Our Team
Co-founders
Albert G. Mulley Jr., MD, MPP Co-Founder, Senior Medical Advisor
Al is a leader in the science and application of shared decision making and other forms of collaborations between clinicians and patients. Al is the director of the Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science. He previously served as chief of the General Medicine Division and director of the Medical Practices Evaluation Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also an associate professor of medicine and health policy at Harvard Medical School. He holds a AB from from Dartmouth College and an MD and MPP degrees at Harvard Medical School and the Kennedy School of Government before doing his clinical training at the Massachusetts General Hospital.
John E. Wennberg, MD, MPH Co-Founder, Senior Policy Advisor
Through four decades of work, Jack has documented the geographic variation in the healthcare that patients in the United States receive. In 1988 he founded the Center for Evaluative Clinical Services (CECS) at Dartmouth Medical School. He currently holds the Peggy Y. Thomson Chair for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences at Dartmouth and has been Professor in the Department of Community and Family Medicine since 1980 and in the Department of Medicine since 1989. Together with his CECS colleagues, Jack has produced the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, a series of reports on how health care is used and distributed in the United States and recently published the book Tracking Medicine: A Researcher's Quest to Understand Healthcare. He holds an MD from McGill University Faculty of Medicine and his MPH from John Hopkins University.
Senior Leadership
Michael J. Barry, MD President
Michael became the Foundation's president in 2009. He has been involved with the Foundation since its beginning and previously served as chief medical editor. He is a past president of the Society for Medical Decision Making (SMDM) and the Society of General Internal Medicine. Michael has led many prominent research studies including the Patient Outcome Research Team for Prostatic Diseases. His research interests have included defining the outcomes of different strategies for the evaluation and treatment of prostate disease, decision analysis, health status measurement, clinical quality improvement, and the use of decision aids to facilitate patients' participation in decision making. He continues to practice primary care and serves as medical director of the John D. Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School (currently on leave).
Molly T. Beinfeld, MPH Director, Independent Production
Molly synthesizes and translates clinical research into evidence-based materials for patients to help them make better informed decisions about their health. Molly oversees the creation of materials that are produced independently of Health Dialog and are in the public domain. Before joining the Foundation in 2004, Molly 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. She holds a BA in Psychology and Biology from Cornell University and an MPH from Boston University.
Angela Coulter, PhD Director of Global Initiatives
Angela, who is based in Oxford, England, coordinates the Foundation's international work. She is also a senior research scientist in the University of Oxford's Department of Public Health. Her previous roles include chief executive of Picker Institute Europe, executive director of Policy and Development at the King's Fund in London, and director of the Health Services Research Unit at the University of Oxford. A social scientist by training, Angela holds a PhD in Health Services Research from the University of London. She holds Honorary Fellowships at the UK Faculty of Public Health and the Royal College of General Practitioners, and has published extensively on health care and health policy.
Christine M. Fisler Chief Financial and Operating Officer
Chris is responsible for the financial management and oversight of business activities along with the enhancement of internal organizational processes and infrastructure that will allow for the Foundation to continue to grow and fulfill its mission. Prior to joining the Foundation, she acquired many years of experience in both finance and operations. Most recently, 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. Chris holds a BS in Business Administration from Endicott College.
Floyd Jackson Fowler Jr., PhD Senior Scientific Advisor
Jack works with the Foundation by helping to define its research agenda and disseminate results related to the Foundation's mission. He has worked with the Foundation since its inception on the dual tasks of understanding patient perspectives on treatment decisions and evaluating programs designed to help patients make decisions. Jack served as president of the Foundation from 2002-2009. Jack 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; he served as its director for 14 years. Jack has been a major contributor to research on patient outcomes and on how patients are affected by the treatments they receive. He holds a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Michigan and a BA in English from Wesleyan University.
Carrie Levin, PhD Director of Research
Carrie manages the Foundation's research activities in support of the Foundation's mission. She is involved in the design, collection, analysis, and dissemination of research instruments, protocols, and results. 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. Carrie holds a BA from Wellesley College and a PhD in Health Services Research from the University of Minnesota.
Sherri Frank Mazzotta Director of Content Development and Production
Sherri works with both the Clinical Evidence team and clinical experts to ensure the accuracy of all evidence gathered in support of new or revised Shared Decision Making programs. Before joining the Foundation, she oversaw the editorial production of continuing medical education activities at M/C Communications/Pri-Med and was a publisher of society-owned medical journals at Wiley-Blackwell. She earned her BFA from Emerson College.
Mary McNaughton-Collins, MD, MPH Medical Director
Mary is the Foundation's medical director and the medical editor for the benign prostatic hyperplasia Shared Decision Making© program and the Chronic Condition Guide. Mary is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a primary care physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Mary holds a BA in Spanish from the College of the Holy Cross, an MD from Dartmouth/Brown, and an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Benjamin Moulton JD, MPH Senior Legal Advisor
Ben has had an extensive career in health care law serving clients in both the private and public sectors. Prior to joining the Foundation, he served as legal counsel to George Washington Medical Center, which involved providing legal advice to an academic medical center, a teaching hospital, medical school, and affiliated physicians. Prior to joining the Foundation, he served as the executive director of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics for over 15 years. He holds a teaching appointment as an adjunct professor at the Harvard School of Public Health where he teaches a course on health law in clinical practice iwithin the Department of Health Policy & Management. He received his BA from Harvard. In addition he holds a JD from Georgetown Law Center and an MPH from Harvard University.
Lyn Paget, MPH Director of Policy and Outreach
Lyn develops strategies to advance policy to support sustainable models of health care that include shared decision making and to improve the quality of medical decisions. Through education, outreach, and advocacy she advances the Foundation's mission by sharing resources, innovations, and research findings with the health care community, consumers, and policy professionals. 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. She holds a BS in Health Education from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell and an MPH from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Diana L. Stilwell, MPH Chief Production Officer
Diana oversees all aspects of the Foundation's role in Shared Decision Making© program production and ongoing clinical review of health coaching resources with Health Dialog. She also oversees the Foundation's independent production initiatives. In collaboration with Medical Editors and other clinical experts, her team 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 and managing editor of the Healthwise Handbook, Healthwise for Life, and the Healthwise Knowledgebase™. Diana received BS and MPH degrees from the University of Michigan.
Pamela H. Wescott, MPP Director of Patient Perspectives
Pam is responsible for managing patient perspective content development for all Shared Decision Making© programs and independent production initiatives; including the video collaboration, "Transforming the Patient Experience," which received international health and medical media recognition. Prior to joining the Foundation in 1998, she managed research initiatives for Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and Radcliffe Public Policy Institute, and taught focus group methodology to Harvard undergraduates and Harvard Law students. Pam holds a BA from Wellesley College and an MPP from the University of California at Berkeley.
Richard Wexler, MD Director of Patient Support Strategies
Richard oversees the Foundation's Demonstration Site project and develops and implements strategies which promote the effective use of decision aids. He works closely with provider organizations, policy setting groups, and Health Dialog. Before joining the Foundation, Richard held a leadership position at Health Dialog where he focused on health coaching and provider programs. He maintained an active medical practice in Maine for twelve years after training at Johns Hopkins, University of Vermont, and Harvard University.