Eric Boccio, MD
Eric Boccio, after being born and raised on Long Island, attended Washington University in St. Louis where he pursued a BS in Biomedical Engineering while minoring in Physics and Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology. After his undergraduate studies, he became an EMT-Basic for New York State and an Academic Associate performing administrative duties and clinical and translational research in the Department of Emergency Medicine within the North Shore-LIJ Health System. While a medical student at Stony Brook University School of Medicine, he continued his research endeavors in critical care/resuscitation medicine focusing on the application of cerebral oximetry in the management of septic shock patients.
As an Emergency Medicine resident at Yale-New Haven Hospital, he served as the Principal Investigator on several projects focused on individualized therapeutic management strategies of septic shock patient subgroups and was awarded the SAEM Foundation RAMS Research Grant for a project investigating the use of end-tidal oxygen as a measure of preoxygenation during rapid sequence intubation. Recent publications have highlighted efforts involving the development and validation of an electronic health record-based computable phenotype to identify patients at high risk for opioid use disorder and use of topical tranexamic acid in controlling hemorrhage in an anticoagulated patient. After residency training, he is looking forward to serving as the Emergency Medicine Research Fellow and DHDPS Fellow at Baystate Medical Center while pursuing his MPH in Clinical Effectiveness at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Maura Jo Brennan, MD
Maura Brennan came to Baystate Medical Center as an intern in 1989 and has been here since. She received a B.A. from Barnard College, graduated from Yale University School of Medicine, did her residency in internal medicine at Baystate, and trained in geriatric medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Dr. Brennan is certified in internal medicine, geriatric medicine and hospice and palliative care. She is a fellow of the American College of Physicians, the American Geriatrics Society, and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. She served 8 years as the Baystate Hospice Medical Director, is a clinician educator with a particular interest in the training of residents and fellows, and serves as the Program Director for the Geriatric Medicine Fellowship.
She has published in the fields of geriatrics and palliative medicine and frequently speaks at national meetings, particularly the American Geriatrics Society. She has served in many national leadership roles including as President of the National Association for Geriatrics Education. She also currently is a member of the Massachusetts Governor’s Council for Research and Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease. Her clinical work in recent years has focused on geriatrics consultation in the hospital. She has received multiple scholarships and awards. These include: The Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award, Teacher of the Year Award from the Baystate internal medicine residents, Baystate’s “Excellence in Teaching’ Award and a the Jahnigen Award for a senior clinician educator from the American Geriatrics Society.
She led a Hartford Foundation grant supporting chief resident immersion training in geriatrics at Baystate and in 2015 she became the Project Director for Baystate’s “Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program” grant from HRSA (Human Resources Services Administration.) This award was successfully renewed and will run through 2024. It makes Baystate one of only 48 nationally supported geriatric education centers. The grant has enhanced educational and clinical programming in geriatrics and palliative care throughout the system with an emphasis on the community health centers, a pilot home care program and Baystate Medical Center’s Acute Care for Elders Program. She is a graduate of Intermountain Healthcare’s Program for Health Care Delivery Improvement and is particularly interested in applying improvement science and innovation to redesign team-based care for high-risk populations.
Christine Bryson, DO
Christine Bryson is a graduate of Nova Southeastern Medical School and is board certified in Internal Medicine and Palliative Care. She is the Medical Director, Teaching Services for the Division of Hospital Medicine at Baystate Medical Center and an Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency. Clinically she practices as an academic hospitalist Associate Professor of Medicine at UMass Chan- Baystate. Her interests include patient safety, quality improvement, diagnostic error and improving communication with patients. She is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a Senior Fellow in Hospital Medicine. She is currently completing her Master’s in Public Health from the University of Massachusetts.
Lewis M. Cohen, MD (Fellow Emeritus)
Lew Cohen is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for Medicine and Health (2008), two Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency awards (2008, 2015), and a Bogliasco Fellowship for the Arts and Humanity (2014), as well as the Eleanor and Thomas Hackett Award (2014) from the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry. He has been a contributor to the Atlantic, Slate, and Huffington Post and is the editor of a textbook, Dissociative Identity Disorder: Theoretical and Treatment Controversies (Jason Aronson, Inc., 1995). He is also the author of two nonfiction book for the public entitled, No Good Deed: A Story of Medicine, Murder Accusations, and the Debate Over How We Die (HarperCollins, 2010) and A Dignified Ending: Taking control over how we die (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019). The poet, Edward Hirsch, described No Good Deed as being, “a work of eloquent necessity.”
When he was 12 years old, Lew’s mother handed him her copy of Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, and his career choice was established. At the age of 23, he spent his 4th year of medical school studying in London under Anna Freud. Before his retirement, Lew was a psychiatrist at Baystate Medical Center where he was a Professor of Psychiatry at the UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate and an Adjunct Clinical Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. He had a long career as an active palliative medicine researcher with over 100 academic publications related to the integration of bioethics, nephrology, and psychiatry.
Daniel T. Engelman, MD, FACS
Daniel Engelman 
is the Medical Director of the Heart, Vascular and Critical Care Units at Baystate Medical Center and Professor of Surgery at the UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate, and an Associate Professor-Adjunct at Tufts University School of Medicine. He recently started the Enhanced Recovery After Cardiac Surgery (ERACS) Collaborative to nationally standardize best practices. He was tasked with organizing a full day symposium at the 2018 American Association of Thoracic Surgeons meeting on the topic. He is leading a group of international experts to publish the first consensus guidelines for best practices in enhanced recovery following cardiac surgery. He is presenting this work in Stockholm at the ERAS Society World Congress in May, 2018.
He is the President of the Massachusetts Society of Thoracic Surgeons and also serves on multiple Statewide Oversight committees. Dr. Engelman participates on two national workforces for the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and was the Past President of the 21st Century Cardiothoracic Surgical Society. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Baycare PPO and ACO and is Vice President of the local Independent Physician Organization.
Dr. Engelman is the principal investigator on multiple research projects, has published over 40 peer-reviewed publications, and participates on two international taskforces (ADQI and KDIGO) standardizing approaches for the prevention of postoperative acute kidney injury. In 2017, He has reviewed over 30 manuscripts for publication in the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. He was recently asked to lead a steering committee of international physicians designing a new study to evaluate a medication to prevent postoperative AKI. He travels extensively lecturing on advances in critical care medicine, healthcare informatics and finance, multimodal analgesia, and fast-track recovery after cardiac surgery. He serves as a consultant and independent medical reviewer for Mallinckrodt pharmaceuticals, Edwards Lifescience, Zimmer-Biomet, and Astute Medical. He was named the National ACS/STS Health Policy Scholar in 2016.
Dr. Engelman is a graduate of the Executive Leadership Program in Health Policy and Management at The Heller School of Brandeis University. He was a Research Fellow at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He completed his Cardiothoracic Surgical training at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. He received his B.A. with honors from the University of Pennsylvania and M.D. from New York University School of Medicine.
Peter D. Friedmann, MD, MPH, FACP, FASAM
Peter Friedmann is Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate, Chief Research Officer and Endowed Chair for Clinical Research at Baystate Health, and Professor of Quantitative Health Sciences at UMass Chan.
He is an internal medicine and addiction medicine physician, and an established addiction health services researcher. His interests include the organization, process and outcomes of addiction treatment; implementation of evidence-based practices across the addiction treatment, medical and criminal justice systems; and the role of physicians in the identification and care of patients with substance use disorders.
He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American Society of Addiction Medicine, a past president of the Association for Medical Education and Research in Substance Abuse (AMERSA), former Internal Medicine Specialty Director on the American Board of Addiction Medicine, and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment.
Sarah Haessler, MD
Sarah Haessler is the Vice Chair of Clinical Affairs in the Department of Medicine at the UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate, the Hospital Epidemiologist in the Division of Infectious Diseases, and Medical Director of the Special Pathogens unit at Baystate Medical Center. She is an Associate Professor at UMass Chan-Baystate. Her research interests include healthcare-associated infections and the treatment and outcomes of pneumonia.
Karin Johnson, MD
Karin Johnson is the Medical Director of Baystate Health Regional Sleep Program and Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Academic Affairs of the Department of Neurology at UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate. She attended University of Chicago-Pritzker School of Medicine, Neurology residency at Rhode Island Hospital and Sleep Medicine Fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. She then joined Baystate Medical Center in 2008 with primarily a clinical and then administrative focus tripling the size of the sleep program. She has an interest in health care policy serving on the Baycare Accountable Care Organization Clinical Integration Advisory Council and has served on the MassHealth Drug Review board the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Payer Policy Review Committee.
Her research has focused on improving the diagnosis, treatment and understanding of clinical implications of sleep disordered breathing. In 2005, she published one of the first descriptions of complex sleep apnea. In 2010, she reported a widely cited meta-analysis of the prevalence of sleep apnea in stroke patients. She has expanded the knowledge of how positive airway pressure technology works through publications and directing courses at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Annual SLEEP Meeting and other regional and national lectures. She more recently increased her focus on research as the first class of UMass Chan-Baystate Research Pilot Award program recipients. Her current research focuses on improving the diagnosis and risk stratification of patients with mild obstructive sleep apnea utilizing home sleep apnea testing with a focus on novel gender stratified methods for defining sleep apnea physiology.
Tovy Haber Kamine, MD
Tovy Haber Kamine is a Trauma and Acute Care Surgeon and Director of Emergency Surgery Services at Baystate Medical Center. He is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the UMass Chan Medical School—Baystate. He did his General Surgery residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and his fellowship in Surgical Critical Care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
His research interests include improving the care of trauma and emergency general surgical patients in austere environments and in non trauma centers. He is the past president of the Space Surgery Association and has published on trauma and telemedicine.
Timothy J. Mader, MD
Tim Mader is a Professor of Emergency Medicine at the UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate. He attended the University of Wisconsin Medical School, completed his residency training in 1990, is board-certified in Emergency Medicine, and has been in clinical practice, teaching residents and students, and conducting research at Baystate his entire career. He has completed fellowships in clinical and basic science research, and studied statistics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He is currently the Associate Director of Emergency Medicine Research and the Emergency Medicine Research Fellowship Program Director.
He has a longstanding interest in cardiac arrest and serves as the Director of Resuscitation Research within the Department of Emergency Medicine. He has a particular interest in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest resuscitation and post-arrest critical care. He has recently been collaborating with Dr. Bryan McNally at Emory University and Dr. Brian Nathanson, the Chief Executive Officer and a co-founder of OptiStatim, LLC, to examine resuscitation outcomes in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest among a large cohort of adults in the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (CARES) archives. Dr. Mader has published more than 80 papers and been Principle Investigator or Co-Investigator on over 20 institutional, foundation, and federal grants, including several R- level grants from NHLBI and AHRQ.
Jill McCormick, MBA
Jill McCormick is the Director of Design and Innovation at Baystate Health and the Director of Design and Innovation at TechSpring. She is an innovation strategist focused on digital transformation, an experience designer, and an Adjunct Professor of Design Thinking for Healthcare at Our Lady of the Elms College. She holds an MBA in Entrepreneurial Studies at the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College with coursework focused on creativity and innovation. She has substantial experience in collecting data using observation and empathetic interviewing techniques and applying human-centered design (HCD) methodologies for problem and opportunity analysis, solution design, and rapid prototyping in-context testing and iteration. Prior to coming to Baystate Health, she was developing serum- and urine- based diagnostic tests, analyzers, and components. She holds several patents and has launched various commercial products for world-wide distribution.
Her research interests include the application of the principles and components of HCD to improve the experience for patients and staff as well as to support the qualitative aims of research studies and implementation science.
Katie Nason, MD, MPH, FACS
Katie Nason joined Baystate as the Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Surgery and a member of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at Baystate Medical Center. Her most recent roles were associate director of Research in Cardiothoracic Surgery and director of Interventional Lung Cancer Ablation Program at the University of Pittsburgh and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pittsburgh, PA. She is also an active member of the military as a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserves. Katie earned her medical degree at Oregon Health and Sciences University and did her general surgical residency at the University of Washington. She then completed a Master’s in Public Health with a focus on epidemiology prior to matriculating at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for her cardiothoracic surgery training. Following her cardiothoracic training, she completed a thoracic surgery minimally invasive fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh. She is board-certified in both general and thoracic surgery. Her current research focuses on understanding the barriers to early detection in esophageal adenocarcinoma, work which was initiated through a NIH/NCI K07 Cancer Control and Prevention Career Development award.
She is first, senior, or co-author on 71 peer reviewed publications and has authored 18 book chapters, editorials and invited reviews. She is the Associate Statistical Editor for the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery and the Guest Editor for the American Journal of Surgery for the Association of Women Surgeons for the past three years. She is an Ad Hoc reviewer for the Annals of Surgery, Diseases of the Esophagus, Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Annals of Surgical Oncology, Annals of Thoracic Surgery, Journal of the American College of Surgeons, PlosONE, Journal of Surgical Research, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, and the Journal of Clinical Oncology. She is a member of the Council of the Association of Women Surgeons and was just elected to serve as the Publications Committee Chair for the Association. She is a frequent speaker, discussant, and moderator for sessions at the American College of Surgeons, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, and the American Association for Thoracic Surgeons.
Eduardo Núñez, MD, MS
Eduardo Núñez is a Pulmonary and Critical Care physician at Baystate Health and a health services researcher in the Department of Healthcare Delivery and Population Sciences at UMass-Baystate. After attending medical school at the University of Pittsburgh, he completed residency in Internal Medicine at Brown University. He recently finished Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship at Boston University and Boston Medical Center where he worked with Dr. Renda Wiener to improve healthcare delivery of lung cancer screening.
Dr. Núñez’s research interests include addressing disparities in lung cancer screening uptake and subsequent receipt of the recommended follow-up to improve mortality from lung cancer overall, and among underserved populations. He also has interests in improving communication with patients through shared decision-making in lung cancer screening and in end-of-life conversations. Dr. Núñez’s efforts to address barriers to accessing screening and the health of underserved populations has been recognized through several awards including the American Thoracic Society (ATS) Minority Trainee Development Scholarship and ATS Behavioral Sciences and Health Services Research Abstract Scholarships. Dr. Núñez has also received grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (F32) and LUNGevity Foundation (Health Equity and Inclusiveness Research Fellow). He plans to continue his research work to address barriers in screening uptake and eliminate disparities in lung cancer.
Neena Qasba, MD, MPH
Neena Qasba is a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist with subspecialty training in Complex Family Planning and an Assistant Professor at UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate. She completed her OBGYN training at Indiana University and completed her fellowship at Yale University. She also earned an MPH in Health Policy and Management at Yale University.
Neena’s research focuses on policy implementation research specifically in the area of reproductive health. Her prior work examined implementation aspects of the federal sterilization policy. Her current work is focused on the implementation of state specific laws on contraception access.
Penelope S. Pekow, PhD
Penny Pekow is the Supervisor of Biostatistics and Research Support for the Department of Healthcare Delivery and Population Sciences at UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate, as well as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Her recent work has focused on application of analytic methods for comparative effectiveness studies and studies of variation in delivery of care utilizing large observational databases with multi-level hierarchical data structures.
Barry D. Sarvet, MD
Barry Sarvet is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate. A graduate of Northwestern University Medical School, he completed his residency training in both general and child and adolescent psychiatry at Yale University. Dr. Sarvet’s career has focused on the development and operation of models for promoting the integration of child psychiatry in primary care, and the dissemination of best practices in children’s mental health treatment. With pediatrician colleagues in MA, he helped to develop the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Project (MCPAP), an innovative public system for improving access to care for children with mental health needs throughout the state. Since 2004, he has served as the statewide medical director for MCPAP which has become a national model for helping pediatric primary care providers address mental health needs for children. Dr. Sarvet has written numerous articles regarding integrated child psychiatry practice and has provided technical assistance for programs throughout the US striving to develop systems of collaboration between child psychiatry and primary care. He helped found the National Network of Child Psychiatry Access Programs, which currently includes members from 32 states.
Dr. Sarvet’s work has also focused on addressing the needs of children who have been impacted by traumatic stress. He has provided leadership for the Baystate Children’s Hospital Family Advocacy Center, a clinical and research program for children who have been victims of child abuse, domestic violence, and other forms of trauma. In this setting, he has led several federally funded projects for the dissemination and adaptation of evidence-based trauma-focused psychotherapy models within community mental health settings.
Dr. Sarvet currently serves as Chair of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) Healthcare Access and Economics Committee. He also serves on the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Integrated Care Committee and the APA Scientific Program Committee. Dr. Sarvet also serves as a national trainer in the Collaborative Care Model within APA’s Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative funded by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Adrianne C. Seiler, MD
Addie Seiler is a graduate of the University of Connecticut Medical School and is board certified in Internal Medicine. She is a practicing hospitalist at Baystate Medical Center. In addition, Dr. Seiler has completed a Fellowship in Healthcare Quality and Safety at Baystate Medical Center and has received Certification in Healthcare Quality and Safety through the Jefferson School of Population Health. Her previous roles have included Associate Medical Director of Hospital Quality at Baystate Medical Center, as well as the Hospital Medicine Integration Chief for Baystate Health across the five hospital system. In 2013, she joined Baycare Health Partners/Pioneer Valley Accountable Care, which is the IPA/PHO/ACO affiliated with Baystate Health where she now serves as the Chief Medical Officer.
Jay S. Steingrub, MD, FACP, FCCP
Jay Steingrub is a Professor of Medicine at the UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate and Professor of Medicine at Tufts CTSI. Dr. Steingrub has distinguished himself as an outstanding clinician, educator, and clinical investigator. As Director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit, Dr. Steingrub has built a nationally recognized program in clinical research devoted to sepsis and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).
He has served as principal investigator or co-investigator on 42 extramurally funded clinical trials and has been funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to study Acute Lung Injury as part of an ARDS network consortium. He is also one of 11 national recipients of the new NHLBI PETAL Network Research Grant, working with 3 other New England sites to create a clinical center for this project. Dr. Steingrub’s work continues to focus on optimal strategies to deliver clinical care in the ICU setting for patients with sepsis and ARDS and currently is examining the utility of novel compounds in the treatment of sepsis and ARDS.
Kathleen Szegda, PhD, MPH, MS
Kathleen Szegda is the Director of Community Research and Evaluation at the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts, formerly Partners for a Healthier Community, and an Assistant Professor in Pediatrics at UMass Chan-Baystate. She completed her doctorate in Epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she also completed a postdoctoral research fellowship focused on women's health.
Her research interests are in maternal and child health, mental health, and health disparities. She is also interested in research aimed at identifying effective community-level systems, policy and environmental changes to improve health equity, which is informed by her experience working to promote policy and systems change at the national level at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and at a local level as the Director of the Pioneer Valley Asthma Coalition. Her prior research has focused on perinatal mental health and impacts on birth outcomes among Latina women, as well as the impacts of adiposity over the life course on early menopause. She is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences where she teaches a course on Health Impact Assessment. She was the Co-PI on a PCORI Eugene Washington Award to build community engaged research capacity in Springfield through the Project ACCCES network, which she continues to co-lead.
Paul F. Visintainer, PhD
Paul Visintainer is currently the Director of Scientific Integrity and Analysis, as well as the Director of the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Research Core (EBRC), at Baystate Health where he has worked for more than ten years. He is a Professor of Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate. He holds a secondary appointment as Professor in the Tufts Public Health CTSI. Previously, he was Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at New York Medical College School of Health Sciences and Practice. He has more than 35 years of experience collaborating with clinical researchers, providing expertise in study design, data analysis, and manuscript development. Through his collaborations with clinicians and research faculty, he has published more than 140 peer-reviewed articles.