Meet Our Team and Learn More About Our Research in Rural Healthcare

The Center for Rural Health Care Delivery Science is led by Program Director Mark A. Creager, MD.

Mark A. Creager, MD

Dr. Creager is the Emeritus Director of the Heart and Vascular Center at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) and the Anna Gundlach Huber Professor of Medicine at Geisel School of Medicine. He is a director (PI) of an American Heart Association (AHA) Vascular Disease Strategically Focused Research Network (SFRN) Center, a large program project grant focused on elucidating mechanisms, defining predictors, evaluating pharmacotherapies in people with vascular disease and ultimately determining how integrated care in high-risk populations, particularly those with health disparities, could reduce the burden of disease at a population level.

Prior to his position at DHMC, he was professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Vascular Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he was PI of an NIH/NHLBI K12 Clinical and Research Training Program for Academic Vascular Medicine Specialists (K12 HL083786), and PI of two NIH/NHLBI R01 grants (R01 HL091750; R01 HL075771). Over his career, he has mentored more than 40 medical residents/fellows and early-career faculty. As president of the AHA and member of its National Board of Directors, he was engaged in numerous public initiatives aimed at improving cardiovascular health through preventative measures like lifestyle modifications and addressing access to care, affordability and disparities.

Administrative and Mentoring (A&M) Core

• Mark A. Creager, MD – Core Lead; Co-Mentor: Emily Zeitler, MD, MHS
• Steven L. Bernstein, MD – Co-Mentor: Rian Hasson, MD, MPH
• Konstantin H. Dragnev, MD – Co-Mentor: Rian Hasson, MD, MPH
• David C. Goodman, MD, MS – Co-Mentor: Samantha House, DO, MPH 
• JoAnna Leyenaar, MD, MPH, MSc – Co-Mentor: Samantha House, DO, MPH
• James O'Malley, PhD, MS – Co-Mentor: Emily Zeitler, MD, MHS
• Judy Rees, BM, BCh, MPH, PhD – Co-Mentor: Laura Paulin, MD, MHS 
• James D. Sargent, MD – Co-Mentor: Laura Paulin, MD, MHS

Learn more about the Administrative and Mentoring (A&M) Core.

Statistics, Informatics, and Qualitative Methods (SIQM) Core

• James O'Malley, PhD, MS – Core Co-Director
• Timothy Burdick, MD, MBA – Core Co-Director
• Karen Schifferdecker, PhD  – Mixed-Methods Researcher
• Robyn Mosher, MS - Project Manager, Research Associate, Informatics
• Christopher Leggett, PhD - Research Programmer/Analyst
• Weiping Zhou, MS - Senior Health Care Data Analyst

Learn more about the Statistics, Informatics, and Qualitative Methods (SIQM) Core.

Community Engagement and Outreach (CEO) Core

• Martha Bruce, MPH, PhD – Core Co-Director  
• Sally Kraft, MD, MPH – Core Co-Director
• Renee Pepin, PhD – CEO Investigator Advisor  
• Greg Norman, MS – CEO Investigator Advisor
• Sharon Feeney - CEO Navigator

Learn more about the Community Engagement and Outreach (CEO) Core.

Research operations and administration

• Cassandra Brugger, MA – Director of Research Operations
• Shehreen Zakir, BDS, MPH, MS - Project Manager, Research Associate
• Kayla Fay, MPH, CCRP - Clinical Research Coordinator
• Elaine Geffken – Program Assistant

Current research project leaders

Rian M. Hasson, MD

Dr. Hasson is a thoracic surgeon at DHMC. She trained in General Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital, which included a two-year postdoctoral research fellowship, followed by clinical fellowships in cardiothoracic surgery and advanced general thoracic surgery at the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center and Mayo Clinic, Rochester, respectively. She recently earned an MPH from TDI. Her previous studies systematically explored the lung cancer screening landscape in New Hampshire and Vermont to evaluate current processes, lung cancer positivity rates, and screening attrition rates, as well as rural population perceptions of lung cancer screening. This work led to a better understanding of the knowledge gaps, barriers, and facilitators to screening, and described screening preferences. Learn about her ongoing Community-Based Participatory Research Program at our Center, "Mobile units for cancer screening."

Emily P. Zeitler, MD, MHS

Dr. Zeitler is a cardiac electrophysiologist at DHMC. Her body of work focuses on cardiovascular clinical outcomes and health policy and builds on clinical training and research completed during fellowships at Duke University and the Duke Clinical Research Institute. Prior to that, Dr. Zeitler served as a medical device officer at the US Food and Drug Administration, participating in the regulatory activities related to cardiovascular medical devices. She has experience designing and working with data from regional and national databases, administrative claims and clinical trials, and has participated in multi-stakeholder working groups to address systematic shortcomings of cardiovascular investigation and health policy evaluation. Learn about her current Digital Health Utilization Research Program at our Center, "Remote monitoring for cardiac arrhythmia."

Laura Paulin, MD, MHS

Dr. Paulin is a physician-scientist practicing adult pulmonary and critical care with a research focus on the association between environmental exposures (including air pollution, occupational exposures, and cigarette and e-cigarette use) and clinical outcomes in respiratory disease. Her primary interest is in indoor air pollution, including particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide, and studies how indoor sources and home behaviors in rural environments influence concentrations of these important pollutants, and the impact of these airborne exposures on clinical outcomes in individuals with respiratory disease, focusing on those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Samantha House, DO, MHS

Dr. House is a Pediatric Hospitalist and the Vice Chair of Quality and Safety for the Department of Pediatrics at Dartmouth Health Children’s. She completed her MPH at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice prior to attending medical school and re-engaged in research and educational efforts at TDI during her pediatric residency at Dartmouth. Since this time, she has been actively engaged in Health Services Research, focusing on the quality of healthcare delivered to children in the hospital setting. She has experience with analyzing administrative data to assess variation in care delivery, developing and implementing quality improvement initiatives, and operationalizing quality measurement. She recently worked with the Children’s Hospital Association to develop a calculator measuring the delivery of low-value care in large children’s hospitals; her current project, “Measuring pediatric hospital-based low-value care: Urban-rural disparities and associated downstream healthcare utilization,” will expand this work into rural settings to assess for differences in hospital-based care quality among children residing rurally, who are known to have poorer health outcomes than urban-residing peers

Internal Advisory Committee

• Philip Goodney, MD, MS
• Steven Leach, MD
• JoAnna Leyenaar, MD, MPH, PhD
• Corey Siegel, MD, MS

External Advisory Committee

• Karen Joynt Maddox, MD MPH
• Tracy Onega, PhD
• Raymond Osarogiagbon, MD
• Heather Schacht Reisinger, PhD
• Doug B. Sawyer, MD