The Sana Team
Archit Bhise - Operations
Archit Bhise is a student majoring in Economics and Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at MIT. He is very passionate about international development efforts and hopes to grow this passion through social entrepreneurship. His academic research experiences include projects in the fields of biochemistry, genetics and pharmaceutical sciences for health applications and more recently, computational biology, conducted in labs from the Emory School of Medicine to the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT. He has also had experience working with public service organizations in both the United States and India. He hopes his work with Sana will lead to a better healthcare system for the developing world.
Joachim Behar - Developer
Joachim did his undergraduate studies in France at "l'Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Etienne" in General Engineering and is currently an Msc student at Oxford university Department of Biomedical Engineering. His academic research experiences have included projects in the fields of numerical methods and image processing. Joachim is also involved in Engineering World Health Chapter in Oxford and has a strong interest in how technologies can contribute to enhance global health.
John Blakeney - Developer
John Blakeney is an undergraduate studying mathematics at MIT. Before his time at the Institute, he worked in Healthcare IT for two years.
Dr. Leo Anthony Celi - Founder - Team Leader
Dr. Leo Anthony Celi, MD, MPH, MS is an internist, an intensive care unit doctor, and an infectious disease specialist. After working in New Zealand for 5 years, Leo returned to Boston to pursue a master's degree in biomedical informatics at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology and a master's degree in public health at Harvard University, and a research post-doctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital. His current research projects are in the field of artificial intelligence in medicine and strengthening health care systems in resource-constrained settings. He is now on staff at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center ICU and the Laboratory of Computational Physiology at MIT.
Dr. Radhika Chigurupati - Operations
Radhika's interest in the field of telemedicine started with use of broadband technology to develop a pilot education program between international academic centers. Having experienced the limitations of broadband technology in rural communities in developing countries, Radhika started looking for other avenues to deliver and improve health care services. She embraced mobile technology early and began to work in this field with the development of an early-detection and prevention program for oral cancer in rural south India in collaboration with Sana.
Radhika's training in global health sciences has helped her gain insight into some of the social, cultural, technological and economic barriers that contribute to health disparities in the world. Rhadika deeply understands the importance of social entrepreneurism, microfinance and creative capitalism.
Dr. Gari Clifford - Founder - Development Advisor
Dr. Gari Clifford is on faculty at the Dept. of Engineering Science, Oxford University where he is also the Associate Director of the Centre for Doctoral Training in Healthcare Innovation. From 2003 to 2009 he was at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences where he was a Principal Research Scientist in the Laboratory for Computational Physiology and managed a R01 NIH-funded research program, as well as contributing to the PhysioNet Research Resource. During this time he co-founded Sana while teaching for Nextlab. Gari's research is focused on providing open-source tools and public-access data for the evaluation of clinical problems. He has published widely on biomedical signal processing and medical data analysis and is an editor for the IOP's Physiological Measurements and BioMedical Engineering OnLine, a BMC Open-Access Journal with discounted publishing for developing countries. Gari retains affiliate research positions at MIT and Harvard, with an active research program aimed at developing intelligent agents which integrate with the Sana platform.
Elliot Cohen - Operations
Elliot Cohen is a Program Manager at the MIT Entrepreneurship Center where he focuses on fostering interdisciplinary collaboration around healthcare entrepreneurship through an initiative called Hacking Medicine. He is passionate about using entrepreneurship to empower innovative technology to have a positive impact on society. Before joining MIT, he helped found several health-related Web 2.0 companies. His most recent venture, Corengi.com, helps Type 2 Diabetes patients and physicians find clinical trials. Elliot holds a BA in Cognitive Science and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley where his research focused on non-invasive Brain Computer Interfaces.
George E. Dafoulas, MD, MBAc in HSM, PhDc - Operations
George is the project manager of the SANA partner organizations in Greece, after his internship in CSAIL-MIT. As a medical student he has served in the leading team of IFMSA, a student NGO active in Global Health topics. While working as a primary health care physician for the ROMA community in his hometown Trikala, he introduced a pilot telemedicine and EMR service to deal with the limited access of this group to specialized healthcare. He has co-founded and is now working as the clinical coordinator of telehealth, telecare and EMR, EU funded projects for “e-trikala SA”, a leading competence center of the Municipality of Trikala, in the e-health sector in Greece. His PhDc (Faculty of Medicine-University of Thessaly) is embedded in the large scale RCT project “Renewing Health” for the Health Technology Assessment of telehealth in 9 EU countries. George will start his residency in Internal Medicine in the University Hospital of Athens “Laiko”.
Michal Depa - Development
Michal Depa is a PhD student in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT. His work currently focuses on algorithms for medical image analysis, particularly for segmentation and visualization of anatomical structures and lesions in MRI. Michal was brought to Sana by his interest in using technology to improve health care quality in the world, especially in the developing world. Michal is helping with the development of diagnostic tools to be used with the Sana platform.
Dr. Rich Fletcher - Development Advisor
Dr. Fletcher has degrees in Physics and Electrical engineering from MIT and is currently a research scientist at the MIT Media Lab working in the area of wireless sensors for physiological monitoring and mobile health. A significant part of this research involves mobile phone applications as a tool for psychophysiology, behavioral therapy and other health interventions. Before returning to academia, Dr. Fletcher founded several companies, including United Villages and First-Mile Solutions, which provide Internet services to rural areas in developing countries. With family roots in Colombia, South America, Dr. Fletcher has also devoted much of his life to developing appropriate technologies for developing countries and was co-founder of two related courses at MIT ("D-Lab Mobile ICT" and "NextLab") that provide students opportunities to design and deploy projects around the world.
Dr. Hamish Fraser - Principal Advisor
Dr. Hamish Fraser is an expert in the development and application of medical informatics and telemedicine in poor settings and is responsible for the web-based medical record system that tracks several thousand HIV/AIDS and drug-resistant tuberculosis patients in Haiti, Peru, Rwanda and Lesotho. In 2006, Dr. Fraser and his team rolled out the next generation medical records system, EMR 2.0, at Partners In Health clinics in Rwanda and Lesotho. The Rwandan and Peruvian governments have also asked Dr. Fraser to expand use of the EMR system nationwide, and it will soon become standard for HIV/AIDS care in Rwanda and for care of drug-resistant tuberculosis patients in Peru. In November, Dr. Fraser's work won him the prestigious Homer Warner award from the American Medical Informatics Association.
Dr. Fraser received his medical training primarily from Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and related hospitals in Scotland. He holds a master's degree in Artificial Intelligence/Knowledge Based Systems from Edinburgh University. He completed a three-year fellowship in medical informatics split between MIT and Tufts-New England Medical Center, the focus of which was the design and evaluation of a computer program to assist with the diagnosis of heart disease.
Marzyeh Ghassemi - Development
Marzyeh Ghassemi graduated from New Mexico State University with degrees in electrical engineering, computer science, and mathematics. Marzyeh began work for Intel Corporation in 2006 into their Rotational Engineers Program, where she worked in the Digital Health Group, Executive Office and Emerging Market Platforms Group. In 2008 Ghassemi was named a British Marshall Scholar, and used the award to study at the University of Oxford. Ghassemi is currently a PhD student studying clinical inference and patient monitoring.
Dr. Shanta Griffin - Operations
Shanta has completed a Harvard/MIT Research Fellowship in Clinical Informatics at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a Harvard Research Fellowship in Telehealth at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Her research interests include improving global health, reducing health disparities, designing clinical and consumer informatics, supporting telemedicine, and facilitating behavioral change among clinicians and patients. She enjoys developing tailored web-based interventions, and video games for health. Her Sana projects have included: working on the Sana e-health course at MIT, scripting a training video to teach people in developing countries how to use the Sana technology, helping to write grants to fund mobile health projects abroad, developing evaluation criteria for telemedicine and digital health tools, and evaluating maternal health tools and devices for the mHealth Alliance HUB. Her alter-ego is “Super Sam~mie” who has the power to create tools that empower people to change their lives and improve their health!
Geoff Graham - Operations
Geoff Graham, MEng, MPH is a biomedical engineer from Canada with health technology experience in product development, quality assurance and government regulation. He holds a Master of Engineering from the University of Toronto and a Master of Public Health from Harvard University, where he focused on cost-effectiveness evaluation. Geoff is currently working with Sana to develop and field test mobile health (mHealth) applications.
Geoffrey A. P. Groesbeck - Operations Advisor
Geoff Groesbeck directs Legatum Fellows and Seed Grant teams in developing innovative entrepreneurial ventures that adhere to principles of social good in resource-constrained areas. He studied Japanese at Harvard and works extensively in ICT4D and tech transfer at MIT, addressing development needs via mobile-based solutions throughout Latin America. Geoff has been advisor to MIT's Food and Agriculture Collaborative; Global Poverty Initiative; Komaza; and institutional relations officer for NextLab. He previously was executive director of international affairs and visiting professor at Mexico's ITESM. A well-known authority on the Jesuit missions of Chiquitos, Bolivia, his work in and publications on the region have won worldwide acclaim.
Geoff's primary role is identifying and liaising with Mexican and other Latin American potential collaborators, especially those in the academic community, as well as with other healthcare diagnostics and delivery entities active in the region.
Dr. Alexander Gruentzig - Operations
Alexander Gruentzig has recently completed his doctorate of mechanical engineering, in addition to a master’s degree in biomaterials and biomedical engineering. In the last two years he has been working on automation of, cell lysis, nucleic acid separation and continuous flow,polymerase chain reaction procedures for microfluidic devices. He is passionate about applying his cross-functional engineering know-how to develop point-of-care devices that are integrated into the SANA platform.
Dr. Luk Hendrik - Strategy Advisor
Luk is a Life Sciences and Health Care specialist at Deloitte Consulting and is focused on building new solutions to critical and underserved Health Care challenges through education and innovation. He is an expert at developing and implementing Growth, R&D, and Operating strategies for commercial and not-for-profit organizations. Luk holds a PhD in Medical Sciences and has been a researcher in Europe, the US, and India. He is passionate about teaching and has been a lecturer at Harvard and MIT.
Beatrix Henize – Strategy Advisor
Beatrix Henize comes with more than twenty years of experience in corporate and foundation relations at leading universities and medical centers, including MIT, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Jhpiego/Johns Hopkins University, and Harvard University. In addition to international corporate liaison with Europe and Taiwan, she has expanded client relations with European governments, universities, and research institutions. She often was invited to speak at international conferences on issues of technology transfer. Ms. Henize holds bachelors and masters degrees in education from the University of Bonn. Beatrix's role is to support and expand funding opportunities for Sana.
Dr. Yichuan Grace Hsieh - Operations
Dr. Yichuan Grace Hsieh recently joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School and the Laboratory of Computer Science, Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Hsieh received her Ph.D. in Nursing with special focus on Consumer Health Informatics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research has focused on designing and evaluating informatics tools for use by lay people as well as examining how information technology could be better integrated into care process for improving patient outcomes in outpatient settings. Dr. Hsieh’s work has been supported by the National Library of Medicine and the National Institute of Nursing Research and has been presented at national and international meetings in both informatics and nursing disciplines.
Sidhant Jena - Business Operations Lead
Sidhant Jena, MS is currently a Kaplan Life Sciences Fellow and an MBA student at Harvard Business School. Prior to HBS, he worked in R&D and Business Development roles at Medtronic. He is interested in the application of low cost medical diagnostics and sound business models to chronic disease prevention. He holds two degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology - a BS in Computer Engineering and an MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Dr. Rohit Joshi - Development
Dr. Rohit Joshi is a post-doctoral associate at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). In SANA, he is interested in providing diagnostic and wellness tracking mhealth technologies for community health workers. His research interest includes Biomedical Computing, AI and Machine learning, Context-aware systems, and Cost-effective technology for the developing world. Previously, he has led the development of open-source mobile systems for anywhere-anytime ICU patient monitoring and for remote management of chronic care Asthma patients in Singapore. He has also been a lead developer and contributor to Slitaz Linux, one of the smallest open-source desktop operating system. He holds a Phd in Computer science and BE in Electrical Engineering from National University of Singapore.
Dr. Richard Lu - Operations & Developer
Dr. Lu is a postdoctoral biomedical informatics research fellow at the Laboratory of Computer Science at Massachusetts General Hospital. He recently completed his master's in biomedical informatics at MIT and is completing his MPH at Harvard.
Richard's role in Sana currently involves coordinating implementations in Taiwan and participating in software development for the platform. He hopes to not only help build the software, but also to measure Sana's impact.
Brian Malley - Development
Brian Malley is an MIT alumnus, having graduated in 2009 with his S.B. in Aerospace Engineering. Finding himself drawn to a career in medicine, Brian took time off after MIT to complete the prerequisites and apply for admission to medical school. While finishing classes and applications, Brian currently works as a Paramedic in the Boston area and volunteers with SANA and in the Laboratory of Computational Physiology at MIT working on retrospective analysis of physiologic data from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center ICU patients. In his spare time Brian teaches paramedics and volunteers as a supervisor with MIT's student-run ambulance.
Stephen Miles - Operations Advisor
Stephen Miles, MS is a Research Scientist at the MIT Senseable City Laboratory. Steve's research interests include leveraging Automated Information Data Capture (AIDC) and advanced wireless tracking technologies to communicate more effectively about shared business processes. His work with Auto-ID information exchange began in 2004, supervising MIT Auto-ID Labs and MIT Center for Transportation Logistics (MLOG) masters theses that documented learnings from GS-1/EPCglobal Data Exchange and the first interoperability tests of EPC Information Services (EPCIS) specifications. As a Research Engineer and RFID Evangelist for the group Steve organized the RFID Academic Convocations with a conference committee of RFID researchers from around the world, in collaboration with US federal and state agencies, the European Commission Directorate General for Information Society and Media (DGINSFO) and the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST). The results of this collaboration are published in "RFID Technology and Applications" (Cambridge University Press, 2008), for which Steve served as Co-Editor.
Prior to enrolling in the MIT Sloan Management of Technology Program in 2003, Steve served on executive team of several computer services and network infrastructure companies including IronBridge Networks, NMS Communications and Officenet. As a consultant and entrepreneur, he has worked with leading international and industry organizations, Federal, state and city governments and network service providers across the globe.
Chris Moses - Operations Lead
Chris graduated from MIT with a Bachelors of Science in Brain and Cognitive Sciences. He plans on attending medical school to become a primary care physician and a leader in health-care delivery organizations. Chris is involved in program development, strategy, and building capacity for Sana's partner organizations, and has presented Sana at several competitions and conferences both nationally and internationally. He works with partners in the Philippines to design and manage pilot studies, raise awareness of health care disparities in conflict-affected areas, and improve rural health programs.
Shreesh Naik - Operations
Shreesh R. Naik is an undergraduate majoring in Chemical-Biological Engineering & Management at MIT. He is presently conducting research in the field of tissue engineering to improve the human heart model using nanotechnology applications in MIT’s Langer Lab. Shreesh has also conducted immunological and epidemiological research focusing on diabetes mellitus at the University of Washington Seattle School of Medicine and the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine. He is passionate about improving health care applications in developing countries, and aspires to implement relevant technologies through his collaboration with Sana.
Alice Newton - Social Scientist
Alice Newton is the Henry Fellow at Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Her research interests include the uses of technology for development and the political economy of development. She has done research into the use of mobile phones for women's empowerment in Africa. Her experience in international development includes a year working for a grass-roots NGO in Madagascar and for the London-based charity Book Aid International.
Juan Sebastian Osorio - Operations
Juan is a Biomedical Engineer from Antioquia School of Engineering (EIA) and CES University (2009). He was born in Medellín, Colombia, the “City of Eternal Spring”. His academic research experience include projects in the fields of biomechanics, clinical engineering, biotechnology but mainly bioinstrumentation and signal processing, since he has been involved in the last years in design and development of medical devices for Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU). He is very interested in innovation and entrepreneurship as well as personalized medicine, especially in the fields of pediatrics and neonatology. He was an academic visitor at the University of Oxford Department of Paediatrics and Imperial College London (UK) in 2008. Juan is currently a research engineer at the Bioinstrumentation Lab (EIA-CES University) and a visiting engineer at the Laboratory for Computational Physiology (Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology).
Dr. Trishan Panch - Public Health Lead
Dr. Trishan Panch is a medical doctor from the UK with an interest in the application of technology to strengthen health systems. He gained his medical degree from Imperial College, London and has completed specialist qualifications in Primary Care (MRCGP) and Obstetrics and Gynaecology (DRCOG) He has a Masters in Public Health in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard School of Public Health. For more information see www.hybridvigour.net.
Nicole Prowell - Media
Nicole is an independent documentary filmmaker living in Boston. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Experimental Documentary at Emerson College, where she completed her MA in Documentary Video in 2008. In addition, Nicole has studied filmmaking at FAMU in Prague, where she produced a short fictional narrative piece about the westernization of Eastern European culture. Prior to moving to Boston, Nicole worked in New York for IBM and for the Jacob Burns Film Center, a non-profit art house focused on promoting visual media literacy. Nicole has also worked as a Media Production Manager at Nextlab in the MIT Media Lab, where she traveled to the Philippines to film a documentary about a mobile diagnostics project. Her recent projects include a personal documentary about traveling across the country in search of happiness, entitled Happy Hunting, which screened at the 2009 Emerson Film Festival in LA and at the 2009 New Hampshire Film Festival. Nicole is a Board member of Women in Film & Video/New England, and a member of Connect the Docs.
Ankur Puri - Operations
Ankur is currently an MBA candidate at the Harvard Business School. Before joining HBS, he worked with McKinsey & Co. in India as a management consultant and was part of the founding team of the Public Health Foundation of India. He is passionate about applying the best of business and technology to challenges facing human development. He has studied Computer Science at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi.
Dr. Caio Regatieri - Operations
Dr. Caio Regatieri MD, PhD is ophthalmologist and retina specialist from Sao Paulo, Brazil. He is currently a post doctoral student, Department of Ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School (Schepens Eye Reasearch Institute). His main area of interest is the treatment of retinal degenerative diseases with anti angiogenic, use of stem cells to treat retinal degenerative diseases and technology information. He is working with public health assistance in order to decrease to blindness in developing countries.
Jhonatan Rotberg - Founder - Operations Advisor
Jhonatan Rotberg is the founder and the director of the Next Billion Network program at MIT, and the instructor of MIT's NextLab course series. He is the Telmex Researcher at the MIT Media Lab and a Lecturer in the Media Arts and Sciences Program. A serial entrepreneur, he is experienced in the original conception and deployment of innovation, applications, and content in developing countries, and in building projects and organizations based on digital technologies. During his career, he has founded and sold various startups in the financial and high-tech sectors. His current focus is on designing innovative mobile technologies that help people reduce friction in their local markets from the bottom up, and on incubating ventures that allow them to scale and become sustainable in the emerging markets. Previous to joining Grupo Carso, Latin America's largest telecoms provider, he spent 7 years in the financial services practice of Accenture, and in the Investment Banking divisions of Baring Securities and Deutsche Bank. A native of Mexico, Rotberg is a graduate of Brown University.
RJ Ryan - Founder - Developer
RJ Ryan is a graduate student in Computer Science at MIT CSAIL. He is an experienced software developer with in-depth knowledge of computer graphics, operating systems, real-time data processing, embedded systems, and web technologies. Ryan has worked on projects involving RFID, cellular technologies, machine learning, natural language processing, cryptography, and robotics. He has worked at a number of software companies such as Google Inc., and his work has been featured in publications such as Wired, Mass High Tech, and Popular Mechanics. Ryan, a Free software enthusiast, is interested in how to use technology to save lives.
Dr. Ikaro Silva - Operations
Ikaro Silva is a Post-doctoral fellow at the Laboratory for Computational Physiology at the Harvard-MIT Department of Health Sciences and Technology. His current interests include biosignal processing, statistical signal processing, detection & estimation theory, relational databases, and telemedicine. He has worked at The MathWorks for two years before going for his Masters and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Northeastern University. Dr. Silva is interested in helping Sana with grant proposals and in the development of open-source Android software for the acquisition clinically relevant biological signals.
Dr. Shabbir Syed-Abdul - Operations
Dr. Shabbir Syed-Abdul is a Health IT Consultant and Project Manager of various projects run by Taipei Medical University like Trehrt, LabPush and Sana-Swaziland. He earned his master's degree in Telemedicine and eHealth from University of Tromso, Norway and Graduated as medical doctor from St.Petersburg medical Academy, St.Petersburg Russia. He has experience working with developing countries. His research interests are Personal Health Records and implementing mobile technologies in health sector.
Peter Szolovits - Principal Advisor
Peter Szolovits is Professor of Computer Science and Engineering in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Professor of Health Sciences and Technology in the Harvard/MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST), and head of the Clinical Decision-Making Group within the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). For more info, please see http://people.csail.mit.edu/psz.
Max Wagenblass - Media
Max Wagenblass is a Boston-based filmmaker. Experienced in all areas of media production with a focus on cinematography and editing, Max has worked for clients such as the MIT Media Lab, Harvard, GlaxoSmithKline, The Boston Conservatory, and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial. He has closely followed advancements in video technology to appreciate the medium’s flexibility for experimentation. His independent work focuses on the psychological impact of media and the aesthetics of alternative production techniques. Max’s independent films have screened in the Czech Republic at the Pisek International Student Film Festival, the Rochester International Film Festival, and the Woods Hole Film Festival.
Eric Winkler - Development Lead
Eric Winkler is a software developer who holds bachelor's degrees in Physics and Computer Science. He spent several years applying technology designed to reduce homologous blood transfusions while working in operating rooms and trauma centers in New Orleans and Washington, DC. Prior to assuming his current role, he became involved with Sana as a volunteer exploring video capture and processing. Eric is a long time enthusiast of open source software with a particular interest in how it can be utilized to provide health care to groups who may otherwise have limited access to technology.
Thomas Eijiro Yamaguchi - Operations
Thomas is an Electrical Engineer from INATEL(MG) specialist in Telecommunications and a Software Engineer from UNICAMP(SP). Thomas started as an IBM development engineer for hardware devices and later, telecommunication software systems. Thomas has worked in the Call Center industry as an international technical consultant for Latin America and the Asia Pacific. He has also worked as an entrepreneur in the energy sector; Thomas developed an engineering team for providing wind energy conversion systems for pico-generation distributed energy plants. At Harvard, Thomas is interested in the business side of sustaining innovative projects related to social networks.
Thomas is the mentor and founder of Brazilian AnjosdaSaudeBR a non-profit, non-governmental initiative dedicated to enabling health based on the Sana model in Brazil. Thomas is interested in using Sana to deliver a comprehensive, empowering toolkit for enhancing the quality of the health process in Brazil.