VERITY Methodology Core Team
Director: Elena Losina, PhD
Dr. Losina is Robert W. Lovett Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School. She is a Director of Policy and Innovation eValuations in Orthopedic Treatments (PIVOT) Center and co-Director of the Orthopaedic and Arthritis Center for Outcomes Research (OrACORe) and is a Principal Investigator of the Methodology Core of the VERITY. Dr. Losina leads an NIH funded multi-sited project to conduct health policy evaluations related to surgical and non-surgical management of knee osteoarthritis. She is Deputy Editor for Methodology of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery; recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award of the Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals. Her research interests include non-pharmacologic interventions in MSK disorders, behavioral economics and impact of physical activity on improvement in pain and function in MSK disorders. She is recognized internationally for her expertise in melding rigorous clinical research methodologies across multiple clinical disciplines, from orthopedics and osteoarthritis to global health.
Jamie Collins, PhD
Dr. Collins is a biostatistician at the Orthopaedic and Arthritis Center for Outcomes Research (OrACORe) in the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery at BWH and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School. She is the director of OrACORe’s Biometry Consulting Unit, providing analytic and methodologic support to faculty in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. Her current research focuses on novel statistical techniques to estimate disease progression in osteoarthritis, with a focus on assessment of osteoarthritis using MRI.
Hongshu Guan, MS
Hongshu Guan is a senior statistical analyst in the Section of Clinical Sciences. He brings over 20 years of experience with statistical programming in clinical research. He has worked with many types of datasets (cohorts, registries, claims) and all types of analyses (trials, longitudinal observational, etc). He has a sophisticated understanding of model building and database management.
Faith Selzer, PhD
Faith Selzer is an epidemiologist and program manager in the Orthopedic and Arthritis Center for Outcomes Research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is also a instructor in Orthopedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School.
Heidi Y. Yang, MS, MPH
Swastina Shrestha, MS
Associate Director: Jeffrey Katz, MD, MSC
Dr. Katz is the Director of the Orthopedic and Arthritis Center for Outcomes Research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor of Medicine and Orthopedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Katz is a practicing rheumatologist and a clinical investigator with interests in osteoarthritis, meniscal tear, joint replacement and other musculoskeletal problems and procedures. He is President of the Osteoarthritis Research Society International, a Deputy Editor for Methodology for the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery and PI or co-investigator on a range of studies pertaining to clinical and policy dimensions of osteoarthritis and musculoskeletal disorders.
Jing Cui, PhD
Jing Cui is the lead statistician in Section of Clinical Sciences in the Division of Rheumatology. Her current research focus is the application of statistical genetics to the study of RA, Lupus and Gout. She also interested in the genetic predictors of quantitative traits in RA. Dr. Cui supervises statistical programmers and data management activities, helps lead the Biometry Core, which serves the Section of Clinical Sciences and other members of the research community, consults, and performs analyses on a variety of clinical and basic science studies.
Marc Natter, MD
Marc Natter is a pediatric rheumatologist and researcher in bioinformatics at the Boston Children’s Hospital Computational Health Informatics Program (CHIP) whose research centers broadly upon the development and implementation of scalable software platforms that enable new ways of collecting and sharing research data for chronic diseases research. He is the chief informatics architect of the multi-site CARRA Registry for pediatric rheumatic diseases, leads development of patient-facing technology for the Harvard Medical School-led SCILHS Clinical Data Research Network, and coordinates data integration and patient-facing technology for the PARTNERS Patient Powered Research Network and other projects.
Nancy Shadick, MD, MPH
Dr. Shadick has a national and international reputation for clinical innovation and expertise and for investigation in Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Lyme disease. Her clinical research in RA addresses the impact of comorbidities and patient centered outcomes using the Brigham Rheumatoid Arthritis Sequential Study (BRASS) Registry, a 1400 patient cohort that she co-founded as Principal Investigator in 2003, and has resulted in over 90 original articles in the field. This is known worldwide as one of the most comprehensive and largest single center cohorts of RA in the US. In Lyme disease, she directs the Lyme Disease Prevention Center that has evaluated prevention strategies to reduce tick borne illness, which resulted in an innovative prevention program that reduced tick borne illnesses in at risk individuals. Her work in designing patient centered care programs, such as the RA peer support program (PARASS), the RA video journaling program and the Arthritis Center patient advisory groups, have been disseminated throughout the hospital, the medical school and nationwide. Since 2001, Dr. Shadick has been nominated annually by her peers as one of “America’s Top Doctors” and the “Best of Boston” since 2009.