Harvard Health Experts and Contributors

Vasanti Malik, ScD

Contributor

Vasanti Malik, ScD., is a Research Scientist in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She obtained a MSc. in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Toronto and a dual doctorate in Nutrition and Epidemiology from the Harvard Chan School. Her research focuses on evaluating risk factors for obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease with an emphasis on diet quality. Dr. Malik also studies nutritional drivers of the global obesity and diabetes epidemics in countries undergoing epidemiologic transition and currently directs the Global Nutrition and Epidemiologic Transition Initiative; a collaborative project with 13 low- and- middle income countries that aims to reduce diabetes risk by improving diet and lifestyle. She is an Associate Editor for BMC Obesity and a Review Editor for Frontiers in Public Health. The ultimate goal of Dr. Malik’s work is to inform future large-scale community-based interventions and policy strategies to reduce the risk of obesity and related chronic diseases nationally and globally.

Anant Mandawat, MD

Contributing Editor

Dr. Anant Mandawat has been a medical columnist for several years translating scientific papers for the public. He graduated with a MD with honors from Yale. He completed his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, and is currently a cardiology fellow at Duke. His research interests are in clinical and economic outcomes for the elderly using large datasets. He has multiple publications in the field and has received the Marvin Moser Award and Bechtel Award for his research.

Nandini Mani, MD

Contributing Editor

Dr. Nandini Mani is a Hospitalist at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Mani is board-certified in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. Her clinical interests include Hospital Quality Improvement, Healthcare Disparities, and International Health. She is dedicated to teaching both medical students and resident physicians in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, and has received an Ambulatory Teaching Award from the MGH Med-Peds residents. She earned her medical degree from the Penn State College of Medicine, and completed her Med-Peds residency at the University of Rochester.

Brad Manor, PhD

Contributor

Brad Manor is an associate scientist at the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research; the associate director of the Mobility and Falls Translational Research Center; director of the Mobility and Brain Function Lab; and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Dr. Manor’s career goal is to alleviate the burden of balance decline that often accompanies biological aging into senescence. As the director of the Mobility and Falls Program, he works to achieve this goal by directing interdisciplinary, translational research in the fields of human balance and rehabilitative medicine. His research combines biomechanical assessments of human movement with advanced medical imaging, noninvasive brain stimulation, and nonlinear signal processing techniques to identify the link between brain function, balance and falls in older adults; and design rehabilitative interventions that improve balance via optimization of brain function and exploitation of its adaptive properties.

JoAnn Manson, MD, DrPH

Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing

JoAnn E. Manson, MD, DrPH, MACP, is professor of medicine and the Michael and Lee Bell Professor of Women’s Health at Harvard Medical School; professor in the department of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; chief of the division of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), and scientific advisor to the BWH Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology. Dr. Manson is a physician epidemiologist, endocrinologist, and principal investigator (PI) or co-PI of several research studies, including the Women’s Health Initiative Clinical Center In Boston; the cardiovascular disease (CVD) component of the Nurses’ Health Study; the VITamin D and OmegA-3 TriaL (VITAL); the COSMOS trial; and the VItamin D for COVID-19 (VIVID) trial. Her primary research interests include randomized clinical prevention trials of nutritional and lifestyle factors related to heart disease, diabetes, and cancer; the role of endogenous and exogenous estrogens as determinants of chronic disease; life course–related risk factors for cardiometabolic outcomes in women; and biomarker predictors of CVD.

Dieter Manstein, MD, PhD

Contributor

Dieter Manstein, MD, PhD, completed his PhD in Physics, in addition to his dermatology residency training at the University of Munster in Germany. He then completed a Clinical Applications of Laser fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School with Dr. R. Rox Anderson. During this time, he co-invented both fractional photothermolysis (Fraxel) and cryolipolysis (CoolSculpting) technologies. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School. He is also the PI of his own research lab at the Cutaneous Biology Research Center, which contributes to the development of novel solutions for important clinical problems in dermatology.

Shannon Manzi, PharmD

Contributor

Dr. Shannon Manzi has practiced pediatric pharmacy for more than 20 years and pediatric emergency medicine for 15 years. She is currently the Director of the Clinical Pharmacogenomics Service and the Manager for ED and ICU Pharmacy Services at Boston Children’s Hospital. She is also an NR-EMT and has served as a pediatric expert for the Strategic National Stockpile, the National Advisory Committee on Children and Terrorism, the CDC and MADPH. In addition, Shannon is the Lead Pharmacist for the Massachusetts–1 Disaster Medical Assistance Team and has deployed twelve times, including responses to major hurricanes, the Haitian earthquake and the Unaccompanied Minor Border Crossing mission. She has been a simulation instructor at BCH for 6 years and runs several unique programs related to disaster and prehospital medicine. She holds a faculty position with the Computational Health Informatics Program at BCH and clinical adjunct faculty positions at Northeastern University and Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Sciences University. Shannon has authored over 35 publications and presented numerous national and international workshops and lectures on pediatric emergency medicine, simulation and disaster related topics.

Julia Marcus, PhD, MPH

Contributor

Julia Marcus, PhD, MPH, is an epidemiologist and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, with a primary research focus on pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV prevention. During COVID-19, she has written about the importance of a harm reduction approach to the prevention of coronavirus transmission, with lessons learned from the HIV epidemic.

Luana Marques, PhD

Contributor

Dr. Luana Marques is the director and founder of Community Psychiatry PRIDE at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Associate Professor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School. She completed her PhD in Clinical Psychology at The State University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo, and her clinical internship and postdoctoral fellowship in the cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) track at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School in 2007. Dr. Marques’ major clinical and research interests include the implementation of evidence-based practices for individuals suffering from a variety of behavioral health disorders in diverse communities. Her goal is to decrease disparities in care for individuals experiencing behavioral health difficulties, especially among low-income and ethnic minorities. Upon beginning her work in community mental health clinics, Dr. Marques became increasingly aware of the substantial implementation gap in evidence-based psychotherapeutic treatments for anxiety and trauma-related disorders. Her research now centers primarily on reducing the disproportionate mental health burden among underserved populations in resource-restricted communities.

Gad Marshall, MD

Contributor

I received my undergraduate and medical degree from Boston University. I then completed a neurology residency at the University of Pittsburgh, followed by a dementia and behavioral neuroscience fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles. I am board certified in Neurology. I am currently the Director of Clinical Trials at the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Associate Neurologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Assistant in Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital; and Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. Over the past 17 years, I have focused on improving the clinical care of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related conditions, in conjunction with clinical research in AD. Over the past 14 years, I have been site principal investigator for 14 clinical trials and 4 observational imaging studies in AD and am currently the site principal investigator for the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) 3 and the Anti-Amyloid Treatment in Asymptomatic Alzheimer’s Disease (A4) trial. My NIH-funded research has focused on clinical correlates of instrumental activities of daily living and neuropsychiatric symptoms with amyloid, tau, and FDG PET, structural and resting-state functional MRI, and CSF biomarkers across the early AD spectrum. More recently, I have been developing novel sensitive performance-based instrumental activities of daily living tests for early-stage AD.

Mallika Marshall, MD

Contributing Editor

Mallika Marshall, MD, is an Emmy-award winning journalist and physician who serves as Medical Director at WBZ-TV in Boston. A practicing physician who is Board Certified in both internal medicine and pediatrics, Marshall serves on staff at Harvard Medical School and practices at the Massachusetts General Hospital’s (MGH) Chelsea Urgent Care Clinic and MGH Revere Health Center. Marshall is currently a Contributing Editor for Harvard Health Publishing (HHP), the publishing division of Harvard Medical School, and host of HHP’s e-learning courses. She has nearly 15 years of media experience, including serving as “HealthWatch” Anchor at WBZ-TV News for 10 years beginning in 2000. A cum laude graduate of Harvard College, Marshall received her medical degree with honors at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine. She completed her medical residency at Harvard in internal medicine and pediatrics. She is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honors Society, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the National Association of Black Journalists. She also has served on the Board of Trustees for the Urgent Care Foundation and the Board of Directors for Dress for Success Boston. In addition to numerous medical awards, she was an Associate Editor of the Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide.

Peter T. Masiakos, MS, MD, FACS, FAAP

Contributor

Dr. Masiakos is a pediatric surgeon, the director of pediatric trauma service at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and co-director of the MGH Center for Gun Violence Prevention, which he founded in June 2018. He is an associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and a visiting surgeon at MGH, where he has a clinical interest in pediatric trauma care and injury prevention.

Paul G. Mathew, MD, FAAN, FAHS

Contributor

Paul G. Mathew, MD, FAAN FAHS is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School (HMS), and holds clinical positions at three HMS affiliated institutions. He serves as the Director of Continuing Medical Education at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Department of Neurology, John R. Graham Headache Center. He is also a staff neurologist at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates/Atrius Health and the Cambridge Health Alliance. He completed his neurology residency at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, PA, and then completed a fellowship in headache medicine at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. He is board certified in neurology and headache medicine. In addition to conventional headache treatments, Dr. Mathew performs Botox injections, trigger point injections, and nerve blocks. In terms of his academic responsibilities, he has been involved in the training of neurology, psychiatry, internal medicine, family medicine, and dental residents, as well as two headache medicine fellows per year. Regarding medical student education, he is the founder and clerkship director of the Harvard Medical School Advanced Neurology Clerkship. He also serves on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School Cambridge Integrated Clerkship. He has written multiple publications, and has presented at both national and international conferences. Dr. Mathew serves as a peer reviewer for multiple journals including Cephalalgia, Headache, Headache Currents, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Neurology, the British Medical Journal, and the New England Journal of Medicine. He is the Co-Chief Medical Editor of the journal Practical Neurology. He is a member of several medical societies including the Massachusetts Neurological Association, the American Academy of Neurology, the Headache Cooperative of New England, the American Headache Society, and the International Headache Society. Dr. Mathew also applies his passion and expertise to the role of advocate for both patients and fellow physicians. He has participated in multiple successful lobbying efforts in Washington, DC headed by the American Academy of Neurology to improve patients’ access to healthcare. In March, 2015, Dr. Mathew was appointed as the neurology representative on the advisory board of the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons. The National Board of Physicians and Surgeons (www.NBPAS.org) is an organization committed to providing board re-certification that ensures physician compliance with national standards and lifelong learning after completing initial board certification with an American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) Board.

Elizabeth Matzkin, MD

Contributor

Elizabeth Matzkin, MD, is the chief of the Women’s Sports Medicine program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and assistant professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School. Highly regarded for her accomplishments in education, research, and patient care, she has developed a world-class program for female athletes, which includes a research component. Matzkin completed her surgical and orthopedic residency training at the University of Hawaii. From there, she completed a fellowship in Shoulder and Sports Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine. During that time she served as an assistant team physician to the Duke University football and men’s basketball teams. Before coming to at BWH, she was an assistant professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. Matzkin’s clinical practice focuses on disorders of the shoulder, knee, and sports-related injuries. She specializes in advanced open and arthroscopic surgical techniques to restore damaged joints, ligaments, and bones. Her memberships include the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, and Arthroscopy Association of North America. She also serves on the Women’s Health Issues Advisory Board and the Council of Delegates for the American Society for Sports Medicine. In her free time, she enjoys running, playing ice hockey, and spending time with her husband and three daughters.

Maria Mavrikaki, PhD

Contributor

Maria Mavrikaki, PhD, studied psychology and neuroscience at the University of Crete in Greece. After obtaining her PhD, she pursued a postdoctoral research fellow position at The Scripps Research Institute in Florida, where she utilized genetic mouse models to study mechanisms underlying motivation for food. She then pursued a postdoctoral research fellowship and an assistant neuroscientist position at McLean Hospital, where she studied neurobiological mechanisms underlying prescription opioid addiction. Dr. Mavrikaki is currently staff scientist in Dr. Frank Slack’s lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Since March 2017, she is also an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Her ongoing research assesses the role of small molecules called microRNAs in opioid addiction.

Alice Maxfield, MD

Contributor

Alice Maxfield, MD, is an otolaryngologist with specialization in sinus and endoscopic skull base surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is an instructor at Harvard Medical School and the BWH residency program director of the Harvard Otolaryngology Residency Program. Her clinical and research interests include sinus disease and outcomes of sinonasal surgery.

Candice Mazon, MD

Contributor

Dr. Candice Mazon is a second year adolescent medicine fellow at Boston Children's Hospital. She's a board certified pediatrician and received her training at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. She earned her MD degree from Drexel University College of Medicine. Her interests include sexual health and reproductive justice, as well as addressing various health inequities.

Claire McCarthy, MD

Former Senior Faculty Editor, Harvard Health Publishing

Claire McCarthy, MD, is a primary care pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital, and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. In addition to being a senior faculty editor for Harvard Health Publishing, Dr. McCarthy writes about health and parenting for Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston.com, and the Huffington Post.

Chris McDougle, MD

Contributor

Dr. Christopher J. McDougle, director of the Lurie Center for Autism at Massachusetts General Hospital and Nancy Lurie Marks Professor in the Field of Autism at Harvard Medical School, is a neuropsychopharmacologist and internationally recognized expert in research and treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders that extend into adulthood. He has 25 years of experience diagnosing and caring for children, adolescents, and adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Before coming to Mass General, Dr. McDougle was the chairman of the department of psychiatry and executive director of the Institute of Psychiatric Research at Indiana University School of Medicine, where he was also the Albert Eugene Sterne Professor of Psychiatry. Dr. McDougle has maintained an active clinical practice throughout his career and continues this commitment to caring for individuals with ASDs at the Lurie Center, where he has expanded services for adults. As director of the Lurie Center, Dr. McDougle is keenly interested in leveraging the vast resources that exist at Mass General and elsewhere in Boston to advance new discoveries and treatments for children, adolescents, and adults with ASDs Dr. McDougle received a BA in chemistry from Valparaiso University in 1981 and an MD from Indiana University School of Medicine in 1986. He subsequently completed a residency in psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine (1990) and a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry at the Yale Child Study Center (1995).

Katherine D. McManus, MS, RD, LDN

Contributor

Kathy McManus is Director of the Department of Nutrition and Director of the Dietetic Internship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School in Boston. In addition, she serves as the Director for Nutrition at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and the Director of Nutrition and Behavior Modification Programs for the Program for Weight Management at the Brigham. Ms. McManus has been involved with a number of cardiovascular and obesity related research trials during her years at the Brigham including an NIH funded obesity study, POUNDS (Preventing Overweight Using Novel Dietary Strategies) Lost as a co-investigator.

Darshan Mehta, MD, MPH

Contributor

Darshan Mehta, MD, MPH, is an assistant professor in medicine and psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is the medical director of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), director of the Office for Well-Being with the Center for Faculty Development at MGH, and the medical and education director for the Osher Research Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. In addition, he is the MGH site director for the Practice of Medicine curriculum required of all first-year Harvard Medical School students. After completing his residency in internal medicine at the University of Illinois-Chicago Hospital, Dr. Mehta completed a clinical research fellowship in complementary and integrative medicine at the Osher Center, during which he received a master of public health degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is board certified in internal medicine and integrative medicine.

Robert C. Meisner, MD

Contributor

Robert C. Meisner, MD, is the medical director of the ketamine service in the psychiatric neurotherapeutics program at McLean Hospital, and an attending psychiatrist in the acute psychiatric service at Massachusetts General Hospital. He graduated from Princeton summa cum laude and attended Harvard Medical School. He was a doctoral student in cultural anthropology at the Harvard Graduate School for Arts and Sciences, where he focused on child soldiering in Uganda under American anthropologist Arthur Kleinman. He received his early clinical training as a resident at Harvard in internal medicine, anesthesia, critical care, and pain. Dr. Meisner has written and lectured on a wide range of topics, from pediatric and collegiate mood disorders to the safe translation of ketamine research into evidence-based clinical practice. He has previously served on the administrative board of Harvard College, as acting resident dean at Harvard College’s Currier House, and on the faculty of arts and sciences at Harvard University.

Babar Memon, MD, MSc

Contributor

Dr. Babar Memon is an infectious disease specialist with an interest in prosthetic joint infections, tick-borne illnesses, and infection control. He earned his medical degree at Dow Medical College in Karachi, Pakistan, and obtained a master’s degree in infection control from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He completed his training in internal medicine at Carney Hospital in Boston and his infectious disease fellowship at Boston University Medical Center. He currently provides medical care at Beth Israel Lahey Health-Milton, where he is an infectious disease consultant and runs an outpatient general infectious diseases clinic, and at Lemuel Shattuck Hospital.

Elise Merchant, MD

Contributor

Dr. Elise Merchant is an infectious diseases fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She completed her internal medicine residency and chief residency at Tufts Medical Center, after earning her MD from Tufts University School of Medicine and an AB in anthropology and biology from Brown University. Her academic interests include medical education and HIV.

Beverly Merz

Executive Editor, Harvard Women's Health Watch

Beverly Merz is Executive Editor of Harvard Women’s Health Watch, a publication she helped start in 1993. Before coming to Harvard she was an Associate Editor of JAMA, Managing Editor with the Union of Concerned Scientists, and held editorial positions at Encyclopedia Britannica and World Book Encyclopedia. She was also a founding editor of Cardio, a newsmagazine for cardiologists and SusanLoveMD.org. Beverly has contributed to a variety of general and health publications including The New England Journal of Medicine, Good Housekeeping, and The Chicago Tribune. She is a graduate of The University of Colorado.

Harvard Health Experts and Contributors

List of Experts

Vasanti Malik, ScD

Anant Mandawat, MD

Nandini Mani, MD

Brad Manor, PhD

JoAnn Manson, MD, DrPH

Dieter Manstein, MD, PhD

Shannon Manzi, PharmD

Julia Marcus, PhD, MPH

Luana Marques, PhD

Gad Marshall, MD

Mallika Marshall, MD

Peter T. Masiakos, MS, MD, FACS, FAAP

Paul G. Mathew, MD, FAAN, FAHS

Elizabeth Matzkin, MD

Maria Mavrikaki, PhD

Alice Maxfield, MD

Candice Mazon, MD

Claire McCarthy, MD

Chris McDougle, MD

Katherine D. McManus, MS, RD, LDN

Darshan Mehta, MD, MPH

Robert C. Meisner, MD

Babar Memon, MD, MSc

Elise Merchant, MD

Beverly Merz