Scholars
Second-Year Scholars (2011-2013 Cohort)
| Nicole Brown, MD received her undergraduate degree from Brown University where she majored in community health. She earned an MPH at Yale before completing medical school at Stanford University. Dr. Brown completed residency in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins. She is interested in researching the coordination of clinical and community interventions for high-risk children and adolescents. |
| Roberta Capp, MD graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a degree in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology. She earned her medical degree and completed emergency medicine residency training at Harvard. Dr. Capp is interested in healthcare processes and quality of care, specifically sepsis, death and dying in the emergency department, avoidable ED visits, and access to emergency services. |
| Kelly Doran, MD (VA Scholar) received her undergraduate degree in sociology from Harvard. She attended the University of Michigan for medical school and completed emergency medicine residency training at NYU/Bellevue. She is interested in emergency department and community-based interventions to address socioeconomic barriers to health among underserved urban populations. She is particularly interested in the health of chronically homeless patients. |
| Nurit Harari, MD received her undergraduate degree from the University of Texas-Austin where she majored in liberal arts. She completed medical school at Baylor and a medicine/pediatrics residency at the University of Michigan. Most recently, she was working in Botswana with the University of Pennsylvania focusing on pediatric TB and malnutrition efforts. Dr. Harari is interested in infant nutrition and studying the contributing factors to early infant weight gain among minority communities and community interventions, especially with respect to the obesity epidemic. |
| Charlene Hooper Collier, MD earned her undergraduate and medical degrees from Brown. She then received an MPH from Harvard’s School of Public Health and completed residency training in obstetrics and gynecology at Yale. Dr. Hooper’s research focus is on disparities in preterm birth, particularly understanding the impact of maternal stress, support networks, and education on preterm birth. She is also interested in outcomes and cost-effectiveness research in robotic surgery in gynecology. |
| Heather Smith, MD earned her undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Virginia. After college, she obtained an MPH and Masters in Medical Sciences from Boston University. She attended medical school at the University of Massachusetts and completed residency training in obstetrics and gynecology at the Brigham and Women's Hospital/Massachusetts General Hospital program in Boston. Dr. Smith is interested in barriers to appropriate care and resultant utilization patterns, especially among underserved populations |
 | Anita Vashi, MD, MPH (VA Scholar) earned her undergraduate, masters, and medical degrees from the University of Michigan. She completed residency training in emergency medicine at Mount Sinai. Her research interests are focused on how the organization and delivery of care impacts quality of care, particularly in the emergency department and during transitions in care. |
First-Year Scholars (2012-2014 Cohort) | |
 | Jason Lott, MD, MSHP (VA Scholar) received his undergraduate degree from the University of Alabama Birmingham. He went on to Brasenose College at Oxford where he received a Master’s in Economics and then attended medical school at the University of Pennsylvania where he also received an MSHP. He is a Dermatology resident at Yale and is interested in barriers to dermatologic care among underserved populations, patterns of diagnosis and treatment of cutaneous malignancies, and health systems analyses. |
 | Arjun Venkatesh, MD, MBA earned his undergraduate degree at Northwestern University. He went on to earn an MBA from Ohio State University before completing medical school at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Most recently he completed Emergency Medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General Hospitals. Dr. Venkatesh is interested in developing performance measures designed to improve health system efficiency with a specific focus on studying variation in emergency physician decision making on hospital admission from the emergency department. |
 | Jennifer Voorhees, MD earned her undergraduate and medical degrees at Yale University. She recently completed Family Medicine residency at Thomas Jefferson University. Her research interests include qualitative and quantitative assessment and implementation of home-based primary care for adults with multiple chronic conditions. She is also interested in primary care access and primary care workforce issues in the United States including comparison with other developed countries. |
 | Ilse Wiechers, MD, MPP (VA Scholar) earned her undergraduate degree in political science at Case Western Reserve University. She then received a Master in Public Policy and medical degree from Duke. Dr. Wiechers completed her residency training in Psychiatry from MGH/McLean Hospitals and a Geriatric Psychiatry fellowship at Yale. Her research focuses on medical decision making in the care of older adults with coexisting medical and mental illness. Specifically, she studies prescribing of psychotropic medications with the aim of reducing unnecessary and inappropriate use in the geriatric population. |
Incoming Scholars (2013-2015 Cohort) | |
| Tasce Bongiovanni, MD, MPP earned her undergraduate degree from Santa Clara University and her medical degree from UCSF during which time she also earned a Master of Public Policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. She is now completing surgical residency at UCSF. Dr. Bongiovanni is interested in health policy and healthcare delivery for underserved communities, particularly Native Americans. |
| Theodore Long, MD earned his undergraduate degree from Yale College and his medical degree from Keck School of Medicine at USC. He is currently completing residency training at Yale. His research interests focus on healthcare for underserved populations and transitions of care. |
| Carley Riley, MD, MPP received her undergraduate and medical degrees from Northwestern University. She earned a Master of Public Policy from UCLA and completed residency training in Pediatrics at Children's Hospital in LA. Currently, Dr. Riley is completing a fellowship in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. She is interested in looking at resource allocations and outcomes and translations of research into policy. |
| Brita Roy, MD, MS earned her undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University. After college, she studied at Wayne State University where she earned an MS in Biomedical Engineering. She went on to medical school at the University of Michigan and is currently completing internal medicine residency training at the University of Alabama Birmingham. Dr. Roy is interested in health disparities, women's health, and medical education. |
 | Mark Silvestri, MD graduated with honors from Harvard College. While in college, he interned for the White House Council of Economic Advisors and then earned his medical degree from the University of Chicago. He is currently an OB-GYN resident at Yale and is interested in the intersection of medicine and economics and improving the economic trajectory for young urban mothers. |
