Floyd J. Fowler Jr., PhD
President
Floyd Jackson Fowler Jr. is a social scientist who specializes in survey research methods; he has been a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Survey Research, UMass Boston since 1971. Dr. Fowler has been a major contributor to research on patient outcomes, and on how patients are affected by the treatments they receive. He has worked with the Foundation since its inception on the dual tasks of understanding patient perspectives on treatment decisions and evaluating the programs designed to help patients make decisions. In early 2002, he was chosen to be President of the Foundation.

John E. Wennberg, MD, MPH
Co-Founder, Senior Policy Advisor
Director of the Center for Evaluative Clinical Sciences at Dartmouth Medical School and Peggy Y. Thomson Professor of Epidemiology and Professor of Community and Family Medicine at Dartmouth Medical School.

Albert G. Mulley, MD, MPP
Co-Founder, Senior Medical Advisor
Chief of the General Medicine Division and Director of the Medical Practices Evaluation Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine and of Health Policy at Harvard Medical School.

Molly T. Beinfeld, MPH
Research Associate, Clinical Evidence
Molly Beinfeld gathers, evaluates and summarizes current medical research in support of new or revised Shared Decision Making programs. Ms. Beinfeld has a BA in Psychology and Biology from Cornell University and a Master's of Public Health from Boston University. Before joining the Foundation in 2004, Ms. Beinfeld worked as an Analyst for the Boston Public Health Commission and as a Research Scientist at the Institute for Technology Assessment at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Laura Bozzuto
Research Assistant 
Laura Bozzuto assists with the coordination of research projects and demonstration sites. She recently graduated from Dartmouth College with a bachelor of arts in Sociology. Before joining the Foundation she was involved in research on patient preferences and rural health at Dartmouth College.

Charity S. Curtis
Program Coordinator 
Charity works closely with the Foundation’s Evaluation, Clinical Evidence, and Patient Perspective teams.  She assists in the process of upcoming reviews for the Foundation’s many video programs, helps research medical articles for future video program updates, and schedules and screens focus group participants. Charity earned a BA at Tufts University, Boston, MA. 

Marline Fichter, RN, MHSA
Research Associate, Clinical Evidence
Marline Fichter participates in the collection, review, and assessment of clinical evidence to support new or revised Shared Decision Making programs. Ms. Fichter has a BS in Nursing from Grand Valley State University and a Master's in Health Services Administration from the University of Michigan. Before joining the Foundation in 2003, she held management positions in the Department of Nursing at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago and in the Division of Reproductive Medicine at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston.

Catherine Finn, MSW
Research Associate, Clinical Evidence
Catherine Finn gathers, evaluates and summarizes current medical research in support of new or revised Shared Decision Making programs. Before joining the Clinical Evidence Team as a Research Associate, Ms. Finn worked in the Child Psychiatry Department at Massachusetts General Hospital and at the Harvard School of Public Health. She conducted her clinical social work training at Healthcare Associates, a multidisciplinary primary care practice within Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston. Ms. Finn holds a BA in Literature and Psychology and BS in Mass Communications from Boston University and a Master’s in Social Work from Simmons, where she now teaches a writing course during the summer term.

Christine M. Fisler
Director of Finance and Administration
Chris Fisler is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the Foundation's fiscal operations, contract and grant management as well as the overall day-to-day activities of the office. Ms. Fisler comes to the Foundation with many years of experience in both finance and operations. In recent years, she worked as the Controller for Dalbar, Inc., a financial services research firm, and as Director of Finance and Operations for Stackpole & Partners, an advertising agency.

Gail Gabriele
Administrative Professional
Gail’s responsibilities include assisting the Director of Finance and Administration in the day-to-day operations of the office.  Previously she was employed by Verizon Communications as the Communications Manager for a Senior V.P. in the Marketing Organization.  In that capacity, she participated in the development & content mgmt. of the departmental website, planned/coordinated annual conferences and created presentations for the Sr. V.P. Gail earned Associate Certificates in Project Management from George Washington University and Critical & Creative Thinking in Business from U-Mass Boston.  She also holds an Associate’s degree in Legal Secretarial Science from St. Thomas Aquinas College.

Emily Hubbard, MPH
Research Associate, Data Collection and Analysis
Emily Hubbard collects, maintains and analyzes data regarding the Foundation’s Shared Decision Making Programs and communicates research findings to professional and general audiences.  Ms. Hubbard has a Sc.B. in Neuroscience from Brown University and a Master's of Public Health in Epidemiology from Boston University.  Before joining the Foundation in 2007, Ms. Hubbard worked as a Research Assistant and Psychometrist at the Boston University Alzheimer’s Disease Clinical and Research Program.

Carrie Levin, PhD
Director of Research
Together with the research team, Dr. Levin is involved in the design, collection, analysis, and dissemination of research instruments, protocols, and results supporting the Foundation’s mission. Prior to joining the Foundation, she worked as a senior analyst at Qualidigm, Connecticut’s Quality Improvement Organization and as an Assistant Research Professor at the Institute for Health, Health Policy, and Aging Research at Rutgers University. Dr. Levin holds a B.A. from Wellesley College and a Ph.D. in Health Services Research from the University of Minnesota.

Ruth Lipman, PhD
Research Associate, Clinical Evidence
Ruth Lipman gathers and assesses clinical evidence to support new or revised Shared Decision Making programs. She has a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and has been a faculty member at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Tufts University School of Nutrition and Harvard School of Medicine. Prior to joining the Foundation, she conducted medical research funded by the National Institute on Aging, National Heart Blood and Lung Institute, and the National Eye Institute.

Vicki Mentink
Office Manager
Vicki Mentink is in charge of the day-to-day operations of the Foundation as well as the financial reporting. Vicki comes to us from Wisconsin, where she worked for ten years in various departments of the City of Manitowoc. Her experience included five years with the Police Department where she was involved in police records and statistical reporting.

Colin Nelson
Research Associate, Clinical Evidence
Colin Nelson critiques and synthesizes scientific research, and translates it into clear, evidence-based messages to support a broad range of Foundation programs. He has authored or edited more than 2000 articles and monographs, several of which won medical writing awards. His work for health care providers and the general public has appeared on CNN.com, WebMD, AOL Health, Medpage Today, and elsewhere. Mr. Nelson is also a consumer representative to the Cochrane Collaboration. For 10 years he was editor of the newsletters Bone & Joint and Sports Medicine Digest and associate editor of The Back Letter. He received his BA from Williams College.

Lyn Paget, MPH
Director of Communications
Lyn Paget develops strategies for communicating the Foundation’s mission to all who are interested in improving the quality of medical decision making. She designs plans for sharing the Foundation’s resources, innovations, and research findings with the health care community, consumers, and policy professionals. She has a BS in Health Education from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell and a Masters in Public Health from the University of California, Los Angeles. Before joining the Foundation, she served as Vice President of the Medical Outcomes Trust in Boston. In management and consultative roles, her work has concentrated in health care quality improvement, with a focus on program planning, evaluation and policy development.

Ellen J. Reifler, MPH
Research Associate, Patient Perspectives
Ellen J. Reifler is responsible for all phases of patient perspective program development. This includes recruiting patients, moderating focus groups, conducting individual interviews, writing patient perspective summaries, and reviewing video program development to ensure that these perspectives are accurately represented in Foundation materials. Ms. Reifler has a BA from Barnard College of Columbia University and a Master's in Public Health from Yale University. She has been the Executive Director of the Abortion and Pregnancy Testing Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Administrator of Surgery for Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, New York and a consultant for the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition.

Diana L. Stilwell, MPH
Director of Clinical Evidence
In collaboration with clinical experts, Diana L. Stilwell ensures the accuracy of the clinical evidence included in all Foundation materials. Before joining the Foundation in 2001, she was Executive Editor of Weekly Briefings from The New England Journal of Medicine, a regular contributor to the consumer newsletters HealthNews and Heart Watch, and former managing editor of the Healthwise Handbook, Healthwise for Life and the Healthwise Knowledgebase™. Ms. Stilwell holds BS and MPH degrees from the University of Michigan.

Pamela H. Wescott, MPP
Director of Patient Perspectives and Evaluation
Pamela Wescott is responsible for overseeing all of the Foundation’s patient perspective and evaluation activities. She has managed research initiatives for Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and Radcliffe Public Policy Institute, and she has taught focus group methodology to Harvard undergraduates and Harvard Law students. Since joining the Foundation in 1998, she has collaborated on research initiatives exploring the appropriateness of the Foundation’s decision aids for underserved groups. Ms. Wescott has a BA from Wellesley College and a Master's in Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley.