Speakers

 

Mohammed K. Ali MD, MSc, MBAMohammed K. Ali MD, MSc, MBA
Emory University
Associate Professor, Hubert Department of Global Health
Associate Director, Georgia Diabetes Translation Research Center (P30DK111024)
Joint Faculty, Dept of Epidemiology & Nutrition/Health Sciences PhD Program

MOHAMMED K. ALI MD, MSC, MBA is a physician-epidemiologist and Associate Professor in the departments of Global Health and Epidemiology at Emory University. He completed his medical degree and early clinical training at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, and subsequently earned Master’s degrees in Cardiovascular Medicine and Global Health Sciences from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He also completed a Master’s in Business Administration from Emory University.

His areas of interest are in: surveillance of chronic diseases; and implementing and evaluating models and policies that promote detection, prevention, and better management of chronic diseases in community and clinical settings. He is a lead investigator of several large studies: an international cohort study, two multi-center clinical quality improvement studies, a study of employer wellness programs, systematic reviews of diabetes prevention interventions, and co-leads a NIDDK-funded Center for Diabetes Translation Research. He has co-authored over 125 publications in peer-reviewed journals, 8 book chapters, and a dozen editorials and commentaries. Ali also serves as a consultant for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In this role, he helps manage a collaborative network of investigators that evaluate the effects of different policy changes on diabetes prevention and control (the NEXT-D Study), and is co-scientific advisor for the National Diabetes Prevention Program. He enjoys cooking, running, and spending time with his two sons.

 

Turgay Ayer, PhDTurgay Ayer, PhD
Georgia Institute of Technology
Research Director of the Medical Decision-Making, Center for Health and Humanitarian Systems
George Family Foundation Assistant Professor, H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering

Turgay Ayer is a George Family Foundation Assistant Professor in the Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. He is also the research director for medical decision-making in the Center for Health & Humanitarian Systems at Georgia Tech. Dr. Ayer conducts research on stochastic modeling and optimization, with applications in predictive health, medical decision making, health care operations, and health policy. Together with his students, Dr. Ayer has received several awards for his work, including an NSF CAREER award, first place in the 2011 and 2015 INFORMS Doing Good with Good OR Student Paper Competition, finalist in the 2015 INFORMS George Nicholson Student Paper Competition, 2012 and 2014 Seth Bounder Foundation Research Award, and second place in the 2011 MSOM Student Paper Competition. He is a member of INFORMS and the Society for Medical Decision Making, and he currently serves as the president of the INFORMS Health Application Society.

 

Mark Braunstein, MD
Georgia Institute of Technology
Professor of the Practice, School of Interactive Computing

Dr. Braunstein teaches health informatics at Georgia Tech both on-campus and as part of the school’s unique Online Masters of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) program.  His students take advantage of Georgia Tech’s unique on-campus FHIR server to develop apps to solve challenges posed by domain experts from various institutions.  He and has written Practitioners Guide to Health Informatics, a guide to health informatics for physicians and other non-technical readers (published 2015) and Contemporary Health Informatics (published spring 2014), a textbook.

Prior to joining Georgia Tech in 2007, he founded several successful health IT companies. Before that, he was on the faculty of the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) where he developed one of the first functional ambulatory electronic medical record system.

He earned a BS degree from MIT in 1969, an MD degree from MUSC in 1974 and completed an internship in internal medicine at Washington University in 1975.

 

Munmun De Choudhury, PhDMunmun De Choudhury, PhD
Georgia Institute of Technology
Assistant Professor, School of Interactive Computing

Munmun De Choudhury is currently an assistant professor at the School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Tech. Munmun’s research interests are in computational social science, with a focus on reasoning about personal and societal well-being from social digital footprints. Her work has been the recipient of ten best paper and honorable mention awards at premier Computer Science conferences. Munmun has also been awarded the Edenfield Faculty Fellowship, the Yahoo! Faculty Engagement award and has authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications. Her work has also been extensively covered by venues like the New York Times, the TIME magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and the NPR. Earlier, Munmun was a faculty associate with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft Research, and obtained her PhD in Computer Science from Arizona State University in 2011.

 

James W. Curran, MD, MPH
Emory University Rollins School of Public Health
Dean of Public Health
Emory University; Co-Director, Emory Center for AIDS Research

Jim Curran joined the Rollins School of Public Health (RSPH) as dean and professor of epidemiology in 1995, following 25 years of leadership at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He is co-director of the Emory Center for AIDS Research, and holds faculty appointments in the Emory School of Medicine and the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing.

In 1981, Curran was tapped to lead a CDC task force charged with determining what was behind the first cases of what we now know as AIDS. A pioneer in HIV/AIDS prevention, Curran led the nation’s efforts in the battle against HIV/AIDS for 15 years before joining Emory. While at the CDC, he attained the rank of assistant surgeon general.

After graduating from the University of Notre Dame, Curran received his MD from the University of Michigan and a master of public health from Harvard University. He is a fellow of the American Epidemiologic Society, the American College of Preventive Medicine, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Author or co-author of more than 270 scholarly publications, he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1993. He was given the Surgeon General’s Medal of Excellence in 1996 and received the John Snow Award from the American Public Health Association in 2003.

In 2015 Curran was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is immediate past chair of the board on Population Health and Public Health Practice of the Institute of Medicine and serves on the Executive Committee of the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health. In 2009, the Rollins School of Public Health Dean’s position was named the James W. Curran Dean of Public Health in his honor.

Dr. Curran is married and has two adult children, Katie and David.

 

Shatakshee Dhongde
Georgia Institute of Technology
Associate Professor, Provost Teaching Learning Fellow, School of Economics

Shatakshee Dhongde is an Associate Professor of Economics and a Provost Teaching Learning Fellow at Georgia Tech. She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside. She is also a research affiliate with the National Institute of Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her research has focused on studying the impact of globalization on economic growth, measuring poverty and multidimensional deprivation, and analyzing convergence in income inequality. She was awarded the Nancy and Richard Ruggles Prize for young researchers. Her work has been published in leading economics journals, and her research on measuring deprivation in the U.S. has been highlighted in national media, including NPR. She is also the recipient of multiple teaching awards including the Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award and the Faculty Teaching Excellence Award at Georgia Tech.

 

Margarita Gonzalez 
Georgia Institute of Technology
Branch Chief of the Policy and Usability Branch (PUB) in the Information and Communications Lab (ICL) at GTRI

Ms. Margarita Gonzalez is Branch Chief of the Policy and Usability Branch (PUB) in the Information and Communications Lab (ICL) at GTRI.  She leads a cross-functional, multi-disciplinary group comprised of social scientists and technologists. PUB aims to address problems holistically by marrying a socio-technical approach with participatory research and agile development methodologies.  The result being innovative, sustainable solutions that are readily accessible by technologists and non-technologists alike.

Ms. Gonzalez is the Co-Principal Investigator for the Army Family (ARFAM) Program, a comprehensive software modernization and cloud migration effort of the Army’s social services. Ms. Gonzalez leads the Strategic Planning and Innovation effort and works closely with the ARFAM Program Manager in order to execute a holistic socio-technical strategy across seven different thrusts. The end goal is to transform the Army Family Programs into a sustainable, data-driven enterprise that enables the integration and innovation of social services that support Soldier and Army Family readiness. Additionally, she co-leads the U.S. Marine Corps’ Integrated Clinical Management-Risk Mitigation System (ICM-RMS) Force Preservation Program Tool (FPPT) project. Ultimately, the ICM-RMS FPPT will provide commanders access to real-time, objective and holistic assessments of their Marines’ mental health from a single source integrating medical, mental health and command input.  Doing so can prevent self-harm and suicide in support of the USMC force preservation process.

 

Denise Hines, DHA, PMP, FHIMSSDenise Hines, DHA, PMP, FHIMSS
eHealth Services Group, CEO
Georgia Health Information Network, Executive Director
Board of Directors, HIMSS North America, Chair

Denise W. Hines, DHA, PMP, FHIMSS, heads eHealth Services Group and also serves as the Executive Director of Georgia’s statewide health information exchange (HIE), the Georgia Health Information Network (GaHIN). In July 2017, she was named Chair of the North America Board of the Health Information & Management Systems Society (HIMSS). She is also actively involved in HIMSS’ Women in Health IT initiative that promotes diversity and provides recognition.
Dr. Hines has been instrumental in advancing healthcare connectivity in Georgia, ensuring physicians have the information they need to deliver quality care. Through her work at the local, state and regional level, Dr. Hines has improved technology adoption and advanced its exchange.
Nationally recognized as an expert in health IT and HIE, Dr. Hines has participated in hundreds of public speaking events, educating providers on the benefits of electronic health record (EHR) systems, health information technology adoption, and the overall national vision for an interconnected health system.
She holds a doctorate in healthcare administration and maintains certifications in project management, software development, and healthcare law.

 

Julie Hollberg, MD
Emory Healthcare,
Chief Medical Information Officer
Associate Professor, Division of Hospital Medicine,
Department of Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine

Julie Hollberg, MD is the Chief Medical Information Officer for Emory Healthcare and Associate Professor, Division of Hospital Medicine, Department of Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine.  In addition to rounding as a hospitalist, Dr. Hollberg provides medical direction and governance for the EMR (electronic medical record), patient portal and related clinical applications.  Her focus is increasing collaboration between frontline clinicians and Emory Healthcare Information Services as we utilize healthcare technology to improve patient care and bring joy back to clinical practice.  Emory Healthcare currently includes 6 inpatient facilities with over 1800 inpatient beds, 1,850 physicians,  1 million inpatient days, and 12,000 employees.

Dr. Hollberg completed her undergraduate training at Rice University in Women and Gender Studies, and her medical training at Baylor College of Medicine as a Rice-Baylor Medical Scholar. Dr. Hollberg completed her residency training and chief medical resident year at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, MI. She was selected to participate in the Woodruff Leadership Academy of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center and received the Nanette Wagner service award in the Department of Medicine for her outstanding service to the Emory and Atlanta communities. Dr. Hollberg was also honored as the Department of Medicine’s ‘Hidden Gem’ at the 2015 Dean’s Celebration of Faculty Excellence. She has become nationally recognized for her leadership in this area and is a sought after speaker and advisor on IT implementations to improve patient care.

 

Lucienne (Lucie) Ide, M.D., Ph.D.Lucienne (Lucie) Ide, M.D., Ph.D.
Rimidi, Inc.
Healthcare innovator and CEO

Lucienne (Lucie) Ide, M.D., Ph.D., a healthcare innovator and CEO of Rimidi, Inc., brings her diverse experiences in medicine, science, venture capital and technology to transforming the delivery of healthcare for chronic diseases. Rimidi’s cloud-based diabetes management platform provides a comprehensive solution for healthcare systems that connects healthcare providers with their patients. Rimidi enables providers to receive a clear snapshot of each patient’s diabetes numbers and unique needs by merging patient and clinical data and provides them with decision support tools to make personalized treatment decisions.

Dr. Ide founded RImidi with the purpose of improving the health of the chronically ill and the healthcare system as a whole. “Our digital health technology helps health systems achieve the Quadruple Aim of improved outcomes, better patient experience, lower overall cost of care for patients, and improved clinician satisfaction,” says Dr. Ide.

Prior to starting Rimidi in 2012, Dr. Ide worked as a physicist at the National Security Agency, Raytheon Systems Corporation and Monarch Capital Partners, a venture capital firm. She holds a joint M.D./Ph.D. degree from Emory University, and completed her medical training at the University of Pennsylvania Medical College’s Magee Womens’ Hospital in Pittsburgh.

A speaker on women in technology and digital health innovation, Dr. Ide has been a guest speaker at many health IT conferences and has been published on Forbes.com. A member of the App Association, an industry trade organization advocating healthcare reform, she has spent time on Capitol Hill meeting with legislative officials about digital health. She also is a board member of the Georgia Community Leadership Board of the American Diabetes Association and a founder of I Can Be The Change, a not-for-profit focused on educating youth on obesity-related health issues. She serves as a Trustee of Middlebury College in Vermont.

Rimidi has been named a Top 5 Company to Watch by the Georgia Pharmacists Association and a Top 10 Innovative Company in Georgia by the Technology Association of Georgia. Rimidi also is an ATDC Select Company. Additionally, the company received a “Platinum” ranking by BAnalytics as a socially conscious company. Rimidi has been featured in Reuters, The Economist, The Huffington Post, and MobiHealth News, as well as local media, including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Dr. Ide lives in Atlanta with her husband and their four sons.

 

Jean C. O'Connor, JD, DrPH, FACHEJean C. O’Connor, JD, DrPH, FACHE
Georgia Department of Public Health
Chronic Disease Prevention Director

Jean C. O’Connor, JD, DrPH, FACHE is the Chronic Disease Prevention Director for the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) where her team is responsible for chronic disease prevention, population health initiatives, the cancer programs and adolescent health statewide. She has almost 20 years of public health experience and is the president-elect of the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors. She earned her Juris Doctor and Master of Public Health from Emory University in 2001, and a Doctor of Public Health in Health Policy and Management from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009. She is a member the State Bar of Georgia, teaches at the Rollins School of Public Health, and is a fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives.

 

Jennifer S. Singh, PhD, MPH
Georgia Institute of Technology
Associate Professor of Sociology in the School of History and Sociology

Jennifer Singh is Associate Professor of Sociology in the School of History and Sociology at Georgia Institute of Technology. She is the author of the book Multiple Autisms: Spectrums of Advocacy and Genomic Science, which explores a range of perspectives from scientists, activists, parents, and people with autism surrounding the rise and implementation of autism genetics research. Her current research investigates the quality of care provided by a community-based autism clinic that serves under-privileged communities, as well as the social and structural barriers to autism diagnosis and services that reside at the intersection of race, class, and gender.