Catherine Dubé EdD (organizer) is a Professor in the department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences in the Morningside Graduate School of Biological Sciences at UMass Chan. She has taught a graduate-level course in Qualitative Methods in PQHS for 8 years and currently offers an online course on Qualitative Methods for undergraduates at Brown University School of Public Health. She is experienced in educational assessment and has conducted research in patient experience, practitioner experiences, and health and preventive behaviors. Her methodological focus is Thematic Analysis. She is experienced in focus group, interviewing, and open-ended written data collection approaches. She has used both NVivo and Dedoose analytical software.  
Email: Cathrine.Dube@umassmed.edu

Shruti Hegde, MD  is a cardiologist and advanced cardiac imaging specialist at UMass Chan/UMass Memorial Health, with clinical and academic interests in cardiac amyloidosis, cardio-oncology, and multimodality cardiovascular imaging. I am passionate about building new clinical and educational programs, mentoring trainees, and developing research that can improve patient care. She is also very interested in AI, digital health, and how these tools can be used thoughtfully to improve diagnosis, care pathways, and patient outcomes. She is excited to be part of the Qualitative Research Interest Group and looks forward to learning from colleagues across disciplines while exploring how qualitative methods can add depth to clinical research, education, and innovation.
Email: Shruti.Hegde@umassmemorial.org  Shruti.Hegde@umassmed.edu 

Suzanne Morrissey, PhD is an Associate Professor in the department of Population & Quantitative Health Sciences, Division of Health Informatics & Implementation Science at UMass Chan and a Research Social Scientist, VA Bedford Center CHOIR. She is a health systems researcher, educator, and mentor integrating community-engaged implementation science with long-standing experience as a college professor at Whitman College (Walla Walla, WA). Her work draws on medical anthropology and realist evaluation to study how complex health interventions function in real‑world settings. Suzanne specializes in qualitative design and conducts interviews, focus groups, ethnographic observation, and document analysis to study care delivery, social risk, and digital health initiatives. For analysis she uses Atlas.ti.
Email: suzanne.morrissey3@umassmed.edu 

Jesica Pagano-Therrien PhD, RN, CPNP-PC is an Associate Professor of Nursing and Pediatrics. She teaches a graduate level course in Qualitative Research Methods in the Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing PhD program. She also supports students interested in advanced qualitative methods through independent study opportunities. She is experienced with descriptive methodologies utilizing individual interviews and thematic analysis, and also with qualitative metasynthesis.  
Email: jesica.pagano-therrien@umassmed.edu

Susan Pfefferle, PhD is a Senior Research Scientist for Research and Evaluation at ForHealth Consulting at UMass Chan Medical School, an Assistant Professor in the department of Family Medicine and Community Health, and the qualitative methods lead for the Research and Evaluation unit. Experienced in both qualitative research and evaluation, she conducts mixed methods studies focusing on evaluation studies, claims analysis, and patient experiences. Her methodological focus is on lived experience, phenomenology, and thematic and content analyses. She is experienced using NVivo and ATLAS.ti and has used Dedoose qualitative analysis software.
Email: susan.pfefferle@umassmed.edu

Grace Ryan, PhD, MPH is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine in Population and Quantitative Health Sciences.  She leads qualitative and mixed methods research with a focus on health promotion among pediatric and adolescent populations. She teaches Qualitative Methods for Health Research for the Population Health Sciences Program at UMass Chan. She has expertise in qualitative data collection through interviews and focus groups and uses both thematic analysis and rapid qualitative methods.
Email: Grace.Ryan1@umassmed.edu