Director: DANIEL H. SOLOMON, M.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Solomon is the Chief of the Section of Clinical Sciences in the Division of Rheumatology and Matthew H. Liang Distinguished Chair at BWH and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He has served major roles at the American College of Rheumatology and within the osteoporosis community as well as teaching/mentoring in rheumatic disease epidemiology and pharmacoepidemiology. He serves as Deputy Editor of Arthritis & Rheumatology. As well, he has a research program supported by NIH focusing on RA treatments, cardiovascular disease, and drug safety.
Associate Director: JEFFREY A. SPARKS, M.D., M.M.SC.
Dr. Sparks is a rheumatologist and population scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School with an overall focus on using patient-oriented and epidemiologic research studies to evaluate the etiology, outcomes, and public health burden of rheumatic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In particular, he performs studies to evaluate genetic, environmental, serologic, and familial risk factors for RA, clinical trials for RA prevention, and RA outcomes research focusing on the respiratory and metabolic burden of RA. He is Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and chair of the American College of Rheumatology’s Early Career Investigators Subcommittee with a focus on enabling trainees and junior faculty with the skills needed to succeed in research. He is the Associate Director of the VERITY Administrative Core and co-director of the VERITY/Brigham Course in Rheumatology Clinical Research.
PETER NIGROVIC, M.D.
Dr. Nigrovic is a dual-trained adult and pediatric rheumatologist and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His laboratory investigates basic mechanisms of inflammation contributing to rheumatic diseases, including inflammatory arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus. He is chair for translational research within the Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance (CARRA) and Co-Editor of Arthritis & Rheumatology, and directs the NIAMS-funded Joint Biology Consortium arthritis research infrastructure. He directs the Center for Adults with Pediatric Rheumatic Illness (CAPRI) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, dedicated to the transition and long-term care of patients with childhood-onset rheumatic disease.
KAREN COSTENBADER, M.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Costenbader is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Physician and Director of the Lupus Program, Division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). Dr. Costenbader’s research investigates the epidemiology and pathogenesis of SLE and RA. She has studied associations between cigarette smoking and RA and SLE, postmenopausal hormones and oral contraceptive use and risk of SLE, antioxidants and vitamin D intake and the risks of RA and SLE. With her research group, she also studies predictors of outcomes, including cardiovascular disease, lymphoma, nephritis and end-stage renal disease, among patients with SLE, and sociodemographic disparities in the incidence and outcomes of SLE in the U.S. She is also currently investigating biomarkers of SLE activity and disease risk, whether high dose vitamin D and/or fish oil intake are effective in the prevention of autoimmune disease, and disparities in access to care and outcomes among patients with SLE. Dr. Costenbader is an active clinical research mentor for medical students, residents, graduate students in epidemiology, and rheumatology fellows and junior faculty. She has trained over 30 doctoral and post-doctoral fellows. She is the chair of the Medical Scientific Advisory Council for the Lupus Foundation of America. She serves on grant review committees and is a reviewer for multiple journals.
JACKLYN STRATTON
Jacklyn Stratton is a project manager within the Section of Clinical Sciences in the division of Rheumatology, Immunology and Allergy in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Before joining the Section of Clinical Sciences, Jacklyn worked as a Research Assistant on various research studies in the Channing Lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Jacklyn received her Bachelor of Science in Biology from Simmons College in 2014.Director: KATHERINE LIAO, M.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Liao is a rheumatologist and clinical investigator. The clinical focus of her research examines clinical and genetic risk factors associated with cardiovascular co-morbidities in rheumatoid arthritis. As well, her team specializes in developing and applying approaches to effectively utilize electronic health records for clinical research.
TIANXI CAI, Sc.D.
Dr. Cai is a professor of Biostatistics at Harvard T.H. Chan school of public health and a professor of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. She received her Doctoral degree from Harvard in 1999 and taught at the University of Washington for two years before returning to Harvard as a faculty. Dr. Cai’s current research focuses mainly in the areas of risk prediction and personalized medicine with biomarkers and genomic studies; statistical and machine learning, analysis of EHR data.
SOUMYA RAYCHAUDHURI, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Raychaudhuri is the Director for the BWH Center for Data Sciences, and he is also an Associate Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. He holds additional appointments at the Broad Institute and the University of Manchester. He leads an NIH funded research program focused on the use of human genetics and genomics in rheumatoid arthritis, type I diabetes, and tuberculosis.
JING CUI, Ph.D.
Dr. 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.
TIANRUN CAI, M.D.
Dr. Cai has medical doctor background and he has been a researcher on bioinformatic area at BWH and VA Boston Health System for a few years. He developed natural language processing tools for data extraction to perform clinical outcomes research and disease classification. Incorporating natural language processing and machine learning techniques, he also developed GUI software for note selection and chart review.
ANDREW CAGAN, B.S.
A data scientist for Partners Healthcare since 2012, Andrew has collaborated with researchers on a variety of key projects including i2b2, eMerge, PENTACON, the All Payors Claim Database, and the Partners Healthcare Biobank Portal. Prior to arriving at Partners, Andrew worked at Statusone Health Systems, and later Healthways, Inc., analyzing EMR and health insurance data while creating and improving a variety of disease management algorithms. A self proclaimed chesspert (chess expert), in his spare time Andrew can be found discussing theology with his two English Bulldogs and walking amongst his home’s exquisitely manicured gardens, practicing politics with the many marble statues that were specifically created to bare his likeness.
MARY JEFFWAY
Mary is working in the Department of Rheumatology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital where she coordinates rheumatoid arthritis clinical trials. She earned her BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with friends and family, doing Crossfit, and being outdoors.
Director: ELENA LOSINA, Ph.D.
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.
Associate Director: JEFFREY KATZ, M.D., M.SC.
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.
JAMIE COLLINS, Ph.D.
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.
JING CUI, Ph.D.
Dr. 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.
HONGSHU GUAN, M.S.
Hongshu 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.
BING LU, DrPH., M.D.
Dr. Lu is a lead Biostatistician and Nutritional Epidemiologist at Section of Clinical Sciences, and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He plays a leadership role on statistical services including study design, data analysis, writing and review of grant proposals, supervising statistical programmers as well as one-on-one teaching activities for medical investigators, medical fellows, and other researchers. His independent research focuses on outcome and epidemiology of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), Osteoarthritis (OA) and Cardiovascular Disease. He is the PI of two NIH R01 grants to study the role of dietary factors and obesity on risk of developing RA.
MARC NATTER, M.D.
Dr. 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.
FAITH SELZER, Ph.D.
Dr. 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.
NANCY SHADICK, M.D., M.P.H.
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.
Swastina is a statistical programmer working on a variety of research projects including: