Christine Riedy, MA, PhD, MPH, Principal Investigator is the Delta Dental of Massachusetts Associate Professor in Oral Public Health and Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. She is also a psychologist and health services researcher. Dr. Riedy oversees the development of the training and the technical assistance modules, the testing with the Learning Collaborative and the plan for dissemination. Her previous research has been primarily focused on the understanding and prevention of dental caries, particularly in underserved and diverse populations. Dr. Riedy's previously funded studies (HRSA, NIH-NIDCR) focused on the intergenerational aspect of dental disease and behavioral strategies for promoting prenatal dental visits to potentially prevent the initial transmission of infection between mothers and their children. Dr. Riedy’s more recent focus has been on the integration of health care, particularly medical, dental, and behavioral integration. She sits on the Advisory Board for the Harvard School of Dental Medicine Initiative to Integrate Oral Health and Medicine. Dr. Riedy has current funding from HRSA related to the integration of oral health and general health. She is the Lead PI/PD on a HRSA-funded cooperative agreement, “Center for Evaluating Integration of Oral Health into Primary Care Training”. Dr. Riedy draws experience from her extensive work with vulnerable and underserved populations and current work developing oral health competencies for primary caregivers.
Arielle Mather, MPH, serves as Senior Program Manager at NCECE, overseeing the planning and delivery of the Center’s trainings and technical assistance activities. She has spent many years in the Boston nonprofit sector addressing the needs of older and vulnerable populations, as well as the providers who care for them. Arielle received her Master of Public Health from Tufts University School of Medicine, where she concentrated in health communication. Throughout her professional experience, she has enjoyed connecting others with resources that promote their health and well-being.
Juliette Provost serves as the Staff Assistant at NCECE, providing administrative support for the Center’s activities and day-to-day operations. She joins us from Simmons University where she earned a BA in English and served as an Office Assistant to Accessibility Services and was the Senior Administrative Assistant to the CIO.
Tiffany Kehayoglou Sarkissian serves as the Communications Coordinator for NCECE, overseeing health center outreach and engagement, and contributing to the Center's publications and learning activities. She has an extensive background in communications, higher education, writing, and physical fitness/wellness programming. Tiffany has a lifelong passion for helping vulnerable populations, and also held a communications role with the Harvard School of Dental Medicine Initiative to Integrate Oral Health and Medicine, to spread awareness of the integration of oral health and overall health.
Steffany Chamut, DDS, MPH, Curriculum Evaluation Lead is a full-time Instructor in the Department of Oral Health Policy and Epidemiology and the Office of Global and Community Health.
Prior to joining HSDM, she completed her post-graduate studies in restorative prosthetics and dental public health in the U.S. University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, A.T. Still University, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), and her fellowships at the Pan-American/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Her work within the medical field spans the private, public, academic, and U.S. federal settings.
Dr. Chamut currently engages in diverse programmatic efforts across the school and the healthcare profession ranging from dental, public health education, workforce development, and clinical training at pre- and post-doctoral levels, and oral health integration initiatives. She is an AGE-Dental Public Health course director and co-director, a curricular evaluation lead at the HRSA funded National Center for Equitable Care for Elders (NCECE) a national training and technical assistance center that employs activities aimed to improve the care for older adults, and Co-PI of the HRSA grant titled “Catalyzing Oral Health Workforce for Rural and Vulnerable Populations”, which will create the first and only Dental Public Health (DPH) Residency in the country with a dedicated rural track. In addition, she is part of the Human Resources for Health (HRH) program, Faculty at the University of Rwanda, School of Dentistry (first Bachelors of Dental Surgery program in the country), and visiting lecturer at the University of West Indies, Mona School of Dentistry, Kingston, Jamaica.
Dr. Chamut's research interests focus on oral health, geriatrics, healthy aging, vulnerable populations, nutrition, substance and opioid addiction, health services, policy, rural populations, and global health.
Subject Matter Expert Leads
Lynn Hallarman, MD, MM is a board-certified palliative care physician. She has been a leader in palliative care program development for nearly two decades, and was a Health and Aging Policy Fellow in 2018. Dr. Hallarman served as the Director of the Palliative Care Services at Stony Brook University Medical Center, from 2007 to 2019. Prior to starting and building the program at Stony Brook Hospital, she initiated and developed the palliative care program for the VA Maryland Health Care System. From 2017-2018, Dr. Hallarman served as a residential congressional fellow on the Senate Committee on Finance for Senator Ron Wyden. She currently works as a palliative care educational consultant and writer. August 11, 2021: Read the New York Times op-ed piece by Dr. Hallarman, entitled, Professional Caregivers Have Always Been Essential Workers.
Peter Maramaldi, PhD, LCSW, MPH is Professor and former Director of the social work PhD Program at Simmons University College of Social Sciences Policy and Practice; Adjunct Professor, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Department of Social and Behavioral Science; and Clinical Instructor, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Oral Health Policy and Epidemiology.
Dr. Maramaldi developed the interdisciplinary opportunity for Simmons social work PhD students to earn an MPH degree at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Maramaldi practiced social work and managed non-profit organizations for more than 25 years before launching his academic research career. He is an expert in behavioral health care and has had a consistent funding record from the National Institutes of Health and major foundations. Dr. Maramaldi’s past funded research includes a national demonstration project to address childhood dental caries through behavioral interventions with families including the social determinants of health (SDOH), the development of a patient safety toolkit using electronic health records to identify and reduce the occurrence of adverse events in dental medicine, and the development of a whole-systems approach to implementing standardized dental diagnostic terms.
His extensive consulting work in evidence-based health promotion across disciplines addresses individual needs through population interventions. He has previously consulted on a HRSA-funded project to train dental residents on how to include SDOH and to communicate more effectively with patients and families. His most recent national project focused on optimizing health teams’ provision of healthcare to frail elders living in the community. As a social work behavioral scientist, he works with physicians, nurses, health economists, and caregivers to determine the most cost- effective models of interprofessional healthcare to frail older adults living in the community.
Andrea Wershof Schwartz, MD MPH AGSF is co-director of the Aging and End of Life Theme at Harvard Medical School and is a national leader in the Age Friendly Health Systems initiative. Dr. Schwartz is the Associate Director for Clinical Innovation in the New England Geriatrics Research Education and Clinical Center at VA Boston and Associate Director of the Harvard Multicampus Geriatrics Fellowship.
Advisory Board
Ali Abbas Asghar-Ali, MD is a geriatric psychiatrist and currently serves as the geriatric psychiatric fellowship director at Baylor College of Medicine. He is also the Associate Director for Education at the South Central Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC). Dr. Asghar-Ali is dedicated to enhancing the cultural attunement of clinicians to best serve all patients.
Erin Emery-Tiburcio, PhD, ABPP is a Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences and Geriatric Medicine, and Director of Geropsychology at Rush University Medical Center, as well as Co-Director of the Rush Center for Excellence in Aging, co-director of CATCH-ON, the HRSA-funded Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program based at Rush University Medical Center, and co-director of the E4 Center of Excellence for Behavioral Health Disparities in Aging. She is past-Chair of the American Psychological Association Committee on Aging, past-President of the Society for Clinical Geropsychology, and currently co-chairs the APA taskforce to revise the APA Guidelines for Working with Older Adults.
Leonard Brennan, DMD, Geriatric Training Lead is Co-Director of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine’s (HSDM) Geriatric Fellowship Program and Lecturer, part-time in the Department of Oral Health Policy and Epidemiology. He has practiced general dentistry in Portland, Maine for almost forty years. As co-director of the HSDM geriatrics fellowship program, Advisory Member of MOTIVATE (Maine Oral Team-Based Initiative: Vital Access to Education), and a member of the team collaborating on the Nurse Practitioner-Dentist initiative with Northeastern University, Dr. Brennan has extensive experience developing team-based approaches to multidisciplinary teams caring for older adults and underserved in rural areas. In his role at the Center, he is responsible for helping coordinate the team learning and designing the training and technical assistance modules. Dr. Brennan completed a Harvard University Geriatric Dental Research and Teaching Fellowship Program, and was recognized for his postdoctoral work at Harvard as the recipient of the Dr. James Dunning Award for excellence in biomedical research and teaching. He is guest editor for Dental Clinics of North America's Dental Geriatric Edition and the author of the chapter “Cognitive Impairment in Older Adults.” Nationally, Dr. Brennan was a presenter on “Oral Health and Systemic Disease” at the American Society on Aging Conferences in Washington and San Diego. In 2009, he traveled to northern Haiti to begin a geriatric assessment of the population of Cap Haitien. Since 1982, he has taught oral health for the Medical Geriatric Fellowship Program at Maine Medical Center. Locally, he has been involved in many community dental and medical organizations and as a volunteer in the Dental Lifeline Network for which he was nationally recognized by CNN Money magazine with the 2014 "Hero Award" for his work with older adults and other fragile individuals
Tara Hammes, RDN is the Director of Member Services for Nutrition and Healthy Aging with the Massachusetts Councils on Aging and member of both the Massachusetts Public Health Association's Policy Council and the Massachusetts Commission on Malnutrition Prevention Among Older Adults. A registered dietitian for over 25 years, she spent the last ten years working on older adult community nutrition programs.
Huong Le, DDS, MA is Chief Dental Officer of Asian Health Services located in Oakland, CA. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Western Clinicians Network (WCN), Alameda County Dental Society, NACHC Clinical Practice Committee, and Health Policy Committee. She just finished her 11-year tenure as board member of Dental Board of California in January 2020 where she served in various capacities as President, Vice-President and chairs of various committees. Asian Health Services has a very robust integrated care model including depression screening and diabetes screening and testing. Her depression screening innovative approach has been recognized by HRSA as best practice and featured in several newspapers. During COVID 19, she implemented very successful telehealth and drive-thru fluoride varnish programs at her health center. Dr Le has faculty appointments at several dental universities. Dr Le began her leadership fellowship program at Northwestern University in December 2019, sponsored by American College of Dentists Foundation. Dr Le is a fellow of the American College of Dentists, Pierre Fauchard Academy and International College of Dentists. In May 2020, she received the Myron Allukian Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Association of Community Dental Programs (AACDP)
Stephen Martin, MD, EdM is a Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health at UMass Chan Medical School where he is residency faculty and co-directs the Rural Health Scholars Program. He is the medical director for the Office-Based Addiction Treatment program at the rural Barre Family Health Center and board certified in family medicine and addiction medicine. Steve’s clinical and research interests include primary care, oral health, complex care, addiction medicine, chronic pain, diagnostic error, and health disparities.
Medha Munshi, MBBS is the Director of the Joslin Geriatric Diabetes Program and an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. She is also a staff geriatrician at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Dr. Munshi is board certified in Internal Medicine, Geriatric Medicine, and Endocrinology and Metabolism. Dr. Munshi has developed a unique Geriatric Diabetes Program at the Joslin Diabetes Center. This model of care is an interdisciplinary program, beyond the traditional diabetes programs, that considers clinical, functional and psychosocial barriers faced by older adults before formulating individualized treatment strategies. Her clinical research is focused on identifying barriers to diabetes management and developing novel strategies to improve care of older adults. She has co-edited books on the topic of Geriatric Diabetes and has published extensively on this subject. Her current focus of research also includes use of diabetes technology in care of older adults with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
Diana V. Shaw, PhD, MBA, MPH, FACME, is currently working part-time at the University of Hawaiʻi (UH) Rural Health Research and Policy Center as a Health Policy Advisor/ Consultant, and periodically serves as a reviewer for HRSA (federal agency, Health Resources and Services Administration). Prior to her UH role, she was the Executive Director of the Lānaʻi Community Health Center starting in October 2008 through December 2022 when she retired. Dr. Shaw’s career spans a period of over 40 years, providing leadership in various health care safety net positions, as well as serving in the past as a Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award of Excellence Examiner, the Board President for the Hawaii State Rural Health Association, a member of the Board of Directors of the Hawaii Primary Care Association, and a Board member of AlohaCare. She has been actively involved in management of primary care, mental health, dental and vision services to the un- and underinsured. Dr. Shaw also has long participated as in interactions with the community, legislature, and executive branch of government, federal government officials and other leaders in the health care community – acting as an advocacy educator to bring the patient’s voice to those in power.