Who We Are

Columbia University School of Nursing

Jingjing Shang, PhD, RN, OCN, FAAN

Jingjing Shang is a professor of nursing at the Columbia University School of Nursing. Her research focuses on infection prevention and control in various health care settings, including home health care; cancer patient outcomes; and nursing workforce. As the principal investigator, Shang oversees all aspects of this study, in collaboration with Patricia Stone at Columbia Nursing and Andrew Dick at RAND, and co-leads the Columbia Nursing team.

Patricia Stone, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN, CIC

Patricia Stone is the Centennial Professor of Health Policy and director of the Center for Health Policy. Her program of research is aimed at understanding cost and quality outcomes, specifically health care-associated infections (HAI). As co-principal investigator (co-PI), Stone oversees all aspects of this study, in collaboration with Jingjing Shang at CUSON and Andrew Dick at RAND, and co-leads the Columbia Nursing team.

E. Yoko Furuya, MD, MS

Yoko Furuya is the medical director of infection prevention and control at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. She serves as the clinical infectious disease physician on this study.

Ashley Chastain, DrPH, MPH

Ashley Chastain is senior project director for this study. She is experienced in research project management, as well as qualitative interview and survey data collection and analysis.

Uduwanage Gayani Perera, PhD, MS

Gayani Perera is the data manager for this study. She has expertise in analyzing survey data, CMS data and other national datasets.

Tenzin Trinley, MPH

Tenzin Trinley is a project coordinator with the Center for Health Policy at CUSON. She assists with administrative aspects of this study.

Suning Zhao, MPH

Suning (Lily) Zhao is a recent MPH graduate from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She serves as a junior data analyst on this study.

Jasmin Martinez

Jasmin Martinez is an MPH student in the Epidemiology Department at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She serves as a research assistant on this study.

Joon Kim

Joon Kim is an MPH student in the Population & Family Health Department at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She serves as a research assistant on this study.

Giovanni Parrilla 

Giovanni (Gio) Parrilla is an MPH student in the Population & Family Health Department at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. He serves as a research assistant on this study.

Elaine Skaggs

Elaine (Lainey) Skaggs is an MPH student in the Population & Family Health Department at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She serves as a research assistant on this study.

Sandy Arena, RN

Sandy Arena is an MPH student in the Health Policy and Management Department at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She serves as a research assistant on this study.

Simar Garcha

Simar Garcha is an MPH student in the Health Policy and Management Department at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She serves as a research assistant on this study.

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RAND Corporation

Andrew Dick, PhD

Andrew Dick is a senior health economist at the RAND Corporation. He has expertise in the development of methods and empirical applications of quality assessment with a focus on applied econometric methods for drawing causal inference. As co-PI, he oversees all aspects of this study, in collaboration with Jingjing Shang and Patricia Stone, and leads the RAND team.

Tadeja Gracner, PhD, MS

Tadeja Gracner is a full economist at the RAND Corporation. She will work closely with Dr. Dick on models establishing causal inference and will be a statistician on this study.

Denise Quigley, PhD, MA, MPhil

Denise Quigley is a health policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. She has expertise in mixed methods research methods and health services research. She will help lead the qualitative research aim during this study.

Mark Sorbero, MS

Mark Sorbero is a senior analyst at the RAND Corporation. He serves as the lead programmer at RAND for this study.

Catherine Cohen, PhD

Katie Cohen is a health policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. Her research focuses on the prevention of health care-associated infections, and improvements in post-acute and hospice care, especially among older adults. She serves as a co-investigator on this study.

Laurent Glance, MD

Larry Glance is the vice-chair for research and professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center and a senior scientist at the RAND Corporation. He has expertise in risk adjustment methods and health services research. As a physician working in acute care, he will advise the research team on care transitions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Expert Consultants

Elizabeth Madigan, PhD, RN, FAAN

Elizabeth Madigan is the chief executive officer of Sigma Theta Tau International. Her research interests include home health care issues, the use of technology to improve chronic disease outcomes, and international health care issues. 

Monika Pogorzelska-Maziarz, PhD, MPH, CIC

Monika Pogorzelska-Maziarz is an assistant professor at the Jefferson College of Nursing, where her research focuses on improving patient safety and quality of care, specifically prevention of health care-associated infections across different health care settings. 

Robert Weech-Maldonado, PhD

Robert Weech-Maldonado is the L.R. Jordan Endowed Chair in Health Administration and professor in the Department of Health Services Administration at the School of Health Professions at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He has over 20 years of research on access, quality, and costs of care for vulnerable populations, particularly older adults and racial/ethnic minorities.

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Advisory Board

Bruce Leff, MD

Bruce Leff leads the Center for Transformative Geriatric Research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is a geriatrician and thought leader in the field of geriatric health services research. Dr. Leff has extensive experience in survey-based and qualitative research in home-based care, including skilled home health care.

Mary McGoldrick, MS, RN, CRNI, FAAN

Mary McGoldrick is the founder of and a home care and hospice consultant for Home Health Systems, Inc. She has been in the field of quality and infection prevention for over 35 years. She is a thought leader in the field of infection prevention and control in home health care.

Terry Rebmann, PhD, RN, CIC, FAPIC

Terry Rebmann is professor of epidemiology and biostatistics and director of the Institute for Biosecurity at St. Louis University College for Public Health and Social Justice. She is an expert on infectious disease emergency preparedness, and has served on several national and international task forces and committees, including the APIC Ebola Task Force, APIC COVID-19 Task Force, and APIC Emergency Preparedness Committee.

Susan Mitchell, MD, MPH

Susan Mitchell is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and senior scientist at Hebrew Senior Life Institute for Aging Research. She is a clinical epidemiologist and board-certified geriatrician, and has extensive experience with research in long-term care settings. Dr. Mitchell’s research has been seminal in improving the care of nursing home patients with cognitive decline.

Lona Mody, MD, MSc

Lona Mody is a tenured professor of Internal Medicine within the Division of Geriatric and Palliative Care Medicine at the University of Michigan. She has expertise in researching long-term care settings, particularly regarding infection prevention in nursing homes.

Vince Mor, PhD

Vince Mor is the Florence Pirce Grant Professor of Community Health at Brown University and chair of the Department of Community Health at Brown Medical School. As a senior health services researcher and one of the authors of the MDS, he has extensive experience examining the effect of state and federal policies have on outcomes using CMS data.