages large clinical and administrative databases to characterize the effects of external (e.g. legislation), internal (e.g. hospital and provider), and patient drivers on practice patterns, as well as to determine how practice pattern variations affect long-term outcomes of the critically ill.
Peter Zimetbaum, MD is Associate Chief and Director of Clinical Cardiology at BIDMC and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on new drug therapies for arrhythmias, health services research and cardiovascular outcomes.
Fellows and Trainees
Zaid Almarzooq, MBBCh is the chief cardiology fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is a research fellow at the Smith Center working on clinical and healthcare utilization outcomes of TAVR related stroke events. His other research interests include developing models for procedural risk stratification in structural heart interventions. He is also pursuing an MPH in Clinical Effectiveness at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
Anna Krawisz, MD is the Chief Cardiology Fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Anna is completing subspecialty training in vascular medicine and performing research at the Smith Center funded by a T32 training grant. Her projects, mentored by Dr. Eric Secemsky, focus on outcomes after interventional therapies for peripheral vascular disease, carotid artery disease, and pulmonary embolism.
Andrew Oseran, MD, MBA is a research fellow at the Smith Center, BIDMC and a clinical cardiology fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital. His research interests are in understanding how national health policy impacts health care access, quality, and equity. His research is currently supported by the John S. LaDue Memorial Fellowship in Cardiology.
Merilyn Varghese, MD is a cardiology fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She is a research fellow at the Smith Center with primary interests in cost effectiveness analysis and quasi-experimental study design. Her research projects, mentored by Dr. Dhruv Kazi, focus on the clinical outcomes and cost effectiveness analysis of cardiac rehabilitation.
Jamie E. Diamond, MD, MPH is a third-year cardiovascular medicine fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Jamie completed her internal medicine training at New York Presbyterian-Columbia University where she received research awards for her work involving revascularization strategy outcomes. She is interested in researching the impact of national health policies on heart failure. She plans to pursue a career of investigation as well as advanced heart failure and transplant.
Ashley Kyalwazi, BS is a fourth year medical student at Harvard Medical School. She is a 2021 Sarnoff Cardiovascular Research Fellow as well as the inaugural Zimetbaum Fellow. Her research, under the mentorship of Dr. Rishi Wadhera, focuses on issues of health equity in cardiovascular medicine from both clinical and policy standpoints. Ashley plans on applying into Internal Medicine Fall 2022.
Michael Liu, MPhil is a medical student at Harvard Medical School. He received his MPhil from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and AB from Harvard College. Under the mentorship of Dr. Rishi Wadhera, Michael focuses on access to care and quality of care within safety-net hospitals and disadvantaged communities. His other research interests focus on designing interventions and programs to improve the health of people experiencing homelessness.
Staff
Joanne Laffan, MBS
Senior Administrative Manager
Nora Al-Roub, MBBS
Clinical Research Writing Assistant
Shylie Ati, BA
Clinical Research Writing Assistant
Lindsay Duchesneau, MPA
Project Manager
Keri Hannagan, MPH
Program Manager
Siling Li, MSc
Biostatistician
Sarah McEwen, BA
Program Coordinator
Elizabeth Roe, AB
Clinical Research Writing Assistant
Manjot Singh, BSc
Clinical Research Assistant
Archana Tale, MPH
Biostatistician
Jiaman Xu, MPH
Biostatistician