Secondary Mentorship Program for Diverse Research Faculty
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In collaboration with the MGH Equity and Community Health Office, the Disparities Solutions Center has created the Secondary Mentorship Program for diverse research faculty. The following four were selected for participation as mentees in the inaugural launch of this program.
Jehan Alladina, MD
Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Assistant Physician, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital
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Dr. Alladina is a physician-scientist in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at MGH where she attends in the ICU and on the pulmonary consult service. Her research program in the Center for Immunology and Inflammatory Diseases at MGH prioritizes the use of human biospecimens and translational methods to understand the innate immune programs underlying pulmonary inflammatory disease. Dr. Alladina has particular interest in asthma and the acute respiratory distress syndrome, two heterogeneous disorders that contribute to significant patient morbidity and mortality. Dr. Alladina leverages human models of lung inflammation and detailed immunophenotyping to identify novel cellular and molecular signaling pathways that govern acute pulmonary inflammation and its resolution, with the ultimate goal of developing targeted therapies for common lung disorders.
Aderonke Bamgbose Pederson, MD
Depression Clinical and Research Program, Massachusetts General Hospital
Director, Research Equity, Clinical Trials Network Institute
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
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Dr. Pederson is a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital with a focus on mental illness stigma and health disparities. Dr. Pederson is the Director of Research Equity in the Clinical Trials Network and Institute at MGH, Director of Recruitment Strategy for EPPIC-Net (Early Phase Pain Investigation Clinical Network) and an Assistant professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Pederson completed medical school and residency training in psychiatry at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. During residency she also received a certificate of scholarly concentration in global health.
Dr. Pederson has conducted research locally and globally on health disparities. Her research is centered on alleviating health disparities for underserved and vulnerable populations. Dr. Pederson has focused on the identification of mechanisms that result in barriers to engagement in mental and physical health services for underserved populations, including Black adults. She also conducts research on the development of health models that address medical mistrust and that promote early engagement in health services. She has worked with community-based organizations to improve public understanding of mental health, which has led to increased participation in health and wellness programs among underserved Black youth and adults.
She is a co-editor of the Landmark Papers in Psychiatry with the Oxford University Press (2020). Dr. Pederson has published peer-reviewed articles on barriers to engagement in health services. She has received funding from the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences as an inaugural recipient of the Clinical and Translational Science Award Diversity Supplement grant at Northwestern. Dr. Pederson also received funding from the NIH National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases Third Coast Center for AIDS Research. The aims of these grants were to identify mechanisms and psychosocial factors that lead to low engagement in treatment and to delineate models to improve early engagement in health services for underserved Black communities.
Dr. Pederson has received awards from national societies such as the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Diversity Fellowship, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Minority Fellowship, the APA/American College of Neuropsychopharmacology Junior Investigator Research Colloquium award and the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology New Investigator Award. Her innovations in the area of health disparities have led to invitations to lecture on health disparities in both academic and community settings.
Dr. Pederson provides new models for understanding how stigmatizing perspectives impact use of mainstream health services and how our health systems can engage more successfully with patients from underserved communities to reduce health inequities.
Marisela Dy-Hollins, MD, MS
Department of Neurology
Instructor, Harvard Medical School
Director, Pediatric Movement Disorders Clinic
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Marisela Dy-Hollins, MD is a child neurologist in the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Instructor at Harvard Medical School. She is the Director of the Pediatric Movement Disorders Program. Her current research is focused on identifying potential sex disparities in Tourette syndrome and related tic disorders and more broadly in child neurology.
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Giselle Perez, PhD
Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School
Director, Mind Body Program for Cancer Survivors, MGH Cancer Center
Director, Adolescent and Young Adult Research, MGH Cancer Center Survivorship Program
Associate Director, Adolescent and Young Adult Program, MGH Cancer Center
Faculty, Health Promotion and Resiliency Intervention Research (HPRIR) Program
Senior Scientist, Health Policy Research Center (HPRC) at the Mongan Institute
Clinical Health Psychologist, MGH Behavioral Medicine Service, MGH Cancer Center
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Dr. Perez is a clinical health psychologist at the MGH and an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School. She serves as Director of Adolescent and Young Adult Research and Director of the MGH Mind Body Program for Cancer Survivors. Clinically, Dr. Perez specializes in caring for individuals and their caregivers who are impacted by cancer, particularly young adults (ages 18-39). The focus of treatment often centers on post-treatment transitions, managing the unexpected social and emotional challenges that occur after cancer treatment, improving stress and anxiety symptoms, coping with uncertainty, and promoting health behavior change. Dr. Perez’s research centers on identifying innovative solutions to improve health care access and delivery as well as emotional and physical health outcomes among underserved groups. In these endeavors, her work examines the physical, psychosocial, and biobehavioral (e.g., stress hormones) effects of stress and stress interventions in cancer patients and survivors. She blends behavioral and implementation science in its efforts to identify and implement patient, provider, system-level and community-based strategies to improve health care delivery and access.