Category: News

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Welcoming New Faculty – Farhad Rikhtegar Nezami, PhD

Please join us in welcoming Farhad Rikhtegar Nezami, PhD, as a new faculty member in the Department of Surgery.

Farhad Rikhtegar Nezami, PhD
Lead Investigator, Division of Cardiac Surgery

Dr. Nezami graduated from the Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran, Iran with a BSc in aerospace engineering, for which he also obtained an MSc from the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. He holds a PhD in mechanical engineering from ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

Before coming to the Brigham, Dr. Nezami worked at the Harvard-MIT Biomedical Engineering Center as a research scientist and project leader. At the Brigham, he will leverage his expertise in bioinformatics, computational modeling and vascular biology from a pathophysiologic perspective to achieve clinical impact by using multifaceted systems with complex biological and mechanical interactions. Dr. Nezami’s primary focus is on using computational methods to develop tractable and provably reliable test systems and novel data-driven design and optimization platforms to provide mechanistic understanding of pathologies; asses the efficacy and optimize medical devices; and deliver predictive means, diagnostic tools and surgical guidelines to clinicians.

Dr. Nezami’s research interests thus include computational pathophysiology (biofluid dynamics, biomechanics, mathematical modeling); machine learning to analyze clinical data, diagnostics/prognostics and clinical decision making; deep learning for medical image processing (fusion of modalities, plaque characterization, etc.); data-driven design/optimization of medical devices and interventions; virtual surgery using Al and in silico predictive/prognostic tools; as well as drug delivery, solute transport, pharmacokinetics and optimization.

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Recent Faculty Promotions

The following Department of Surgery faculty members were recently promoted:

M. Blair Marshall, MD Headshot

M. Blair Marshall, MD, to associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School.

Joel Adler, MD, MPH, to assistant professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School.

Alice Maxfield, MD, to assistant professor of otolaryngology – head and neck surgery at Harvard Medical School.

Christina A. Minami, MD, MFA, MS, Headshot

Christina A. Minami, MD, MFA, MS, to assistant professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School.

Steven Piantadosi, MD, PhD, to professor in residence of surgery at Harvard Medical School.

Thomas C. Tsai, MD, MPH, to assistant professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School.

Ashley Vernon, MD, to assistant professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School.

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Welcoming New Faculty – Maria Edelen, PhD

Please join us in welcoming Maria Edelen, PhD, as a new faculty member in the Department of Surgery.

Maria Edelen, PhD
Associate Director, Patient-Reported Outcomes, Value & Experience (PROVE) Center

Before coming to the Brigham, Dr. Edelen worked as a senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation, where her research focused on patient-reported outcome (PRO) development, refinement and evaluation in health settings. Dr. Edelen’s recent work has focused on the use of PROs for quality measurement in a number of contexts, including primary, specialty, post-acute and hospice care.

At the PROVE Center, Dr. Edelen will be directly involved in all activities related to the center to acquire PROs for selected surgery patients at Brigham Health and to implement a culture that embeds PROs as a standard. She will lead efforts to expand the center as a resource for faculty members in all surgical disciplines, establish collaborations inside and outside of Brigham Health and Mass General Brigham, and advance PRO reporting for outcomes research, clinical care, quality improvement and value-based health care.

Dr. Edelen graduated from Boston College with a BA in psychology. She holds a master’s degree and a PhD in quantitative psychology from the L.L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.