People

Beau Briese

Tina Dennison

Pawan Brar

Jeffery Van Laere

Joseph Pauly

Anand Selvam

Catherine Staton, MD, MSc

Professor in Emergency Medicine, Neurosurgery, & Associate Professor of Global Health

Duke University

Dr. Staton is a Professor in Emergency Medicine (EM) & Neurosurgery & Associate Professor of Global Health with tenure at Duke University. She is the Director of the GEMINI (Global EM Innovation & Implementation) Research Center and the EM Vice Chair of Research Strategy & Faculty Development. Her research integrates innovative implementation methods into health systems globally to improve access to acute care. In 2012, with an injury registry at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center, Tanzania Dr. Staton demonstrated 30% of injury patients had at risk alcohol use, providing preliminary data for a K01/Career Development Award. Her K01 award adapted a brief alcohol intervention to the KCMC ED and Swahili and is now being trialed in an NIAAA funded R01 pragmatic adaptive clinical trial. Dr. Staton and her mentor and collaborator Dr. Mmbaga are co-PD of the “The TReCK Program: Trauma Research Capacity Building in Kilimanjaro” to train 12 masters and doctoral learners to conduct innovative implementation and data science projects to improve care for injury patients. Dr. Staton has designed and managed multiple clinical trials in global and US settings from efficacy trials, to pragmatic trials and hybrid implementation trials. Currently, Dr. Staton and GEMINI partners with over a dozen faculty from over 6 low- and middle-income countries to conduct research, has mentored over 150 learners from undergraduate to post-doctoral levels from high, middle and low- income settings and has over 130 manuscripts.

Elina Kurkurina

Sehr Khan, MD

Medical College of Wisconsin

Sehr Khan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. She received her bachelor of science in legal studies and psychology with a certificate in criminal justice from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

She received her Medical Doctorate from the Medical College of Wisconsin. Dr. Khan also completed her residency at MCW in Emergency Medicine, where she served as chief resident and completed a social emergency medicine track.

Dr. Khan's interests include injury prevention, education and trauma informed care. As a faculty member, Dr. Khan is active within the EM Division of Global and Population Health, serving as the director of community engagement and the social emergency medicine track director. Within the medical school, Dr. Khan serves as a learning community navigator and teaches students as part of the co-director of the summer injury prevention institute. Within the Injury Control Research center, Dr. Khan is the co-director of the training and educator core as part of national CDC funding granted to the MCW Comprehensive Injury Center.

Megan Anderson, DO

Josh W. Joseph, MD, MS, MBE

Brian J. Yun, MD, MBA, MPH

Boston Medical Center

Brian J. Yun, MD, MBA, MPH serves as the Vice Chair of Clinical Affairs in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Boston Medical Center. Prior to this role, he was the Director of Clinical Operations of the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Department of Emergency Medicine. He is board certified in emergency medicine. Dr. Yun graduated with a MD and MBA from Tufts University School of Medicine, where he was also named to the AOA Honor Society. He has an MPH in Clinical Effectiveness from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. After finishing his residency in emergency medicine at the combined Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency, Dr. Yun completed an Emergency Department Administration Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Brian J. Franklin, MBA

Nicole Zhao

Medical Student Representative

Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University

Nicole Zhao is a third-year medical student at the Renaissance School of Medicine and is currently finishing up her clerkship year. She will be applying for Emergency Medicine residency in the next year. She completed an undergraduate degree in biological sciences at Stony Brook University. She hopes to combine her love for emergency medicine with her passion for geriatric medicine in her future career. Having spent the last ten years as one of the primary caretakers of her grandmother with Alzheimer’s Disease, she is inspired to continue advocating and improving the quality of care for geriatric patients, an underserved population that makes up a large portion of patients in the emergency room. So far, her research has focused on identifying older patients in the ED with life-limiting illnesses and incorporating palliative care and advanced care planning, as well as healthcare system changes that can improve geriatric care. She also has extensive leadership experience at her home institution, promoting emergency medicine through their interest group as well as shedding light on the often marginalized geriatric population. She hopes to continue and expand upon her work to improve care for the growing population of older adults in the ED.

• Academic interest: Geriatric Emergency Care, End of Life Communication, Advance Care Planning

Lily Berrin, MD

Resident Representative

Alameda Health System, Highland Hospital

Lily Leitner Berrin, MD is a second year emergency medicine resident at Highland Hospital, in Oakland, California. She completed her medical degree at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 2022. Dr. Berrin is currently working on improving the care for older patients in the Emergency Department at Highland Hospital, the primary trauma center and county hospital for Alameda County. She is working with the nursing and trauma teams to improve care around falls. Dr. Berrin has been involved with AGEM since medical school, previously serving as the Medical Student Representative on the Executive Board and continues to serve on the Membership and Outreach Committee.

• Academic interest: Geriatrics, geriatric trauma, falls, geriatric medical education

Tessa Ringer, MD, JD, CCFP

Member-at-Large

Sinai Health System

Bio Unavailable

Fernanda Bellolio, MD, MS

Treasurer

The Mayo Clinic

I have a Master’s in Clinical Research and Translational Sciences and completed a 3-year post-doctoral program on Healthcare Delivery dedicated to secondary data analysis, research methodology, and evidence-based medicine as a Kern Scholar at the Mayo Clinic Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery. Over my career, I have dedicated a significant effort toward clinical research, evidence-based medicine, patient centered care, neurological emergencies, geriatric medicine, and more recently implementation through National clinical guidelines development.

• Affiliation: Professor of Emergency Medicine; of Health Sciences Research, Division of Health Care Policy and Research; and of Medicine, Division of Community Internal Medicine, Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Section of Geriatric Medicine at Mayo Clinic
• Academic Interests and current funding: Over my career I have conducted multiple observational and interventional studies. I am the site-principal investigator for the R18 AHRQ funded study IDEA-LL: Improving Diagnosis in Emergency and Acute Care: A Learning Laboratory; PI for REDEEM: REcognizing DElirium in Emergency Medicine to prospectively study delirium in the Emergency Department; site-PI for the U24 Network for Emergency Care Clinical Trials: Strategies to Innovate EmeRgENcy Care Clinical Trials Network (SIREN); site co-PI for NIH StrokeNet, a NINDS funded multicenter network for the study of neurological diseases; site-PI for the UG3/UH3 study PRIM-ER: Primary Palliative Care for Emergency Medicine; and Co-I for the U01 Center for Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (CERSI) program, a collaboration between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and academic institutions.

Cameron Gettel, MD, MHS

Member-at-Large

Yale University School of Medicine

Cameron Gettel, MD, MHS is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, a Clinical Investigator at the Yale Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, and the Co-Director of the Yale Emergency Scholars (YES) Fellowship. Dr. Gettel aims to advance the understanding of emergency department care transitions in the growing geriatric population through the identification and development of patient- and caregiver-reported outcome measures and then to design, implement, and validate innovative care transition strategies and interventions to improve clinical outcomes. At CORE, Dr. Gettel leads work funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to develop the next generation of performance measures across multiple care settings. 

Dr. Gettel earned his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Elizabethtown College and his Doctor of Medicine from the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine. He completed Emergency Medicine residency at Brown University, where he served as chief resident, and the National Clinician Scholars Program at Yale University. 

• Academic interest: care transitions, patient-reported outcome measurement, care partners of persons living with cognitive impairment
• Current or prior funding: NIA GEMSSTAR R03, NIA IMPACT Collaboratory, Alzheimer's Association, Yale OAIC Pepper Center, GEAR Pilot, EMF

Anita N. Chary, MD, PhD

Member-at-Large

Baylor College of Medicine

Anita Chary, MD PhD is a medical anthropologist and emergency physician. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, received her medical and doctoral degrees (MD PhD, Anthropology) from Washington University in St. Louis, and served as chief resident of the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency. She currently works at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Broadly, her research focuses on social determinants of health and care of vulnerable populations. Her geriatrics research concerns emergency care of older adults with cognitive impairment and is funded by an NIA (GEMSSTAR) award and the Geriatric Emergency care Applied Research (GEAR) Network. Dr. Chary was previously an elected resident executive committee member of AGEM and currently serves as the Research Committee Chair of SAEM Academy of Diversity & Inclusion in Emergency Medicine. In this role, she bridges the academies to foster initiatives and collaborative research that address ageism/ableism in clinical care and improving inclusion of minoritized older adults in emergency medicine research. Dr. Chary also conducts global health research related to child nutrition/development, chronic disease management, and care innovations in rural Indigenous communities in Guatemala. 

Lauren Cameron-Comasco, MD

Immediate Past President

Beaumont Health System, Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine

Dr. Cameron-Comasco is Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine. She is the Director of Geriatric Emergency Medicine and the Geriatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship Director at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, MI. Dr. Cameron-Comasco received her medical degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine and completed her residency at Henry Ford Hospital, where she served as Chief Resident. After residency, she joined the Department of Emergency Medicine at Beaumont Royal Oak and completed her fellowship in Geriatric Emergency Medicine. Beaumont's ED was Accredited as a Level 2 Geriatric Emergency Department under her leadership. She has studied the operational effects of implementing a Geriatric Emergency Department. Her interests lie in geriatric emergency medicine education and the optimization of older adult care in the Emergency Department.

• Academic interest: geriatric emergency care, cognitive impairment, operations, resident education​