Harvard Health Experts and Contributors

Rudolph Tanzi, PhD

Contributor

Rudolph Tanzi is the director of the genetics and aging research unit and director of the McCance Center for Brain Health at Massachusetts General Hospital. He serves as the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. He discovered numerous Alzheimer’s genes, including the first three, and directs the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund Alzheimer’s Genome Project. Tanzi has won the highest awards in his field, is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and is one of the Top 1% Highly Cited Researchers in the world. He has co-authored nearly 800 research publications with over 185,000 citations, and is a New York Times bestselling author of several books.

Christy N. Taylor, MD, MPH

Contributor

Dr. Christy Taylor is an internal medicine resident at Massachusetts General Hospital. She completed her undergraduate and graduate studies, in biology and public health respectively, at the University of Miami. She subsequently completed her medical degree at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Marygrace Taylor

Health Writer

Marygrace Taylor is an award-winning health and wellness writer with more than 15 years of experience creating print and digital content for major national publications. She's based in Philadelphia, PA.

Monique Tello, MD, MPH

Contributor

Dr. Monique Tello is a practicing physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, director of research and academic affairs for the MGH DGM Healthy Lifestyle Program, clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School, and author of the evidence-based lifestyle change guide Healthy Habits for Your Heart. She completed a combined internal medicine and pediatrics residency training program at Yale/New Haven Hospital. After residency, she earned a master’s in public health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and fellowship in general internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She is half Latina, speaks Spanish, and maintains a close relationship with her extended family in Guatemala. She is married to local sports broadcaster Bob Socci, and they have two young children, one with autism. She writes a popular blog, www.DrMoniqueTello.com, about achieving balance, health, and wellness from the perspective of doctor and mother.

Addie Temkin, MS, RDN, LDN

Contributor

Addie Temkin is a registered dietitian with Massachusetts General Hospital's concierge medicine and executive health practices. She earned her MS and completed her dietetic internship at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. With experience in clinical and performance nutrition, Temkin believes nutrition should never be one-size-fits-all. She’s committed to using evidence-based nutrition to help individuals of all ages fuel their bodies, feel their best, and support lifelong health.

Robyn Thom, MD

Contributor

Dr. Robyn Thom is a child and adolescent psychiatry fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital. She will begin practicing at the Lurie Center for Autism as a staff psychiatrist when she completes her fellowship training in July 2020. She is a graduate of Harvard College, the University of Toronto Medical School, and the Harvard Longwood Psychiatry Residency Training Program. Her clinical and research interests include autism spectrum disorder and other neurodevelopmental disorders, the interface between medical and psychiatric co-morbidity, and psychopharmacology.

Rebecca P. Thomas, PhD

Contributor

Rebecca P. Thomas is a clinical psychology fellow in the division of developmental medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a research fellow in the laboratories of cognitive neuroscience at Boston Children's Hospital. She completed her PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Connecticut. Her clinical work focuses on complex neurodevelopmental assessments in pediatric populations. Her research addresses gaps in understanding in the trajectory of social communication profiles in young children with a range of neurodevelopmental disorders, and developing tools to categorize progress in language and communication development.

Deirdre Tobias, ScD

Contributor

Deirdre Tobias is an obesity and nutritional epidemiologist at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She received her doctorate and postdoctorate training at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she is also an associate professor of nutrition. Dr. Tobias was appointed the Academic Editor for the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2019. Her research focuses on the role of diet and lifestyle for obesity and its major chronic diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, and she has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA. She served on the scientific committee for the 2025–2030 US Dietary Guidelines for Americans. She contributes to the development and analyses of healthful dietary patterns, metabolomics, and nutrition epidemiologic methods.

Pritesh Topiwala, MD

Contributor

Dr. Pritesh Topiwala is an Interventional Pain Management physician and Anesthesiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is the Medical Director of the Brigham and Women’s Foxboro Pain Management clinic. His clinical interests are neuromodulation and interventional oncologic pain therapies. Dr. Topiwala finished his Anesthesiology residency and Pain Medicine fellowship training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

David R. Topor, PhD, MS-HPEd

Contributor

Dr. David Topor is a clinical psychologist, and the associate director for healthcare professional education at the VA Boston Healthcare System. He is an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Elena Toschi, MD

Contributor

Elena Toschi, MD, is an Italian physician who has worked in Italy with Ele Ferrannini on insulin action and glucose metabolism in the late 1990’s. She then moved to Boston, USA to join Susan Bonner-Weir’s lab as a post-doctoral fellow working on the biology of islets of Langerhans and their regeneration. After obtaining her American medical license and specialization in Endocrinology at the joined Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/ Joslin program she has joined the Joslin adult clinic to work with Dr Howard Wolpert. Her clinical work has focused on use of technology in T1D to improve outcome. She has been involved in several multicenter trial on use of technology for the management of diabetes: REPLACE-BG and DIAMOND study among others. These studies have evaluated the benefit of CGM use by patients on multiple daily injections of insulin, have changed healthcare policy, with CGM now recommended to all patients with Type 1 Diabetes and CGM are now covered by Medicare. She is currently working on the use of technology to improve diabetes management and reduce the risk of hypoglycemia in the eldery with T1D (NIDDK DP3-Tango Study) in collaboration with Dr Munshi, and on restoration of hypoglycemia awareness in people with T1D and problematic hypoglycemia in collaboration with Dr Amiel. (JDRF – HARP.doc). She has been recently appointed Director of the Young Adult Clinic in the Adult Diabetes Section at Joslin Diabetes Center.

Nicholas Tritos, MD

Contributor

Dr. Nicholas Tritos serves as professor of clinical medicine at Harvard Medical School and physician at the Neuroendocrine Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where he has been seeing patients and conducting clinical research focused on pituitary disorders. He has served on several national and international committees in professional organizations, including the Endocrine Society, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, and the Pituitary Society. He has authored over 160 peer-reviewed publications and 30 book chapters. He serves as associate editor and editorial board member for several professional journals and is the recipient of several awards.

Joy Tsai, MD

Contributor

Dr. Joy Tsai is an endocrinologist in the endocrinology division at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She earned her medical degree from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, completed her residency at Northwestern McGaw Medical Center, and pursued a fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Her clinical research at MGH focuses on optimizing postmenopausal osteoporosis therapy, with an emphasis on evaluation of bone quality via advanced imaging techniques. She is the associate director of the MGH Bone Density Center and the medical clinical director for MGH Endocrine and Osteoporosis Associates clinic.

Sara Moradi Tuchayi, MD, MPH

Contributor

Dr. Sara Moradi Tuchayi is a dermatology research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her research at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at MGH is focused on the development of novel therapies for skin disorders.

J. Kevin Tucker, MD

Contributor

Dr. John Kevin Tucker is chief of renal medicine at Brigham and Women's/Faulkner Hospital, former director of the BWH/MGH joint nephrology fellowship program, and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Tucker has received recognition as an outstanding teacher during his tenure at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, and from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Renal Division. He earned an MD from Cornell University and a bachelor’s degree from Birmingham-Southern College.

Karen Turner, OTR/L

Contributor

Karen Turner is an advanced practice occupational therapy patient navigator for individuals with autism and intellectual/developmental disorders at Massachusetts General Hospital. In this unique role, she provides care planning and coordination services, as well as individualized OT-based interventions for the patient, their caregiver(s), and their healthcare team. As a result, she reduces barriers to care, optimizes patient safety, improves satisfaction, and increases provider knowledge and comfort in the delivery of health services. Outside of patient encounters, Ms. Turner educates practitioners on caring for individuals with ASD/IDD, and works with departments across the continuum of care to implement systems to make individualized accommodations standard procedure. Ms. Turner received a BS from Boston University’s College of Communication in communication studies, and an MS from Boston University’s Sargent College in occupational therapy.

Claire Twark, MD

Contributor

Dr. Twark is an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a board member of the International Society for Sports Psychiatry, and a psychiatrist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital where she directs the Athlete Mind Program. Her interests include addiction psychiatry and sports psychiatry. Dr. Twark ran track and field and cross country for Harvard College, and is now a member of the Boston Triathlon Team. She qualified for and completed the 2014 Ironman World Championship in Hawaii. Based on Ironman results in 2014, she was ranked 18th in the U.S. and 38th in the world (top 1%) in her age group. She is a four-time Ironman triathlon finisher and was awarded All-American Honors from USA Triathlon in 2015. Her own experience as an athlete has inspired her to promote exercise as a component of psychiatric treatment and help other athletes.

Preeti Upadhyay, MBBS, MPH

Contributor

Dr. Upadhyay works as a research fellow under the supervision of Dr. Subramaniam Balachundhar. She graduated from The University of Sydney, Australia, with a master’s degree in public health. She earned her medical degree from Kathmandu University, Nepal, and was practicing medicine in her native country prior to changing bases to a nonclinical workspace. She has a keen interest in meditation and its effects on physician burnout and sleep quality.

Eve Valera, PhD

Contributor

Dr. Eve Valera is an associate professor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and a research scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital. She has been working in the field of domestic violence for nearly 25 years, and is recognized internationally for her work in understanding the effects of traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) sustained from intimate partner violence (IPV). Her current work uses a range of methodologies to understand the neural, cognitive, and psychological consequences of such TBIs. She published one of the first studies examining the prevalence of IPV-related TBI and its relationship to cognitive and psychological functioning, and has more recently provided the first neural mechanistic evidence of IPV-related TBI. To support her IPV-TBI work, Dr. Valera has received funding from the National Institutes of Health, Harvard Medical School Center of Excellence in Women’s Health, and more recently the Rappaport Research Fellowship in Neurology. Dr. Valera’s dissemination efforts include lectures for academics, judges, and other justice-involved personnel, police departments, front-line staff for IPV support and shelter, and women with lived experience. Her research is ongoing and expanding to address other potential neural consequences of TBIs from partner violence.

Christopher D. Vélez, MD

Contributor

Dr. Christopher Vélez is an attending gastroenterologist in the Center for Neurointestinal Health of Massachusetts General Hospital's division of gastroenterology and the MGH department of medicine. He focuses on neurogastroenterology and motility disorders of the esophagus, stomach, small bowel, colon, and rectum.

David M. Vernick, MD

Contributor

David M. Vernick, MD is a graduate of Johns Hopkins Medical School. He completed his postgraduate surgical training at George Washington Hospital in Washington, D.C. In 1979 Dr. Vernick continued his training as a resident in Otolaryngology at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. Subsequently, he became a fellow in Otology, Neurotology skull base surgery at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Upon completion, he returned to the Boston area and has worked as a surgeon in Otolaryngology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Children’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Alessandro Villa, DDS, PhD, MPH

Contributor

Alessandro Villa, DDS, PhD, MPH, obtained a DDS degree and PhD from Italy, and completed his MPH at A.T. Still University, MO. He served as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute (USA) where he studied the epidemiology of oral HPV infections. Dr. Villa obtained his Certificate in Oral Medicine from Harvard and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is board certified in Oral Medicine. His clinical interests include the treatment of oral mucosal diseases, salivary gland disorders and oral complications from cancer therapy. Dr. Villa’s research interests are focused primarily on potentially malignant disorders of the oral cavity and oral toxicities from cancer treatment.

Kathleen Viveiros, MD

Contributor

Dr. Kathleen Viveiros is a clinical hepatologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital who sees patients in Boston and in Foxborough and Westwood, MA. She is an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her professional interests include fatty liver disease with a focus on lifestyle strategies for weight loss. She is a board-certified transplant hepatologist who treats patients with all forms of chronic liver disease including cirrhosis, NASH, autoimmune liver disease, alcohol-related liver disease, and viral hepatitis.

Mercedes von Deck, MD

Contributor

Dr. Mercedes von Deck is a practicing orthopaedic surgeon at the Cambridge Health Alliance, specializing in joint replacement surgery. She began studying the Feldenkrais Method intensively while competing internationally in ballroom dance as a way to increase her understanding of movement and to obtain better body coordination and expression. Her love of movement and dance led her to a career in orthopaedic surgery. She received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed her orthopaedic residency at Tufts Medical Center. Dr. von Deck teaches yoga and Feldenkrais in the Boston area, and finds somatic exercise is sometimes the best option for reducing pain and increasing function.

Alina von Korff, MD

Contributor

Dr. Alina von Korff is a board-certified pediatrician and clinical fellow in developmental behavioral pediatrics at the Developmental Medicine Center at Boston Children’s Hospital. After graduating from Vassar College, she earned her medical degree from Jagiellonian University College of Medicine, and completed her internship and residency in pediatrics at the University of Rochester.

Harvard Health Experts and Contributors

List of Experts

Rudolph Tanzi, PhD

Christy N. Taylor, MD, MPH

Marygrace Taylor

Monique Tello, MD, MPH

Addie Temkin, MS, RDN, LDN

Robyn Thom, MD

Rebecca P. Thomas, PhD

Deirdre Tobias, ScD

Pritesh Topiwala, MD

David R. Topor, PhD, MS-HPEd

Elena Toschi, MD

Nicholas Tritos, MD

Joy Tsai, MD

Sara Moradi Tuchayi, MD, MPH

J. Kevin Tucker, MD

Karen Turner, OTR/L

Claire Twark, MD

Preeti Upadhyay, MBBS, MPH

Eve Valera, PhD

Christopher D. Vélez, MD

David M. Vernick, MD

Alessandro Villa, DDS, PhD, MPH

Kathleen Viveiros, MD

Mercedes von Deck, MD

Alina von Korff, MD