Our Team

Anam Ahsan is the research program manager in the Department of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine. She holds a bachelor's degree in genetics with a minor in public health from Rutgers University and a master's degree in bioinformatics from Johns Hopkins University. Anam has over five years of experience working in and managing clinical research trials on topics ranging from cancer-related cognitive decline to novel therapeutic models for the treatment of depression. In addition to research, she has completed a service year at AmeriCorps for equitable access to education.

Dr. Braun’s current research is focused mergers and acquisitions of physician practices, hospices, and nursing homes by various types of institutional investment. His research is published in prominent journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA Internal Medicine, and Health Affairs. Furthermore, his research has received substantial attention from policymakers, including The White House, Senate Finance Committee, and the House Ways and Means

Dr. Lawrence Peter Casalino is a professor of population health sciences and former chief of the Division of Health Policy and Economics. His research focuses on the intended and unintended effects of public and private policies on the types of provider organization that exist, on the processes they use to provide care, and on the quality and cost of care. His work also focuses on the impact of policies and organizational processes on socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities.

Dr. Casalino currently serves as a Medicare Payment and Advisory Commission (MedPAC) Commissioner and as a member of the Panel of Health Advisors for the Congressional Budget Office, and has served as a senior advisor to the director of the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), as the Chair of the Academy Health Annual Research Meeting, on the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Investigators in Health Policy Research Program, and on many other national committees, technical advisory panels, and nonprofit boards of directors. Dr. Casalino worked full-time as a primary care physician for 20 years. Prior to that, he worked as a community organizer.

Dr. Arnab Ghosh is a hospitalist who cares for hospitalized patients only and does not have out-patient practices.

Dr. Ghosh is board certified in internal medicine with interests in value based payment reform and care, cost consciousness, DSRIP implementation, medicare and medicaid reform, and systems-based thinking/complexity.  

My research program is supported by three active awards from the National Institute on Aging and is concentrated on examining the organization of the clinical workforce in nursing homes and the quality of care provided by these facilities. For example, I have multiple projects underway to examine whether physicians and advanced practitioners who primarily practice in nursing homes, often referred to as “SNFists,” provide higher quality of care to residents than other clinicians. 

Since the spring of 2020, I have also committed a substantial amount of effort towards studies examining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on nursing homes, producing among the first studies to identify the characteristics of facilities associated morbidity and mortality of individuals residing in them. This includes an analysis of nursing home characteristics associated with resident COVID-19 morbidity in communities with high infection rates, in addition to the first study to outline federal and state responses addressing COVID-19 in nursing homes. 

• Health Policy
• Medicaid
• Mental Health Policy
• Pain Services & Policy
• Substance Use Policy

Reekarl Pierre is a research coordinator in the Department of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine, where he assists the Division of Health Policy and Economics in researching several topics.

Reekarl has six years of combined research experience in neurocellular biology and public health, along with an MPH in epidemiology from SUNY Downstate School of Public Health, and a BS in biology with a minor in neuropsychology from SUNY Old Westbury.

Dr. Madeline Sterling is a board certified general internist and a health services researcher in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. She completed a fellowship in Health Services Research (T32 program) at Weill Cornell Medicine, during which she obtained an M.Sc. in clinical epidemiology and health services research from the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences.

Dr. Sterling's areas of research include:

• Social determinants of health among adults with cardiovascular diseases and heart failure
• Home health care delivery in heart failure and its role in improving care transitions and outcomes 
• Home health aides, their contributions to patient care, and leveraging the workforce to improve patient outcomes
• The health of home health aides and other caregivers

Sri Lekha Tummalapalli, MD, MBA, MAS is a nephrologist and health services researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine. Her research examines value-based payment and healthcare delivery strategies to achieve high quality care for patients with chronic diseases, with a focus on kidney disease. She is currently studying 1) the impact of alternative payment models on the quality of kidney care; 2) strategies to incorporate social factors in payment models and delivery system interventions; and 3) population health approaches to improve guideline-directed medical therapy in cardio-renal-metabolic diseases. Her research has been funded by AHRQ, NIDDK, the American Society of Nephrology, National Kidney Foundation, and Dalio Center for Health Justice. 

As a health services researcher with training in health economics, Dr. Yu's research broadly focuses on how changes in the payment and delivery of health care services affect access to health and health outcomes for vulnerable patient populations.

Dr. Yu's current research interests revolve around three major themes. First, she studies the relationship between telehealth use and access to care, health care costs, and quality of care. Second, she is interested in health system strategies that improve medical care and quality of life for Medicare beneficiaries. Third, she examines how the acquisition of provider organizations impacts the quality and cost of care.

Dr. Zhang is an assistant professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medical College. His research interests lie in the intersection of long-term care and end-of-life care of older adults with complex medical and social conditions. As an emerging health services researcher, Dr. Zhang has unique experience and expertise with large-scale datasets, including administrative claims (e.g., Medicare fee-for-service, Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, and commercial payers), electronic health record (EHR) data, and many other datasets. Using these comprehensive healthcare data, Dr. Zhang’s research aims to develop accurate and fair prediction models to improve clinical decision making to target effective interventions, reduce disease burdens, and address disparities among patients who are near the end of life. Dr. Zhang has received funding from NIA, NIDDK, NHLBI, PCORI, and private foundations.