Current Fellows | CHOP | Michigan Medicine

Angela Thelen, MD

Health Services Research Fellow

Angela Thelen is a first-year research fellow at the Center for Healthcare Outcomes and Policy. She earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan and her medical degree at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine. She is currently a general surgery resident at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH. Her academic interests revolve around surgical education and improving surgical quality and patient outcomes through education. She is primarily working with the Center for Surgical Training and Research. She is also pursuing a Master’s in Health Professions Education during her time as a research fellow.

Gloria Kim, MD

Alisha Lussiez, MD

Brooke Bredbeck, MD

Valeria Valbuena, MD

Valeria is a General Surgery resident at the University of Michigan. Originally from Colombia, she completed her undergraduate education starting in her local community college, the State College of Florida. She obtained a B.A in Biochemistry from the New College of Florida and her medical degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago where she was an active member and leader of the Latino Medical Student Association. Valeria's research interests include workforce diversity with a focus on medicine and surgery, healthcare disparities, community-based intervention to increase access to safe surgery, and organ donation and transplantation in minority populations. She was selected as part of the 2020-2022 cohort of the National Clinician Scholars Program where she will be completing her Academic Development Time while pursuing a Master's Degree in Health & Healthcare Research. Valeria is the program lead for the LEAGUES Fellowship, a pipeline program designed for medical students interested in the intersection of racial and gender equity and surgery.

Ryan Eton, MD

Jacqueline Byrd, MD

Kathryn Taylor, MD

Dr. Taylor is a research fellow with the National Clinician Scholars Program at the University of Michigan and a General Surgery resident at Stanford. She is originally from Cincinnati, Ohio and completed her undergraduate degree at The Ohio State University where she became interested in global health, leading her to work with Helping Babies Breathe in rural Honduras after graduating. She then studied at Harvard Medical School, during which she spent time in Rwanda working on implementation science at a cancer center, surgery education projects, and the National Surgical, Obstetric, and Anesthesia Plan with the Rwandan Ministry of Health. She is currently working towards a Masters in Health and Healthcare Research through the National Clinician Scholars Program and the Rackham Graduate School.

Her research focuses on improving access to quality surgical care for all through examining surgical infrastructure, finance, delivery, and workforce. She is ultimately interested in applying principles of Health Services Research and policy evaluation in low- and middle-income countries and capacity building through mentorship.

Maia Anderson, MD

Maia Anderson is a General Surgery resident at the University of Michigan and research fellow at the Center for Healthcare Outcomes and Policy. She grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, completed her undergraduate degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard College and her medical degree at University of Michigan Medical School. Maia’s research interests include preoperative optimization and surgical decision making in older, frail, and other vulnerable patient populations. She is currently pursuing a Master’s in Health and Health Care Research during her time as a research fellow.

Michelle Chen, MD

Pooja Neiman, MD

Dr. Neiman is a National Clinician Scholars Program (NCSP) and Center for Healthcare Outcomes and Policy (CHOP) Research Fellow at the University of Michigan, as well as a General Surgery Resident at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. She completed her medical education at UCLA School of Medicine and received her Masters in Public Administration at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. While in college, Pooja launched a non-profit called Mobilizing Health, an organization that connected physicians and community leaders to medical advice via text messages to more than 5,000 patients in rural India. After running Mobilizing Health full-time for two years and overseeing its transition to UNICEF, she focused her energy on issues related to access to health care domestically.

Her research interests include evaluating the health and financial impact of insurance expansion policies on patients, health systems, and government. As an aspiring trauma surgeon, she has a particular focus on the trauma patient population and the system within which they are treated.

Ryan Howard, MD

Health Services Research Fellow

Ryan Howard is a first-year research fellow at the Center for Healthcare Outcomes and Policy. He earned his undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Michigan, where he is currently a general surgery resident. His academic interests include improving surgical quality and outcomes, studying patient-reported outcomes, and using regional partnerships to improve care delivery. He has worked extensively in the area of postoperative opioid prescribing, where he helped implement policies that have dramatically curbed unsafe prescribing across Michigan. He wonders about other ways surgical care could be used to make a population healthier. He is currently pursuing a Master’s in Health and Health Care Research during his time as a research fellow.

Lia Delaney, BS

Lia is a medical student at the University of Michigan Medical School, applying to General Surgery residency in 2021. She is currently completing a NIH-funded Masters of Science in Clinical Research dual degree at the University of Michigan. Lia completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and went on to work with an environmental epidemiology research group prior to starting medical school.

Lia’s academic interests center on improving surgical quality, specifically reducing variation in perioperative care, and utilizing surgical encounters as an opportunity to improve overall patient health. These interests have led Lia to collaborate on a range of health services projects at CHOP, including work around postoperative opioid prescribing and patient risk factor optimization prior to surgery. In 2020, Lia was the recipient of the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES) Medical Student Grant, in support of her pilot work collaborating on the statewide implementation and evaluation of a synoptic operative note for hernia repairs in Michigan.

Stanley Kalata, MD

Health Services Research Fellow

Stanley Kalata is a general surgery resident at the University of Michigan and a current research fellow at the Center for Healthcare Outcomes and Policy. He received his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University and his medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Kalata's research interests are in healthcare networks, insurance, and policy and their impact on quality and value in surgical care. He is currently researching the effect of hospital mergers into larger networks on outcomes and value, alternative payment models for healthcare delivery including global budgets, and the impact of price transparency on healthcare delivery.