Cancer Outcomes Research and Education Program (CORE) Team
The Cancer Outcomes Research and Education Program (CORE) is a unique, collaborative research team with members from oncology, nursing, palliative care, psychiatry, and psychology.
Faculty
Areej El-Jawahri, MD
Co-Director, Cancer Outcomes Research & Education Program
Director, BMT Survivorship Program
Research Interests: Investigating patient-reported outcomes, developing interventions to enhance patient-centered decision-making, & designing supportive & palliative care interventions to improve the care of patients with hematologic malignancies & their families.
Joseph Greer, PhD
Co-Director, Cancer Outcomes Research & Education Program
Research Interests: Development and testing of supportive care interventions for patients with cancer.
Jennifer Temel, MD
Program Director, Supportive Oncology Unit for Research, Care, and Education (SOURCE)
Research Interests: Palliative care, symptom management, and patient-clinician communication.
Jamie Jacobs, PhD
Director, Caregiving Research Program
Clinical Director, Supportive Oncology Unit for Research, Care, and Education (SOURCE)
Research Interests: Coping with cancer diagnosis and treatment, and evidence-based interventions to improve physical and emotional outcomes and symptom management for patients with cancer, cancer survivors, and cancer caregivers.
Zeba Ahmad, PhD
Research Interests: Applying evidence-based intervention strategies to improve mental health among young adults with cancer.
Anna Barata, PhD
Research Interests: Examining patient-reported and neurocognitive outcomes, testing supportive care interventions and developing relevant patient-reported outcomes measures in patients diagnosed with hematological cancers and treated with adoptive cellular therapies.
Amy Clara, Psy.D., MA
Research Interests: Psych-Oncology, dyadic distress management during cancer treatment, and cognitive-behavioral and integrative medicine coping strategies for health anxiety.
Tejaswini M Dhawale, MD
Research Interests: My research is focused on developing communication interventions directed at improving the patient experience. Specifically, I have been working on projects focused on improving communication between physicians and patients about CAR-T therapy and palliative care integration with hematology oncology care.
Lucy Finkelstein-Fox, PhD
Research Interests: Cognitive-behavioral mechanisms of stress reduction among individuals impacted by major medical illness, with a focus on cancer-related changes to intimate relationships and women's sexual health.
Deborah Forst, MD
Research Interests: Palliative and supportive care for patients with brain and spinal cord tumors.
Daniel Hall, PhD
Research Interests: Cancer-related uncertainty, cancer survivorship, mind-body interventions for symptom management.
Kelly Irwin, MD
Director, Collaborative Care and Community Engagement Program
Research Interests: Understanding health disparities for individuals with severe mental illness.
Vicki Jackson, MD, MPH
Research Interests: Early integrated outpatient palliative care and palliative care communication education.
Research Interests: Investigating patient-reported outcomes, end-of-life outcomes, and health care utilization in hematologic malignancies; developing interventions to enhance patient quality of life, therapy tolerability, and care delivery; developing and testing palliative and supportive care interventions to improve the care of older adults with aggressive lymphomas; integrating patient-reported outcomes into clinical trials of novel therapies.
Kelsey Lau-Min, MD
Research Interests: Developing and testing interventions to improve care delivery and outcomes for patients with gastrointestinal cancers.
Debra Lundquist, PhD
Ashley Nelson, PhD
Research Interests: Understanding quality of life impairments stemming from cancer diagnosis and treatment, and adapting psychosocial interventions to alleviate physical and emotional side effects for patients with hematologic malignancies.
Richard Newcomb, MD
Research Interests: Improving the quality of life of those with malignant and benign hematologic diseases.
Elyse Park, PhD, MPH
Prevention & Survivorship/Implementation Data Science
Research Interests: Development and integration of motivational and behavioral intervention treatments, particularly for chronic stress and smoking cessation, into cancer and survivorship care.
Jeffrey Peppercorn, MD, MPH
Director, Survivorship Program
Research Interests: Issues related to quality of care and survivorship for patients with breast cancer as well as health policy and bioethics issues related to oncology.
Giselle Perez, PhD
Research Interests: Development of integrative mind-body and behavioral interventions to promote health behavior change, treatment adherence, and treatment outcomes for patients throughout the cancer spectrum.
Kathryn Post, PhD, RN, ANP-BC
Research Interests: Improving the lives of cancer survivors through developing tailored, evidence-based survivorship interventions and programs.
Lara Traeger, PhD
Research Interests: Behavioral aspects of symptom management and quality of life among adults with cancer.
Nneka N. Ufere, MD
Research Interests: Palliative care for patients with advanced liver disease.
Affiliated Faculty
Ryan Nipp, MD, MPH
Research Interests: Optimizing the care delivered to patients with cancer and their family.
Hermioni Amonoo, MD
Research Interests: Understanding the wellbeing needs of vulnerable cancer populations, especially those with hematologic malignancies, to inform the development of novel behavioral and psychological interventions for patients and their caregivers. Incorporating positive psychological wellbeing in the care of patients with cancer and their caregivers.
Tamryn Gray, PhD, RN, MPH
Research Interests: Patient-family centered care, disparities, and health services research.
Biostatisticians
Nora Horick
Nora Horick is a biostatistician at the MGH Biostatistics Center who specializes in the design and analysis of cancer studies. Nora provides statistical support for CORE investigators, including assistance with planning and design considerations for trials and data analysis.
Dustin Rabideau, PhD
Associate Director, Biostatistics and Strategic Initiatives, MGH Biostatistics
Research Interests: Robust analysis methods for cluster randomized trials and innovative methods to account for participant dropout in clinical trials.
Post-Doctoral and Oncology Fellows
Stephen Lo, PhD
Research Interests: Supportive treatments to improve outcomes and quality of life in adults with cancer.
Research Scientists
Upeka Samarakoon, MS, PhD, MPH
Research Scientist
Research Interests: Interventions to improve the quality of life for patients and their families, addressing the spectrum of needs that arise during and after cancer treatment; patient-centered digital health tools for symptom management, psychosocial support, rehabilitation, and palliative care; and research infrastructure and procedures for conducting supportive care research.
Project/Program Managers
Chardria Trotter, MBA, MPH, CPH
Research Coordinators that work with CORE
