Group Health Research Institute hires 4 new scientific investigators

Researchers in pharmaco-economics, implementation science, biostatistics, and alcohol and addiction treatment will join the faculty this summer.

Following a strategic planning process that called for faculty growth, Group Health Research Institute (GHRI) has announced the appointment of four new scientific investigators. The announcement comes shortly after three other scientists joined the GHRI faculty in 2015.

“These hires will position the organization for continued success even as several of our senior scientists make plans for retirement over the next few years,” said Eric B. Larson, MD, MPH, Group Health vice president for research and GHRI executive director. The new hires were chosen for their expertise and experience in areas critical for the Institute’s mission of “improving health and health care through leading-edge research, innovation, and dissemination.”

The new faculty members are:

Kai Yeung, PharmD, PhD

Dr. Yeung will serve as an assistant investigator studying pharmaco-economics and value-based care. He is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Washington (UW)’s Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research & Policy Program. Dr. Yeung earned a PharmD from the University of Southern California in 2011 and a PhD from UW’s Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research & Policy Program in 2015. His primary research interests are comparative effectiveness of interventions to improve value in health care. His dissertation focused on the impact of a value-based formulary that used cost-effectiveness analysis to inform drug copayment tiers.

Cara C. Lewis, PhD

Dr. Lewis has been hired as an associate investigator to study dissemination and implementation science in GHRI’s MacColl Center for Health Care Innovation. An assistant professor of psychology in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University, Dr. Lewis got a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Oregon in 2011. Her research interests include integrating evidence-based interventions into care for mental illness. Dr. Lewis is currently a principle investigator on two grants from the National Institute of Mental Health. One is a randomized trial comparing standardized and tailored approaches to measurement-based care. The other is a study to develop measures of acceptability, feasibility, and appropriateness of behavioral health services.

Rebecca Yates Coley, PhD

Yates Coley

Dr. Coley will join GHRI as an assistant investigator in biostatistics. Having earned a PhD in biostatics from UW in 2014, she is currently a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Coley’s research focuses on developing statistical methods for precision medicine and learning health systems. She is a co-investigator on grant from the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute titled “Bayesian hierarchical models for the design and analysis of studies to individualize health care.”

Joseph E. Glass, PhD, MSW

Glass

GHRI has appointed Dr. Glass to be an assistant investigator studying alcohol and addiction treatment. He is currently an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Social Work. He earned a PhD in social work from Washington University in St. Louis in 2012. His primary research interests are treatment for addiction and comorbid mental health problems; identifying factors and interventions for underutilization of addiction treatment; and understanding social inequities in adverse outcomes and underutilization. Dr. Glass is currently a principal investigator on a grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, “Racial and ethnic disparities in alcohol outcomes and health services.”

The three new investigators GHRI hired in 2015 are Jennifer F. Bobb, PhD, and Fei Wan, PhD, both assistant investigators in biostatistics, and Predrag “Pedja” Klasnja, PhD, an assistant investigator studying health informatics.

by Joan DeClaire