Mohammad Jalali (‘MJ’), PhD

Associate Professor | lab director | msjalali@mgh.harvard.edu

Mohammad Jalali (aka, ‘MJ’) is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School based at MGH Institute for Technology Assessment. He established MJ Lab upon his appointment at Harvard in February 2019. Learn more about him here.

Erin Stringfellow, PhD

Instructor | estringfellow@mgh.harvard.edu

Erin holds a PhD in Social Work from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and a Master of Social Work from the University of Michigan, where she also earned her BA. She specializes in using qualitative and system dynamics methods to develop sustainable interventions and policies that support recovery from addiction. Prior to joining the lab, Dr. Stringfellow was a research scientist and assistant research professor at the Missouri Institute of Mental Health at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, where she worked with a dedicated, passionate team to conduct evaluation and research of federally-funded opioid-related grants. She is currently working on the development of system dynamics models to improve policies focused on substance use prevention, harm reduction, treatment for disorder, and recovery. Erin was a postdoc at the lab from 2019 to 2022.

Huiru Dong, PhD

Instructor | hdong9@mgh.harvard.edu

Huiru received her PhD in Population and Public Health from the University of British Columbia and holds an MS in Epidemiology from the University of Alberta. The overarching goal of her research is to improve health and social outcomes for people living with substance use disorders through rigorous data science methodologies. Prior to joining the lab, Huiru was a senior statistician and investigator at the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use, where she spent eight years working on the development and implementation of novel statistical methods, investigation of the determinants of health and drug use outcomes, and evaluation of drug policies and services. Huiru was a postdoc at the lab from 2021 to 2024.

Daniel F. Otero-Leon, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Fellow | dotero-leon@mgh.harvard.edu

Daniel received his PhD in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan and holds a M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Universidad de Los Andes. Also, Daniel is part of the Rising Scholars Postdoctoral Program at the University of Virginia. His research interests are generally in operations research and, more specifically, in stochastic models and stochastic dynamic programming applied to healthcare. During his PhD, he focused on data-driven models for improving decision-making in cardiovascular disease, working alongside clinical collaborators at the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs. His work seeks to develop new frameworks for health equity by considering patients’ health disparities in disease prevention policies.

Ali Akhavan, PhD candidate

Postdoctoral Research Fellow | aakhavan@mgh.harvard.edu

Alireza Akhavan Anvari (Ali Akhavan) received his PhD in Management from the University of Lugano in Switzerland. He holds a BS in Physics and an MBA from the Sharif University of Technology. Ali focuses on designing and developing simulation models to address, analyze, and explore different organizational, socio-economic, and environmental problems. He is developing system dynamics models on various health topics to inform policymakers for better decision-making.

Georgia Liu, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Fellow | gliu26@mgh.harvard.edu

Georgia received her PhD in Management Systems Engineering from the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. Georgia also holds a B.Sc. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. During her PhD, Georgia focused on management in safety-critical roles, explicitly investigating the roles of workload, human errors, organizational learning, and forgetting in socio-technical systems.

Hesam Mahmoudi, PhD candidate

Postdoctoral Research Fellow | hmahmoudi1@mgh.harvard.edu

Hesam received his PhD in Management Systems Engineering from the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. He also holds an M.Sc. in Management Science and a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, both from Sharif University of Technology. During his PhD, Hesam focused on the dynamics of learning from experience in biomedical clinical research, specifically as part of the moonshot to cure cancer. Currently, his research centers around developing simulation models to investigate the behavioral dynamics of the opioid crises and cancer screening.

Zeynep Hasgül, MSc

Research Associate | zhasgul@mgh.harvard.edu

Zeynep received her BS degree in Industrial Engineering from Istanbul Technical University in 2019. After graduation, she started coursework for an MS in Industrial Engineering at Bogaziçi University. She specializes in system science and simulation modeling for public health problems. Her current work includes developing system dynamics models for quality of life in cancer immunotherapy, colorectal cancer screening, and substance use disorder.

Hannah Lee, BSc

Research Assistant | hlee109@mgh.harvard.edu

Hannah received her Bachelor of Science in Mathematics with a specialization in statistical modeling and computing from the University of Texas at Austin in 2023. Before joining the lab, she participated in a research lab to develop computational tools using machine learning techniques. Her research interests primarily lie in biostatistics.

Flower Yang, BA

Research Assistant | fyang18@mgh.harvard.edu

Flower received her bachelor’s degree in Economics from Johns Hopkins University in 2019. After graduation, she embarked on a career as a data scientist in the health research industry while pursuing a Master of Public Health at the University of Chicago. Her specialization includes patient safety, social determinants of health, natural language processing, and large language models.

Dr. Collette N. Ncube (K awarded in 2020)

Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Boston University

Dr. Nasser Sharareh (K application under review)

Research Associate, University of Utah Health

Dr. Larissa Calancie (K awarded in 2022)

Research Assistant Professor, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University

Dr. Yan Epelboym (GERRAF fellowship awarded in 2023)

Instructor at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Dr. Andrijana Horvat (awarded by the Dutch Research Council, 2020)

Wageningen University & Research

Dr. Tse Yang Lim

PhD in System Dynamics, MIT Sloan

Dr. Toyya Pujol

Operations Researcher, RAND Corporation