Director
Kerri Cavanaugh, MD, MHS
Director, Center for Effective Health Communication
Director, Nephrology Clinical Trials Center
Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Nephrology
Dr. Cavanaugh received her bachelor´s degree in Chemistry and Psychology from Dartmouth College in 1995. She received her M.D. from Yale in 1999. After this, Dr. Cavanaugh completed an Internal Medicine Residency and fellowship in Nephrology in 2005. During this time she also served as Chief Resident of Internal Medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital. In 2006, she graduated from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a Masters in Health Science (M.H.S.) degree with a focus in clinical epidemiology. In 2006, she joined the faculty at Vanderbilt in Internal Medicine Division of Nephrology and the Vanderbilt Center for Health Services Research. Dr. Cavanaugh´s current research focuses on exploring the role of patient awareness and education regarding chronic disease self-management. This includes elucidating the role of health literacy and numeracy in the communication between patients and providers as well as potential barriers to effective self-management in patients with diabetes, hypertension and kidney disease. She has been funded by the NIH and the National Kidney Foundation.
Faculty
Sunil Kripalani, MD, MSc, SFHM, FACP
Director, Center for Health Services Research
Vice President, Health System Sciences
Professor of Medicine, Division of General and Internal Medicine
Dr. Kripalani is a Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He directs the Center for Health Services Research and, as Vice President for Health System Sciences, is active in developing VUMC’s growing learning health system. He is an applied implementation scientist whose research interests include health communication, medication safety, care transitions, health-related social needs, implementation of evidence-based practice, and de-implementation of low-value care. His research has been funded by the NIH, AHRQ, PCORI, and CMS. He is PI on three NIH-funded studies to implement health-related social needs, genomic discoveries, and predictive models into clinical practice. Dr. Kripalani co-leads VUMC’s Health Systems Implementation Initiative and Learning Health Systems Embedded Scientist Training and Research Center (RAPID-LHS). Supports implementation science activities for the Vanderbilt CTSA and Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, and leads the research committee of the STAR Clinical Research Network. He has served as the PI or lead implementation science mentor on several postdoctoral research fellowships and faculty career development programs. Dr. Kripalani serves on the AHRQ National Advisory Council and on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Hospital Medicine.
Elisa Gordon, PhD, MPH
Director, Surgical Outcomes Research
Director, Transplant Outcomes Research
Core Faculty, Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society
Professor of Surgery
Dr. Gordon is a Professor in the Department of Surgery, and the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN. Dr. Gordon is a medical anthropologist, and trained in clinical medical ethics and in Community Health. Her scholarship focuses on ethical issues in organ transplantation and donation. Dr. Gordon’s research entails developing and evaluating culturally targeted health communication interventions to improve informed consent, reduce health disparities, and facilitate treatment decision-making using implementation science and qualitative and mixed-methods. She is Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology and of the American Society of Transplantation.
William Heerman, MD, MPH
Director, Division of Academic General Pediatrics
William K. Warren Foundation Chair in Medicine
Associate Professor of Pediatrics, General Pediatrics
Dr. Heerman is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics. He is the Director of the Division of Academic General Pediatrics and Program Director for the Academic General Pediatrics Fellowship. His research focuses on improving maternal-child health outcomes related to obesity in communities through the development and implementation of behavioral interventions to support healthy childhood growth. He has a particular focus on low-income and minority populations. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and is committed to creating multi-generational solutions to differences in health outcomes.
Shelagh Mulvaney, PhD
Associate Professor of Nursing, Clinical Psychology, Biomedical Informatics & Pediatrics
Dr. Mulvaney is a Associate Professor of Nursing, Pediatrics, and Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University. A Clinical Psychologist by training, her research interests focus generally on consumer health informatics. She leads NIH and foundation-funded research to improve the assessment and integration of psychosocial factors in the design and evaluation of technology- and informatics-mediated behavior change support systems. Her research has led to efficacious internet, mobile, and informatics-based data integration and self-management interventions for youth and adults with diabetes. Several key aspects of her research are the use of social learning mechanisms to promote behavior change, the integration of processes that engage patients with their health data in daily environments, development of patient-reported outcomes clinical informatics systems, and tailored mobile patient health communications. Current research integrates wearable sensors, blood glucose, and momentary assessment of social context, affect, cognition, and behavior for personalized just-in-time feedback. Dr. Mulvaney is a dedicated teacher in graduate education related to quantitative research design, socio-cultural aspects of science and science education, and consumer health informatics.
Russell Rothman, MD, MPP
Director, Institute for Medicine and Public Health
Senior Vice President, Population and Public Health
Associate Dean, Population Health Sciences
Ingram Chair in Integrative and Population Health
Professor, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, & Health Policy
Dr. Rothman is Professor of Internal Medicine, Pediatrics and Health Policy, Ingram Professor of Integrative and Population Health, and the Senior Vice President for Population and Public Health at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He also serves as the Director of the Institute for Medicine and Public Health and Associate Dean for Population Health Sciences. The Institute for Medicine and Public Health engages over 250 faculty involved in research and education related to global health, epidemiology, health services research, health policy, biomedical ethics, biostatistics, and other fields. Key areas of research include implementation science, population health, behavioral research, differences in health outcomes, quality improvement, learning health system approaches, and other areas aimed at improving health outcomes. Dr. Rothman is an expert in health services research and health communication. His research focuses on improving care for adult and pediatric patients with diabetes, obesity and other chronic diseases. His research focuses on addressing health communication, health literacy/numeracy, and other social and behavioral factors to improve health.
Ebele M. Umeukeje, MD, MPH
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Nephrology and Hypertension
Dr. Umeukeje is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at VUMC. Her research aims to reduce the high morbidity and mortality associated with kidney disease by improving self-care in vulnerable populations, addressing health-related differences. She has expertise in examining novel multi-level psychosocial factors associated with medication and dialysis treatment adherence in African Americans with end-stage kidney disease. She has developed and tested novel, culturally sensitive strategies employing motivational interviewing techniques to improve delivery of care and outcomes in advanced kidney disease.
William Martinez, MD, MS
Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Internal Medicine and Public Health
Dr. Martinez is an Assistant Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Public Health within the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Martinez conducts foundation, NIH, and AHRQ funded research in the areas of professionalism, patient safety culture, and use of health information technology to support chronic disease management and disease prevention.
Lyndsay Nelson, PhD
Research Associate Professor, Division of Internal Medicine and Public Health
Dr. Nelson is a social psychologist with expertise in experimental and translational health psychology. Dr. Nelson received her MA in Experimental Psychology from Appalachian State University and her PhD in Social/Experimental Psychology from East Tennessee State University. Her research is grounded in self-care promotion for type 2 diabetes and technology- and community-based health interventions for underserved populations. Dr. Nelson has examined user engagement, usability, and effectiveness of several technology-delivered health interventions for diabetes but is particularly passionate about researching and optimizing technologies, namely text messaging. Her recent work is focused on examining more critically how users engage with text message-delivered interventions, to design and implement interventions that help sustain engagement, and therefore potentiate impact.
Daniel A. Barocas, MD, MPH, FACS
Executive Vice Chair, Department of Urology
Professor, Department of Urology
Dr. Barocas is a Professor and Executive Vice Chair of Urology at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and the Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center. He has clinical and research interests in urologic cancers, and the measurement of patient outcomes and quality of care. His work has focused on patient satisfaction, patient outcomes, and developing risk prediction measures to assist in counseling patients.
Lindsay Mayberry, PhD
Co-Director, Center for Health Behavior and Health Education
Associate Professor of Medicine & Biomedical Informatics
Dr. Mayberry received her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Vanderbilt University in 2006. In 2008, she received her master’s degree in Community Counseling, with an emphasis on couples and families from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. She completed her Ph.D. in an interdisciplinary program called Community Research and Action in the department of Human and Organizational Development at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University in 2012, and began a postdoctoral fellowship in Health Services Research at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Her research focuses on families’ experiences with the health and mental health care systems, and interactions between family members and health care providers in the context of chronic illness. Her current work focuses on the role of family member support in diabetes self-management behaviors among adults to inform the development of family-based interventions.
Staff
Beverly Fetterman, BS
Beverly has been a dedicated member of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center team for six years. She began her journey as an Administrative Assistant for the Division of Internal Medicine and Public Health, as well as Health Services Research. Recently, Beverly has advanced to the role of Program Manager within Health Services Research, where she collaborates closely with CEHC, CCQIR, and other affiliated programs. She holds a bachelor's degree in Family and Consumer Science from Middle Tennessee State University, class of 2017. Beverly is passionate about improving healthcare systems and fostering collaborative research environments.