A How-To for Diversifying Your Funding Sources: A Panel Discussion

About the Panelists

Bianca K. Frogner, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine, Director of the Center for Health Workforce Studies (CHWS), and Deputy Director of the Primary Care Innovation Lab (PCI-Lab) in the School of Medicine at the University of Washington (UW). Dr. Frogner is a NIH-trained health economist with expertise in health workforce, labor economics, health spending, health insurance coverage and reimbursement, international health systems, and welfare reform. She has experience working with big data such as health insurance claims data and the American Community Survey. Prior to joining UW, Dr. Frogner was an Assistant Professor in the Health Services Management and Leadership Department in the Milken Institute School of Public Health at The George Washington University (GW) from 2009 to 2015. At GW, she was the Deputy Director of the Health Workforce Research Center.

Joanna Glicker, PhD, has served as Assistant Vice President for Corporate & Foundation Relations at the University of Washington since 2012. In this role, she leads the university’s central team of staff responsible for nurturing some of the UW’s most significant corporate and foundation relationships. During the six years prior, she led corporate and foundation relations for UW Medicine. Joanna first joined the UW in 2001 as a fundraiser with the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs. She also has led fundraising efforts for two other organizations in the Seattle area — the Progressive Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) and the Northwest Parkinson’s Foundation. Joanna was born in England and spent her teens in Italy and Germany before moving to the U.S. in 1986. She earned a master’s degree from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University and a doctorate in higher education administration from New Mexico State University. She has served on the boards of PAWS and the Washington Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. She co-chaired Washington’s National Philanthropy Day in 2010 and 2011 and the National Philanthropy Day Awards Committee in 2014.

Jeffrey R. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, currently serves as professor and chair of the Department of Health Services. He continues as an investigator at the UW Health Promotion Research Center, which he directed from 2007 to 2015. Before moving to Seattle in 2001, Dr. Harris served for 20 years with the U.S. Public Health Service and CDC, where he was a co-investigator of a 120,000-person cholera vaccine trial in Bangladesh, led development of the 70-country AIDS prevention program at the Agency for International Development, oversaw development of CDC’s Guide to Community Preventive Services, and served as CDC’s policy director under Dr. David Satcher, its liaison to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, and as its lead participant in the development for HEDIS quality-of-care measures by the National Committee for Quality Assurance. Dr. Harris is a physician, board-certified in internal medicine and preventive medicine. His research focuses on putting prevention into practice at a scale that increases health equity and makes a difference in population health.

Danielle C. Lavallee, PharmD, PhD, is a faculty member with the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Partnership (PCORP) housed at the University of Washington’s Northwest Center for Public Health Practice. She is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Washington Department of Surgery, where her work focuses on developing novel processes for collecting and reporting patient-reported data to support both clinical and patient decision-making. Dr. Lavallee also leads CERTAIN Patient Voices and the CERTAIN Patient Advisory Network, which incorporate the patient perspective into quality improvement and research activities. She is formally trained in Health Services Research with a specific focus in qualitative methods and patient-centered outcomes research.

Rad Roberts, PhD, is the Director of University of Washington Corporate Relations. He is focused on developing productive partnerships between life science companies and UW health sciences researchers that help spark innovation and increase its ability to improve human health. Rad has 15 years of experience in health sciences technology commercialization, business development and business strategy in both industry and academic settings. Rad received a B.S. in biology from Stanford and a Ph.D. in biology from MIT. He has worked on research and commercialization projects in biochemistry, molecular genetics, microbiology, photonics, neuro-modulation, medical devices and biopharmaceuticals.

About the Moderator

Larry Kessler, SC.D. is Professor in the Department of Health Services in the School of Public Health. He has over 40 years of experience in health services research.  As chair of the Department of Health Services (UW SPH) from 2009-2015, he directed the teaching program of a department that includes eight separate teaching programs at the master’s and doctoral level. Dr. Kessler is PI of the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Partnership (PCORP) funded by AHRQ to train clinicians, scientists, and health care professionals in CER and PCOR.  This program has trained over 50 scholars, many of whom are now making changes in their health systems based on their capacity as health systems researchers.  Dr. Kessler is also the co-lead for the translational workforce development UW CTSA program, the Institute of Translational Health Sciences. He leads the companion CEA study for the STOP2 trial of antibiotic therapy for pulmonary exacerbations in cystic fibrosis. He serves as director of regulatory oversight for the UW Center for Dialysis Innovation, where he also leads the studies on human factors for innovative dialysis technologies.  Dr. Kessler’s recent research has focused on comparative and cost-effectiveness of various treatment strategies, most recently in surgery, back pain, and cystic fibrosis.