Faculty & Staff

CO-DIRECTORS

KATRINA ARMSTRONG, MD, MSCE is Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the School of Medicine and co-Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at Pennsylvania. She is also Senior Fellow and Director of Research at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, Senior Scholar in the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Program Leader of the Cancer Control and Outcomes Program at the Abramson Cancer Center.

Dr. Armstrong was the recipient of the 2005 Alice Hersh Young Investigator Award from AcademyHealth and was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation in 2006. Dr. Armstrong’s research seeks to elucidate the complex relationship among the social environment, health care, and cancer outcomes. Her federally funded research program has concentrated on several areas of critical policy importance including genetic testing for cancer susceptibility and racial disparities in cancer outcomes. Her current projects explore the relationship between segregation and prostate cancer outcomes and the contribution of health care related distrust to health care cost and quality.

JOSHUA METLAY, MD, PhD is Associate Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the School of Medicine and co-Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at Pennsylvania. He is also a Senior Scholar in the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, a Senior Fellow in the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, and a member of the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion at the VA Medical Center in Philadelphia. He is the Program Leader for the Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellowship at Penn.

Dr. Metlay’s research training is in immunology and health policy and management. His work applies methods of clinical epidemiology and health services research to understand patterns of infection and treatment for respiratory tract pathogens. This work especially focuses on the emergence of antibiotic drug resistance among common bacterial pathogens. The goals of this work are to identify and evaluate optimal clinical practice patterns in the management of patients with respiratory infections and examine policy relevant characteristics of communities that influence transmission of respiratory tract pathogens.

ASSOCIATE DIRECTORS

DAVID GRANDE , MD, MPA is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and a Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics.  Dr. Grande’s research and work focuses on health policy with a specific focus on the health care safety net.  He recently chaired the health transition team for Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and has worked with the City of Philadelphia and State of New Jersey on issues related to access to care. He also conducts research on aspects of medical professionalism including the civic and social roles of physicians and the influences of commercial marketing on the profession.  Dr. Grande trained in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.  He completed a Masters in Public Affairs (MPA) at Princeton University and was a Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania.

CHANITA HUGHES-HALBERT, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Director of the Community and Minority Cancer Control Initiative at the Abramson Cancer Center. Dr. Hughes-Halbert is also Co-PI for the Penn Center for Population Health and Health Disparities (CPHHD) and is PI of the Community Outreach and Dissemination Core in the Center. Dr. Hughes-Halbert has conducted a significant amount of research on the contribution of sociocultural and psychological factors related to cancer prevention and control behaviors in African Americans and developing interventions to address these factors. Her work has focused on decision-making about genetic testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2 (BRCA1/2) mutations and the psychological and behavioral outcomes of receiving genetic risk information. She is PI of a randomized trial funded by the Department of Defense to develop and evaluate a culturally tailored genetic counseling protocol for African American women. She is also currently conducting research that is designed to understand ethnic differences in psychological functioning among long-term prostate cancer survivors.

JASON H. T. KARLAWISH, MD is an Associate Professor of Medicine, Senior Fellow of the Center for Bioethics and the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, and Scholar at the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the Associate Director of the Penn Memory Center and the Director of the Alzheimers Disease Center’s Education and Information Transfer Core. Doctor Karlawish’s research focuses on ethical issues in human subjects research and the care of persons with dementia. He has investigated issues in dementia drug development, informed consent, quality of life, research and treatment decision making, and voting by persons with dementia. His current research funded with R-01’s from the NIA, NIMH, the Greenwall Foundation and the Marian S. Ware Alzheimers Disease Program examines elderly persons’ willingness to allow family to serve as a proxy for research decision making, consent capacity, whether Alzheimer’s Disease clinical trials can be redesigned to increase family caregivers’ willingness to enroll, and voting rights for persons with cognitive disability. His clinical practice focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of persons with Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. He directs the ethics track and co-directs the aging track of Penn’s Masters in Clinical Science of Epidemiology program.

JUDITH LONG, MD is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, as well as core faculty for the VA Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion and a member of both the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics and the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism.  Dr. Long trained in Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and completed a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholarship at Yale.  Dr. Long’s research focuses on social determinants of health and health care especially as they pertain to socioeconomic and racial disparities.  Dr. Long assesses these issues in the context of chronic disease, especially diabetes, using established measures to gauge disease specific medical outcomes.  Among others things, current work focuses on issues of environment, access, and race in diabetes control.

DAVID RUBIN, MD, MSCE Dr. Rubin is a senior co-director of PolicyLab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.  He is also a senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics and an Assistant Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at Penn. A general pediatrician by training, Dr. Rubin has focused his academic pursuits on health policy and practice for vulnerable populations and is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Task Force on Foster Care and their Committee for Early Education, Adoption & Dependent Care.

As a result of his experience working with vulnerable populations, Dr. Rubin was the recipient of a career-development award from the National Institutes of Child Health & Development (NICHD) to study the outcomes of children in foster care.  He has focused on the stability of a child’s placement history in out-of-home care, combining national policy-oriented analyses of children in foster care with local community-based participatory research.  Such work includes a longitudinal study of well-being among children entering out-of-home care in Philadelphia (Children’s Stability & Well-Being Study, CSAW) and the development of integrated interventions to support the behavioral health needs of these children.  More recent population-based research has included analyses of psychotropic medication use by Medicaid-enrolled children across the country, and an outcomes assessment of prenatal home visitation programs following statewide dissemination in Pennsylvania.

At The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Dr. Rubin is a practicing primary care pediatrician at the Faculty Practice for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.  He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, an MD from the University of California, San Francisco, and a master’s degree in clinical epidemiology and biostatistics from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.  He also completed a residency in pediatrics and fellowships in child maltreatment at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Rubin lives with his wife and three daughters in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.

DIRECTORS EMERITI

HAROLD (HARV) FELDMAN, MD, MSCE is Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, a board certified internist and nephrologist, Director of the Division of Epidemiology of the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, and co-Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at Penn. He is also a Senior Fellow in the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics and a Senior Scholar in the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Dr. Feldman has extensive experience and a long successful track record both in the conduct of health services research, training post-doctoral trainees, and administering large academic programs. Dr. Feldman's research focus has been on the treatment and outcomes of individuals afflicted with kidney disease, with a particular emphasis on health disparities. He has been recognized as a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation for his work. Among Dr. Feldman's educational roles is his co-Directorship of the Masters of Clinical Epidemiology program. In addition, he leads both institutional and numerous individual NIH-funded training grants supporting the training of physicians in epidemiology and health services research. Dr. Feldman has been the chair of over a dozen graduate thesis committees and has played numerous other roles in the development of both medical undergraduate and graduate curricula in epidemiology and health services research. Dr. Feldman's teaching activities have been recognized by his receipt of the prestigious Lindback Award for Teaching Excellence.

J. SANFORD (SANDY) SCHWARTZ, MD is Professor of Medicine and Health Management and Economics at the School of Medicine and The Wharton School, board certified internist and former Executive Director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. He was the first recipient of the Samuel P. Martin Award for Excellence in Health Services Research and is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. His research interests include the assessment of medical interventions and practices (with an emphasis on cost-quality tradeoffs), medical decision making and the diffusion and adoption of medical innovation. Dr. Schwartz was founding Director of the American College of Physicians Clinical Efficacy Assessment Project and President of both the American Federation for Medical Research (formerly AFCR) and the Society for Medical Decision Making. Dr. Schwartz was founding Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Managed Care and has served as Associate Editor of Journal of General Internal Medicine and on the editorial board of Medical Decision Making. Widely recognized as an outstanding mentor, almost all of the more than 40 fellows and junior faculty he has mentored are advancing successfully in their careers in academic medicine and government. He currently is mentor to 12 junior faculty, all but two of whom have career development awards and he directs or co-directs four institution-wide NIH-sponsored health services research and clinical epidemiology training grants. An outstanding teacher, he directs three school of medicine courses in clinical evaluative sciences and health care systems and has received four student teaching awards in the past five year. He has served in an a policy advisory capacity on national advisory committees for numerous governmental agencies and non-profit groups including the NIH, CDC, IOM, NAS, DOD, FDA, WHO, RWJF, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, John A. Hartford Foundation, AAMC and NCQA.

STAFF

MARK R. GARCIA, BA is the Program Coordinator for the RWJF Clinical Scholars program and the MS in Health Policy Research program at Penn and brings a wealth of experience in nonprofit administration. Before joining the staff of the Clinical Scholars program, Mark managed the budgetary and administrative aspects of the Division of Psychiatric Neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins University. Prior to Hopkins, he spent six years working in arts administration for organizations in Washington, DC and New York City.

EMILY WISHNICK , BFA is the Administrative Assistant to the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program and Masters of Science in Health Policy Research Program. Before joining the staff at Penn, she worked as a Special Education Assistant at a middle school in Philadelphia, supporting the needs of both students and teachers in the classroom. Previously she worked as a freelance Production Assistant for television shows.

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