Jennifer Tseng, MD, MPH
SOAR Director
Dr. Tseng is an Associate Professor of Surgery and Cancer Biology at UMass Medical School. Her research interests include pancreatic cancer epidemiology, prediction modeling, decision analysis, and biomarker discovery. In addition, she is developing prospective tissue-linked databases to study survival and quality of life in gastrointestinal cancer patients. Dr. Tseng directs the coordinated UMass Pancreas Program. She is the Pancreatic Cancer Alliance Scholar (2005-2008). Current funding sources include the American Cancer Society, a Howard Hughes Early Career Grant, the American Surgical Association Foundation, and the UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science. Back
Ted McDade, MD
Research Scientist
Dr. McDade has been involved in the development, modification, and research use of a local institutional pancreatic cancer database, as well as with outcomes research utilizing large national databases. His research interests include pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, as well as biomarker identification for aggressive/recurrent/metastatic pancreatic tumors. He is also an Instructor in the Department of Surgery.Back
Shimul Shah, MD
Transplant Surgery
Dr. Shah is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at UMass Medical School. He specializes in Organ Transplantation and Hepatobiliary Surgery. He is Director of the Center for Clinical Research and Trials in Surgery and his research interests include clinical trials and outcomes analysis in transplantation and hepatobiliary surgery. He has a particular focus on under-utilization of surgery for liver cancer, decision analysis in management of biliary tract disorders and management of hepatocellular carcinoma. Back
Heena Santry, MD
Trauma Surgery
Dr. Santry is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at UMass Medical School. She specializes in Trauma, Emergency Surgery, and Surgical Critical Care. She is Director of Trauma Research Outcomes and Quality Assessment. Her research interests include surgical epidemiology and health disparities. She has a particular focus on structural and process factors that affect outcomes for trauma and non-trauma surgical emergencies.
Back
Karim Alavi, MD
Colorectal Surgery
Dr. Alavi is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at UMass Medical School. He specializes in Colorectal Surgery. His research interests include colorectal cancer, inflammatory bowel disease epidemiology and decision analysis modeling. He has a particular interest in minimally invasive surgery and screening for colorectal cancer. In addition, he has interests in the role and outcomes of multi-disciplinary care in colorectal cancer. Back
Melissa Murphy, MD, MPH
Evans Pancreatic Cancer Research Fellow
Dr. Murphy served from 2007-2009 as the Evans Pancreatic Cancer Research Fellow (sponsored by Gail Allen/SYSCO and Sean Griffin/PFG). She has a major research interest in the development of decision analysis models, to determine optimal treatments and to reduce risk in patients with pancreatic cancer. She is also investigating disparities in pancreatic cancer. Back
Jessica Simons, MD, MPH
Karen Sweeney Polkinghorn Pancreatic Cancer Research Fellow
Dr. Simons served as the Karen Sweeney Polkinghorn Pancreatic Cancer Research Fellow from 2007-2009. Her fellowship also supported her pursuit of a Masters in Public Health. She has a particular interest in studying and improving quality of life for pancreatic cancer patients. Back
James Carroll, MD
Linda J. Verville Research Fellow
Dr. Carroll joined the SOAR group as a full time research resident in July 2008. He is cultivating an interest in proteomics and plans to investigate patterns of protein expression in pancreatic adenocarcinoma. He hopes to identify more accurate biomarkers for use in diagnosis, and in prediction of patient response to therapy and postoperative surveillance. Back
Joshua Hill, MD
Surgical Resident
Dr. Hill earned his Masters in Biostatistics at UMass Amherst and has subsequently been involved with national research and programming with the SOAR group. He has published work examining pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, and a risk score for the pre-operative stratification of patients under consideration for pancreatic surgery. He will be attending MD Anderson Cancer Center as a surgical oncology fellow starting in 2010. Back
James McPhee, MD
Surgical Resident
Dr. McPhee spent two years of research in surgical outcomes with particular focus in mining large databases. He has recently presented work regarding demonstrating improved outcomes following pancreatectomy and on national mortality for aortic aneurysms. Back
Jillian Smith, MD, MPH
William D. Maney Research Fellow
Dr. Smith joined the SOAR Lab as a full time research resident in July 2009 and will serve as the William D. Maney Research Fellow for two years. She recently presented and published work on gastric cancer. She has a particular interest in gastrointestinal malignancies. Back
Elan R. Witkowski, MD
Pancreatic Cancer Alliance Research Fellow
Dr. Witkowski is a general surgery resident at UMass. He joined the SOAR Group in July 2010, and will serve through June 2012 as the Pancreatic Cancer Alliance Research Fellow. His academic interests include large-database outcomes research, cost-effectiveness analysis and technology assessment in the pancreatic cancer population.
Andrew T. Burr, DO
SOAR Research Fellow
Dr. Burr joined the SOAR lab in July of 2009 as a full time research resident. He is developing a research interest in outcomes analysis in hepatobiliary and transplantation surgery. He is also investigating the under-utilization of surgery in liver cancer.
Sing Chau Ng, MS
Data Analyst
Sing Chau has expertise in biostatistics, computer science, and economics. She focuses her attention on SEER and SEER-Medicare databases to help with pancreatic cancer research projects. Back
(Frank) Zheng Zhou, MD PhD
Consultant
Dr. Zhou is a consultant to the SOAR group in Biostatistics. He is also a Resident in the UMass Memorial Medical Center Internal Medicine program. Back
May Piperdi, MD
Research Volunteer
Dr. Piperdi’s research interests include surgical pathology, with a particular focus on correlating clinical outcomes data with immunohistochemical staining of pancreatic adenocarcinoma tumor specimens. Back
Mary Sullivan, NP
Clinical Trials and Database Management
Mary is actively involved with research protocols for pancreatic and GI cancer patients and in the organization of the UMass prospective gastrointestinal tumors databases. Mary was honored with a Champions of Excellence Award for her devotion to patients with cancer. Back
Mary Beth Curnen
Research Coordinator
Mary Beth coordinates projects for the SOAR group. She has a particular interest in improving outcomes for pancreatic cancer. Back
Andreea Bodnari
Computer Science Assistant
Andreea Bodnari has a research interest is in cancer proteomics and complex networks. She also uses her Computer Science background to develop auto population methods for the UMass Pancreatic Cancer Database and to promote web-based interaction for the lab. Back