Mass EQLHS Current Scholars
Endocrine Surgeon
Home Institution: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Health System: Beth Israel Lahey Health
Q. Lina Hu-bianco, MD
Dr. Hu-Bianco is an academic endocrine surgeon at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center as well as an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. She received her Doctorate in Medicine from Johns Hopkins University. She completed her General Surgery residency at the University of California, Los Angeles and her Endocrine Surgery fellowship at Columbia University. During her training, she completed a competitive two-year research fellowship at the American College of Surgeons while simultaneously obtaining a Master’s in Health Services and Outcomes Research from Northwestern University. Dr. Hu-Bianco’s project seeks to characterize the multi-level factors that influence the receipt of guideline-concordant care in thyroid cancer management to ultimately inform interventions to improve access to guideline-concordant care. Her long-term career goal is to become an independent clinician investigator with expertise in learning health systems and implementation science to improve evidence-based care practices in surgery.
Project Title: Factors Influencing Access to Guideline-Concordant Care in Thyroid Cancer
Economist
Home Institution: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Health System: Beth Israel Lahey Health
Ashley o’donoghue, PhD
Dr. O’Donoghue is an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Economist at the Center for Healthcare Delivery Science at BIDMC, where she leads the data analytics team and specializes in quasi-experimental designs and econometric methods for causal inference. Dr. O'Donoghue is a Senior Editor for Healthcare: The Journal of Delivery Science. She also serves as a Volunteer Case Reviewer for the Massachusetts Department of Children & Families (DCF) Foster Care Review Unit to help plan for the future of children placed in foster care. She received a PhD in economics in 2020 and a BA in economics and mathematics in 2015. Dr. O'Donoghue works on a variety of healthcare delivery research projects. Her primary research interests are improving access to outpatient care and reducing barriers to safe transitions between inpatient and outpatient settings, especially for behavioral health and perinatal patients. Her research has been featured in National Geographic, NPR, Forbes, and Freakonomics Radio, among other outlets
Project Title: Impact of Insurance and Provider Churn on Mental Health Care
Associate Physician in Division of Global Health Equity
Home Institution: Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Health System: Mass General Brigham
rose olson, Md, MPH
Dr. Olson is an Associate Physician in the Division of Global Health Equity and an Associate Scientist in the Division of Women's Health in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She graduated from the University of Minnesota School of Medicine in 2019 and completed the Doris and Howard Hiatt Residency in Global Health Equity and Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in 2023. She also received her MPH from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2023. Dr. Olson has a passion for improving health outcomes. She works as a Research Consultant for the Violence Against Women Team at the WHO and is a 2023 and 2024 recipient of the Connor's Center Global Health Women's Fellowship. Dr. Olson's research investigates the short- and long-term adverse health effects of trauma including sexual assault. Her Mass EQLHS project has to do with prolonged emergency room boarding among hospitalized patients.
Project Title: Prolonged Emergency Department Boarding
OBGYN Physician
Home Institution: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Health System: Beth Israel Lahey Health
SARRAH SHAHAWY, MD, MPH
Dr. Sarrah Shahawy is an obstetrician-gynecologist clinician, researcher, and educator at Harvard Medical School and BIDMC. She holds a Medical Degree from Harvard Medical School and a Master of Public Health in Clinical Effectiveness from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. After her OBGYN residency at Northwestern University, she completed a Global OBGYN fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Shahawy’s research expertise focuses on optimizing sexual and reproductive health (SRH) by taking into account the ethical, social, and political realities that support or endanger women’s reproductive health. She conducts community-based, qualitative research to identify innovative solutions to improve communication, care delivery and SRH education. She has developed an expertise in religion and reproductive health with a specific expertise on Muslim women’s health. Her goal is to become a scientific leader in improving reproductive health outcomes by innovatively improving the way health systems consider religion and engage with patients’ religious identities and faith backgrounds.
Project Title: Understanding the role of patients’ religion in reproductive healthcare: a learning health systems approach
Neurosurgeon
Home Institution: Massachusetts General Hospital
Health System: Mass General Brigham
theresa williamson, md
Theresa Williamson, MD is a neurosurgeon and surgical ethics researcher who cares for people with all types of spine disorders as well as brain and spinal trauma. Her clinical expertise includes tailoring an approach to best fit the patient and their disease including using minimally invasive techniques. Her research focus is neurosurgical decision-making and patient-doctor communication. She combines bioethics theory with empirical data science to tackle complex decision-making problems in neurosurgery. Dr. Williamson is a member of the Center for Outcomes and Patient Safety in Surgery (COMPASS) at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Williamson comes to MGH from Duke University. At Duke, she completed a neurosurgery residency. She then completed an intramural fellowship at Duke as part of the combined neurosurgery and orthopedic surgery complex spine fellowship approved by the Committee on Advanced Subspecialty Training (CAST). Her clinical skills were recognized when she was named the Resident Clinician of the Year (2017) and her leadership skills were recognized with the Leadership Award (2020). She completed the University of Chicago Maclean and American College of Surgeons Surgical Ethics Fellowship (2021). She is a graduate of the Yale School of Medicine (2014) and Yale College (2009) where she was a varsity soccer player.
Project Title: Values in Decision Modeling in Lumbar Spondylolisthesis Treatment
OBGYN Physician
Home Institution: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Health System: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
TAYlor freret, md
Dr. Freret received her doctorate in medicine from Harvard Medical School. She completed her residency training in obstetrics and gynecology at the Brigham & Women's Hospital/Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Integrated Residency Program, followed by maternal-fetal medicine fellowship at MGH (2021-2024). The goal of her Mass EQLHS project is to improve provider recommendation of low-dose aspirin for preeclampsia prevention through an electronic health record-based smart checklist. Her long-term career goal is to become an independent clinician investigator with expertise in learning health systems as applied to prenatal and postpartum care.
Project Title: Implementation of an Evidence-Based Recommendation for Low Dose Aspirin to Reduce Preeclampsia