CAGS Faculty
Health Profession Education Faculty
Judy Beal, D.N.Sc., R.N.
Chair and Professor of Nursing
Associate Dean, School for Health Studies
B.S.N. Skidmore College
M.S.N. Yale University
D.N.Sc. Boston University
judy.beal@simmons.edu
Dr. Beal has been a faculty member since 1983. For the first seventeen years of her tenure at Simmons College, she was the Director of Research in the Graduate Program. She coordinated the Research-Theory core and has advised over 650 master's research projects. Since 2000 she has served as the chief academic officer of the combined graduate and undergraduate Nursing Programs.
Dr. Beal maintains a well-funded program of research focused on nurse practitioner role identity and outcomes. She serves as a collateral research reviewer for the Eastern Nursing Research Society and is on the editorial boards of The Journal of Pediatric Nursing and the American Journal of Maternal-Child Nursing. With more than 40 referred publications and 100 presentations, she is sought after nationally and regionally as a speaker. Dr. Beal received The Mary Ann Garrigan Award for Excellence in Leadership from Sigma Theta Tau and has been a Sigma Theta Tau Distinguished Lecturer since 1997.
Dr. Beal is actively involved in leadership activities of the Eastern Nursing Research Society and Sigma Theta Tau International. During her tenure as Associate Dean for Nursing, she has been successfully funded in programmatic support of over five hundred thousand dollars. Recent grants include support from the Helen Fuld Trust for a Community Nursing Initiative and from HHS for an Infant Behavior Institute. Dr. Beal is currently working on expanding Simmons's partnerships and new program development for nurse educators, clinical nurse specialists, and several hospital-based initiatives.
Lynn Foord-May PT, PH.D, M.Ed
Director of Division of Online Teaching and Learning
Assistant Professor, Physical Therapy
B.S. Middlebury College
M.S.P.T. Duke University
M.Ed. Cambridge College
Ph.D. Walden University
lynn.foord-may@simmons.edu
Dr. Foord-May earned as M.S. in physical therapy and an M.Ed. in counseling. She also holds a PhD in Educational Technology. Dr. Foord-May is the Director of the Division of Online Teaching and Learning for the School for Health Studies and manages the DPT Bridge program. She also teaches the professional seminars in the DPT program and courses in the Health Professions Education program in SHS. Dr. Foord-May is also nationally known for her work with educators in teaching professional behaviors to entry-level physical therapy students, and is the co-author of Opportunity Favors the Prepared: A Guide to Facilitating the Development of Professional Behaviors.
Arlene J. Lowenstein, Ph.D, R.N.
Professor
Director of the Health Professional Education Program
Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh
M.A. New York University
B.S.N. Fairleigh Dickinson University
Diploma Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing
arlene.lowenstein@simmons.edu
Dr. Lowenstein has been teaching in the online Health Professional Education Program since its inception. She has extensive experience in both clinical and educational settings. She has served in upper level administrative and educational positions as Vice President for Nursing, and Director and Chairperson for nursing education graduate programs in Massachusetts, Kentucky and Georgia. Her clinical background is in the area of community health, parent child nursing and geriatrics. She has been actively involved in the development of the nurse practitioner role, and as project director, her program became the first nurse practitioner program to receive accreditation.
Professor Lowenstein's research areas include racial and class conflict in the health care workplace, women with HIV/AIDS, discharge planning, and historical studies in educational administration and racial segregation in nursing education. She received grant funding for her research, has published extensively and presented her research nationally and internationally. She is the author of two books on innovative teaching strategies and is currently in the process of writing a book on educating health professionals to teach patients, families and communities.
She has been actively involved in committees and boards of professional and community organizations. She has hosted international visitors, conducted study tours abroad, and served as a visiting professor in Taiwan. Dr. Lowenstein received a nursing honor society chapter award for excellence in nursing administration and was elected by students to receive awards for outstanding teaching.
Occupational Health Faculty
David Christiani, MD, MPH, MS
Professor of Occupational Medicine and Epidemiology; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Director, Harvard Education and Research Center; Director, Occupational Medicine Section, Massachusetts General Hospital; Director, Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Northeast Specialty Hospital; Director, Occupational Epidemiology Training Core
M.D. Tufts University
M.S Harvard School of Public Health
M.P.H. Harvard School of Public Health
dchris@hohp.harvard.edu
Dr. Christiani became director of the NIOSH Education and Research Center at Harvard School of Public Health in 1996. Dr. Christiani's major research interests are occupational, environmental and molecular epidemiology. He has been interested in studying the impact of exposures to various pollutants on health and the interactions between host factors (genetic and acquired susceptibility), and environmental exposures in producing acute and chronic diseases. This research is part of an emerging field known as molecular epidemiology. He has also been involved in epidemiologic studies of working populations in the US and abroad. In addition to his research and teaching at Harvard School of Public Health, Dr. Chrisitiani directs two occupational medicine clinics which are affiliated with the ERC and provide valuable practicum experiences.
Dr. Christiani has published over 300 articles in the medical literature and serves on several federal advisory committees and journal editorial boards.
Jack Tigh Dennerlein, SMME, PhD
Associate Professor of Ergonomics and Safety; Program Director, Occupational Injury Prevention Training Program
B.S. University at Buffalo
S.M. MIT
Ph.D. UC Berkeley
jax@hsph.harvard.edu
The goal of Dr. Dennerlein's research is the prevention of work-related musculoskeletal disorders and injuries, primarily those of the upper extremity, through developing neuromuscular biomechanical and exposure assessment methods uncovering the fundamental etiology of injury mechanisms.
Susan M. Duty, Sc.D., M.S.N., A.P.R.N., B.C.
Assistant Professor of Nursing
Diploma, New England Deaconess School of Nursing
B.S.N. University of Massachusetts, Boston
M.S. in Nursing Simmons College
S.M. and Sc.D. Harvard School of Public Health
susan.duty@simmons.edu
Susan M. Duty, A.P.R.N., B.C., is an assistant professor in the nursing program at Simmons College. She is also the program director for the NIOSH ERC, Harvard/Simmons Occupational Health Nursing Core. She is certified as an Adult Nurse Practitioner with specialization in occupational health. Dr. Duty continues her research at the Harvard School of Public Health into the relationship between environmental exposures to phthalates and adverse health effects. She has also begun an occupational study to determine whether manicurists are exposed to phthalates during work in a nail salon. She is the Nurse Research Scientist at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth and maintains an occupational health clinical practice at Morton Hospital in Taunton, is a member of the Massachusetts Coalition of Nurse Practitioners, and is the Simmons College Vice President to Sigma Theta Tau, Theta-at-Large Chapter.
Marlene Freeley, MSN, COHN-S
Director of Operations for Occupational Health Services, Partners Health Care System
B.S.N. St Anselm College
M.S. in Nursing Simons College
mfreeley@partners.org
Marlene Freeley is an Occupational Health Nurse Practitioner who has over eighteen years of diverse leadership experience in occupational health, specializing in the health care arena. Marlene is currently the Director of Operations for Occupational Health Services at Partners Healthcare System, in Boston, MA. At Partners, Marlene has led many proactive efforts from leading the Needle Safety Committee to establishing new models for worker compensation delivery. Recently Marlene successfully secured three million dollars from the finance committee to invest in a Safe Patient Handling Program, a new initiative Marlene is especially proud to lead.
Marlene has served as an Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Master's degree Occupational Health Nursing program at Simmons College for 10 years, teaching occupational health issues.
Robert F. Herrick, MS, SD, CIH
Senior Lecturer on Industrial Hygiene
B.A. College of Wooster
M.S. University of Michigan, School of Public Health
S.D.Harvard University, School of Public Health
herrick@hohp.harvard.edu
Dr. Herrick's primary research focus is on the nature and properties of occupational exposures. Rapid global industrialization has created working environments in which people encounter a wide array of physical, chemical, biological, and psychosocial stresses. While there are a few examples of workplace exposures which pose distinctive and readily identifiable disease risks, such as asbestos and vinyl chloride, the association between exposure and work-related impairments, diseases, and injuries is rarely so clear. This research is directed to improving the ability to identify these associations where they exist, to evaluate their strength, and to use this information in developing methods of exposure control to prevent occupational disease and injury.
Stephen Kales , MD, MPH
Assistant Professor of Occupational Medicine; Director of Employee and Industrial Medicine Clinical Services, Occupational and Environmental Health Center, Cambridge Health Alliance; Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Director of Harvard ERC OM Core
B.S Bucknell University
M.D. Harvard Medical School
M.P.H. Harvard School of Public Health
mailto:skales@challiance.org
Dr. Kales assumed leadership of the Harvard School of Public Health occupational medicine residency program in 2006. Dr. Kales is board certified in both occupational and internal medicine and serves as the medical director of employee health and industrial medicine and the assistant director of occupational and environmental health for the Cambridge Health Alliance.
Thomas Smith, MPH, MS, PhD, CIH
Professor of Industrial Hygiene; Director, Industrial Hygiene Training Core; Deputy Director, Harvard Education and Research Center
MPH University of Minnesota
Ph.D. University of Minnesota
tsmith@hohp.harvard.edu
Dr. Smith is the NIOSH ERC Deputy Director and the focus of his research is characterization of environmental exposures for studies of health effects. Areas of interest are: Evaluation of exposure-response relationships through occupational epidemiologic studies Application of pharmacokinetic modeling to study exposure-tissue dose relationships Lab and field simulations to characterize exposure determinants.
Clinical Genetics Faculty
Nathalie McIntosh, M.Sc.
Assistant Professor of Genetic Counseling Co-Director, Brandeis Genetic Counseling Program
B.Sc. McGill University
M.Sc. McGill University
mcintosh@brandeis.edu
Ms. McIntosh is a board-certified genetic counselor who arrived at Brandeis University in 1999 as the Co-Director of the Master's-level genetic counseling program. She has worked in clinical genetics (providing prenatal genetic counseling services), in commercial laboratory diagnostics, and in genetic research (involving identifying genes related to rare eye-movement disorders). Ms. McIntosh has a B.Sc. in Biology (human genetics), a M.Sc. in biology (molecular genetics), and a M.Sc. in genetic counseling, all from McGill University, Montreal, Canada. She is active in genetic counseling professional organizations, currently holding the positions of Treasurer for the Association of Genetic Counseling Program Directors, and Abstract Co-Chair for the 2004 National Society of Genetic Counselors Annual Education Conference. Research interests include the effects of restrictive DNA patents on the availability and accessibility of diagnostic testing, and the dynamics between clinical supervisors and genetic counselor interns.
Patricia Rissmiller, R.N., C.S.,D.N.Sc.
Associate Professor of Nursing
B.S.N. Catholic University
M.S.N. and D.N.Sc. Boston University
patricia.rissmiller@simmons.edu
Dr. Rissmiller is the coordinator of the Parent-Child nursing concentration at Simmons College. Her focus during the past year has been in the area of interdisciplinary collaboration within the health care community. She is currently a director for the UMA Simmons School Health Institute, a project implementing regional continuing education for school nurses. She is also actively involved in a collaborative project with the Brazelton Group at Children's Hospital to develop an assessment tool based on the Brazelton Scale. She has a joint appointment at Children's Hospital's Institute for Community Inclusion as a director for training for nurses working with developmentally disabled children and families. Research interests include high-risk children and families and school health. Dr. Rissmiller practices in the Maternal-Child Health Department at Cambridge Visiting Nurse Association Care network.
Gretchen H. Schneider, M.S.
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Brandeis University Genetic Counseling Program
Education Coordinator, Harvard-Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics
B.A. Colgate University
M.S. Sarah Lawrence College
gschneider@partners.org
Ms. Schneider is the Coordinator for the Educational Programs at the Harvard-Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics. Her role involves planning and implementing genetic education for the Harvard Medical School Genetics Training Program, Brandeis University Genetics Counseling Program, MGH Institute of Health Professions, and Physician Assistant Programs at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (in Boston and Manchester, NH) and Northeastern University. Ms. Schneider graduated from the Genetic Counseling Program at Sarah Lawrence College in 1992 and was certified as a genetic counselor by the American Board of Genetic Counseling in 1993. Prior to joining the Harvard-Partner Center for Genetics and Genomics in 1999, Ms. Schneider worked at Children's Hospital as a pediatric genetic counselor with her primary focus as the Coordinator of the Neurofibromatosis Clinic.
Sarah Volkman, Sc.D.
Associate Professor
B.A. University of California, San Diego
Sc.D. Harvard University
sarah.volkman@simmons.edu
Dr. Volkman is an Associate Professor in the Nursing program at Simmons and she has been involved in preparing nursing students in the basic science content since 1989. She teaches Normal and Abnormal Physiology as well as the Integrative Sciences Curriculum for the Direct Entry Program including Biochemistry, Microbiology and Anatomy and Physiology. She holds a joint appointment at the Harvard School of Public Health in Immunology and Infectious Diseases. In addition to her teaching at Simmons, she continues to teach Infectious Diseases and the Human Organism at Harvard University, where her scientific research interests involve understanding the mechanisms of drug resistance in the human pathogen, Plasmodium falciparum. Besides her teaching and research interests, Dr. Volkman is currently writing a textbook on Human Pathophysiology, which uses clinical case scenarios to examine the mechanisms of human disease. She has received several awards including the Young Investigator Award by the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, and was a Senior Teaching Fellow at Harvard University. She is currently a Christensen Teaching Fellow at Harvard University.
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