Technology Evaluation Center Staff
NAOMI ARONSON, Ph.D. Dr. Aronson is the Executive Director of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association Technology Evaluation Center (TEC). She has overseen TEC's development as a nationally recognized technology assessment program and an Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Dr. Aronson has directed over 300 technology assessments and 10 evidence reports for AHRQ. She has published articles in Annals of Internal Medicine, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Cancer, Journal of the American College of Surgeons, Academic Radiology, Journal of Family Practice, and Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. She represented the private sector on a U.S. Agency for International Development team providing technical assistance to the Hungarian government on building evidence-based medicine capacity in the national health insurance system. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine Forum on Drug Discovery Translation and Development, and the Steering Committee of the Chicago-Area DEcIDE Research Center and the National Business Group on Health Committee on Evidence-Based Benefit Design. Previously, Dr. Aronson was a member of Northwestern University faculty, specializing in sociology of science and medicine. She was also a post-doctoral fellow in the Science, Technology and Society Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received research awards from the National Science Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies. Dr. Aronson's academic research focused on how the organization of scientific specialties in biomedical and clinical research affects the process of scientific discovery.
SUSAN BENLOUCIF, Ph.D. Dr. Benloucif is Project Manager, Medical Policy; she has been with TEC since 2006. Dr. Benloucif received her training in Biological Psychology and Neuropharmacology and has been a member of the research faculty of Northwestern University since 1995; her current affiliation with Northwestern is as Adjunct Associate Professor of Neurology. Dr. Benloucif has received over ten grants and career development awards from the National Institutes of Health, with research interests that encompass the areas of neurodegeneration, neuroplasticity and brain-behavior interactions. Dr. Benloucif’s recent research at Northwestern University focused on circadian rhythms, sleep, and aging, with the goal of developing treatments to improve sleep in older adults. She has presented results from these projects at national conferences and in peer-reviewed journals including Sleep, Brain Research, Journal of Biological Rhythms, and the Neurobiology of Aging. While at Northwestern University Dr. Benloucif served on the Scientific Advisory Panel of the General Clinical Research Center of Northwestern Memorial Hospital and has been a frequent reviewer of journal articles and grants for the National Institutes of Health.
EDGAR BLACK, M.D. Dr. Black is Medical Director, Policy Resources; he has been with TEC since 2006. Most recently, he was Regional Vice President, Chief Medical Officer, Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, Rochester Region. His specialty is medical policy and internal medicine. He is the author of numerous articles, chapters, books, and monographs relating to clinical diagnostic strategies and health care quality improvement and also is a member of the Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee (MCAC). He is board-certified in internal medicine.
CLAUDIA BONNELL, R.N., M.L.S. Ms. Bonnell is the Project Manager, Medical Information Services with TEC; she has been with TEC since 1993. She received her baccalaureate degree in nursing from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana and her Master of Library and Information Sciences degree from Rosary College in River Forest, Illinois. She has completed several Medical Library Association advanced medical reference courses. She manages TEC customer relations, and is the Association's medical and dental coding specialist.
HEATHER M. BROWN, M.D. Dr. Brown is a Senior Scientist with TEC, who joined the program in March 2008. She is a board certified pathologist with subspecialty boards in cytopathology and a fellowship in oncologic surgical pathology. She received her B.S. in Biology and M.D. at the University of Illinois, and completed a residency in anatomic and clinical pathology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Her subspecialty training was at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Florida. Some special interests include breast cancer and head and neck pathology. She has published in Cancer, Surgery, Human Pathology, Acta Cytologica, Journal of Surgical Research and other journals.
MAXINE GERE, M.S. Ms. Gere is a Medical Editor with TEC; she has been with the program since 1994. Ms. Gere received her Masters in Communication from Northwestern University in 1989 and has also received core and advanced curriculum certificates in biomedical communication from the American Medical Writers Association. Ms. Gere's editorial career has included work with the American College of Surgeons, the American Medical Association, the American Association of Clinical Pathologists, and the University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Ophthalmology.
MARK D. GRANT, M.D., M.P.H. Dr. Grant is an Associate Director TEC, joining the program in May 2005. His clinical background includes Geriatric and Family Medicine, and he was previously the Director of Research in the Department of Family Medicine at Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine. He is board certified in Family Practice and holds a Certificate of Added Qualifications in Geriatric Medicine. He has published in JAMA, Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, and Annals of Human Biology. Some special interests include epidemiologic methods, treatment and prevention of aging-related diseases. He has taught epidemiology on the graduate level at the University of Illinois and on the undergraduate level at the University of Chicago. Additionally, he is currently pursuing a doctorate in epidemiology at the University of Illinois School of Public Health where he previously obtained his master's degree.
ARIEL R. KATZ M.D., MPH Dr. Katz is a Senior Scientist with TEC, who joined the program in June 2008. He is double board certified in internal medicine and preventive medicine. He is an Instructor of Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, with appointment in the Division of Hospital Medicine. At Northwestern, he works as a hospitalist on the Hospitalist and University services. He received his B.A. in Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and his M.D. at Rush University. His specialty training was at Rush University Medical Center and John H. Stroger Hospital of Cook County. He is published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine.
FRANK LEFEVRE, M.D. Dr. Lefevre is a Senior Clinical Consultant with TEC and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, with appointments in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Preventive Medicine. Dr. Lefevre has been with TEC since 1991 and is the primary author on more than 30 TEC Assessments in the areas of internal medicine and cardiology. At Northwestern, he works as a hospitalist on the University Service and on the general medicine consultation service. He teaches evidence based medicine and medical decision making to medical students, and has developed a course that he teaches for the Northwestern Masters of Public Health program titled “Technology Assessment: Evidence-based approaches to assessing medical effectiveness.” He has published widely in the peer-reviewed literature in the areas of evidence-based systematic reviews, quality of care, and preoperative medical consultation.
DAVID MARK, M.D., M.P.H. Dr. Mark is an Associate Director of TEC; he has been with the program since 1999. He has published several articles on quality of care and outcome assessment. He is also currently a contributing editor at the Journal of the American Medical Association, where he specializes in reviewing and managing manuscripts on statistics, epidemiology, decision and cost-effectiveness analysis, and laboratory medicine. He is board-certified in preventive medicine, and received training in epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was formerly Director of Research in the Department of Family Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He has also served as a consultant to the Wisconsin Peer Review Organization regarding quality of care assessment and the American Medical Association on technology assessment.
MARGARET PIPER, Ph.D., M.P.H. Dr. Piper is Director, Genomics Resources, with TEC; she has been with the program since 1994. While with TEC, Dr. Piper has authored over 25 TEC Assessments and co-authored 4 systematic reviews for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Dr. Piper currently serves on the Evaluation of Genomic Applications in Practice and Prevention (EGAPP) Working Group, a five-year model project developed by the National Office of Public Health Genomics at the Centers for Disease Control. She has also been an advisor to other CDC efforts, to the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry and has presented at recent Institute of Medicine, National Cancer Institute, and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality meetings on genetic testing. Dr. Piper has been an active volunteer educator in clinical laboratory medicine; in 2000, she was awarded a distinguished service award by the American Society of Clinical Pathologists Commission on Continuing Education. Dr. Piper obtained her B.S. in molecular biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her Ph.D. in immunology at Duke University. Prior to joining TEC, Dr. Piper had 13 years of experience in clinical laboratory medicine. In 1995, she was awarded a Cancer Prevention Fellowship with the National Cancer Institute; during the fellowship she completed an M.P.H. in epidemiology at Emory University and conducted epidemiologic studies in the area of cancer prevention. She was subsequently employed by the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, and detailed to the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control at CDC in Atlanta, GA with a focus on cancer genetics and epidemiology.
THOMAS A. RATKO, PhD. Dr. Ratko is a Senior Scientist with TEC, who joined the program in November 2005. He received a B.S. degree in Microbiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Doctorate in Pharmacology from the University of Illinois at Chicago Health Sciences Center. Prior to joining TEC, Dr. Ratko was employed by the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) for nearly 13 years, first as a Senior Research Associate and subsequently as a Manager in the UHC Technology Assessment Group. While at UHC, he authored more than 30 technology assessments, reports, and bulletins covering topics in transfusion medicine, diagnostic imaging, oncology, and cardiology. Before joining the UHC staff, Dr. Ratko was a Senior Scientist in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the American Medical Association (AMA), where he contributed to the AMA compendium, Drug Evaluations and participated as an AMA representative to a number of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Health and Human Services committees. Prior to his joining the AMA staff, Dr. Ratko was a Senior Biologist at the IIT Research Institute in Chicago, where he participated in the conception and execution of National Cancer Institute-funded preclinical studies of a wide variety of candidate cancer chemoprevention compounds in several rodent adenocarcinoma model systems. He has published articles in JAMA, Transfusion, Archives of Internal Medicine, American Journal of Medicine, Cancer Research, Cancer Letters, Anticancer Research, JCOM, and other journals.
BARBARA M. ROTHENBERG, Ph.D. Dr. Rothenberg is a Senior Scientist with TEC, joining the program in September 2005. She received her PhD in Health Services Research and Health Policy from the University of Rochester, as well as Master’s degrees from Stanford and Princeton Universities. She has published in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery, Medical Care, Radiology, Neuroradiology, JACR, and other journals. She was a coeditor and contributor to Assessing the Health Status of Older Adults (Springer Publishing Company, 1997). She worked most recently for the Research Group at Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. Prior to that position, she was Health Policy Director for Excellus BlueCross BlueShield in Rochester, NY and Director of Quality Assessment for the Rochester Health Commission. She was a research associate at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, working on technology assessment, cost-effectiveness analysis, and health status assessment. She has particular interests in diagnostic imaging, improving quality of care through the use of evidence-based medicine, and racial disparities in health care.
DAVID SAMSON, M.S. Mr. Samson is an Associate Director of TEC; he has been with the program continuously since 1987. He has written nearly 100 TEC Assessments. He has published articles in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Cancer, and Academic Radiology. He has given presentations at the National Cancer Institute and at meetings of the Society for Medical Decision Making and the International Society for Technology Assessment in Health Care. He was a Regents Scholarship recipient and graduated with academic distinction from the State University of New York at Binghamton. He attended Emory University on a fellowship for four years in the clinical psychology doctoral program. Research methods, biostatistics and medical decision-making are among his primary current interests. He is presently pursuing a doctorate in epidemiology at the University at Albany.
JERRY SEIDENFELD, Ph.D. Dr. Seidenfeld is an Associate Director with TEC; he has been with the program since 1995. In that time, he has completed over 30 TEC Assessments and served as Project Director for two completed AHRQ Evidence Reports and two currently in progress. Dr. Seidenfeld has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed articles published in journals such as Annals of Internal Medicine, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Cancer, Journal of the American College of Surgeons, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Blood, Cancer Research, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He also has contributed to continuing medical education courses in genetics for oncologists, was a member of the Quality Care Advisory Committee for the National Breast Cancer Coalition Fund, served on a joint panel for two medical specialty societies to develop a clinical guideline on use of epoetin to manage cancer-related anemia, and currently serves on the Health Services Committee of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Previously, he was the Associate Director for Research and Development, Department of Research and Evaluation at the JCAHO. He also was a Senior Scientist in the Department of Drugs at the American Medical Association (AMA), where he contributed to the AMA compendium, Drug Evaluations. Before that, he served as Associate Professor of Pharmacology at Northwestern University's Medical School, with funding from the National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society and other agencies to investigate cellular, biochemical, and molecular effects of antineoplastic drugs.
KATHLEEN M. ZIEGLER, Pharm.D. Dr. Ziegler is Managing Scientific Editor with TEC; she has been with the program since 1993. She received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy. Subsequently, she worked as a Drug Information Analyst on the staff of AHFS Drug Information, where she researched, wrote, and edited evaluative drug monographs.
