Health services researcher in health policy and public health, bringing over 10 years of managing research and policy programs in federal government, community, and clinical settings. Specializing in program management, design, implementation, and mixed methods evaluations on a variety of health-related topics. Topic areas of interest include: quality of care and quality measurement; value-based healthcare; cost burdens and cost-effectiveness; mental health; outcomes research; caregiving; Alzheimer's Disease & dementias; aging, and maternal & child health.

Carole Decker, PhD RN is a researcher and past director of Cardiovascular Outcomes Research at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute (MAHI) and adjunct research faculty at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, School of Nursing. Her research focus for the past 13 years has been cardiovascular shared decision-making and patient adherence, particularly focused on using qualitative methodology. Dr. Decker is a member of the Oversight Advisory Group for the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Strategic Focused Research Network (SFRN) for the Prevention Research Centers. She is active with the AHA Quality of Care and Outcome Research Council as well as the AHA Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing council. She has been a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality since 1997 and was named a Fellow of the AHA in 2009.

John Spertus is a cardiologist and the Lauer/Missouri Endowed Chair and Professor of Medicine at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he serves as Clinical Director of Outcomes Research at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute. He is a graduate of UCSF Medical School and completed his internal medicine, cardiology and health services training at the University of Washington. He has served on numerous national committees for the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, American Medical Association, National Quality Forum, Medicare and United Healthcare. His research activities led to his induction into the American Society of Clinical Investigation in 2006 and the Association of University Cardiologists in 2018, his receipt of the AHA Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Council’s Distinguished Achievement Award, being named by Thompson Reuters as one of the most influential scientists in the world in 2014 and 2015, named among their list of highly-cited authors in 2016 and 2017, and awarded the AHA QCOR Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015. He founded the Cardiovascular Outcomes Research Consortium and CV Outcomes, a non-profit corporation dedicated to advancing healthcare quality and outcomes research in cardiovascular disease and Health Outcomes Sciences, a biotechnology start-up to support the implementation of evidence-based, personalized medicine throughout the country.  Dr. Spertus and his collaborators have published over 750 peer-reviewed articles and hold 6 patents.Dr. Spertus has devoted his career to improving the quality and patient-centeredness of care. His research focuses on methods for assessing patients’ health outcomes, measuring healthcare quality, and the use of information technology to guide medical decision-making based on risk-prediction models so that treatment can be safer, more cost-effective, evidence-based and patient-centered.  He developed the Seattle Angina Questionnaire (SAQ), and the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ), which have both been translated into over 95 languages each and have become the gold standards for measuring patients’ symptoms, function and quality of life in coronary artery disease and heart failure. The KCCQ was the first patient-reported outcomes measure to ever be endorsed by the CDRH branch of the FDA as a Certified Outcome Assessment. He has also developed the Peripheral Artery Questionnaire for patients with peripheral artery disease. While he collaborates with basic scientists to illuminate the prognostic significance of genetics and biomarkers on cardiovascular outcomes, his primary focus in the translational research enterprise is at the interface of patient care.

Dr. Agbas is an Associate Professor of Biochemistry at KCU since 2010. Previously, Dr. Agbas worked at UMKC, KU Medical Center-Kansas City, and KU-Lawrence as a basic scientist. Dr. Agbas research interest is mitochondrial biology in neurodegenerative diseases. Recently, Dr. Agbas got involved in to study the bioenergetics profile in motor neuron/astrocyte cells. This model system will advance the  understanding about the molecular mechanism of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) at mitochondrial level. Dr. Agbas' current research is focused on establishing an early and credible surrogate marker for diagnosing and monitoring the mitochondrial dysfunction of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) There is a strong evidence for a direct link between aberrant TDP-43 protein and neurodegeneration. A potential candidate biomolecule TAR DNA binding protein of 43 kDa (TDP-43) may serve such function. The anticipated interaction between post-translationally modified TDP-43 C-terminal fragments and mitochondria outer membrane proteins [especially translocator protein in the outer mitochondrial membrane (TSPO)] may lead to activate mitochondrial mitophagy; hence, the regulation of mitochondria population may be affected in neurodegeneration.

Dr. Barohn is the Chairman of the Neurology Department at the University of Kansas Medical Center. He is also an University Distinguished Professor, Vice Chancellor for Research, President of the Research Institute, and Director of Heartland Institute for Clinical and Transnational Research. He is involved in many federally and foundation funded clinical research studies for rare neuromuscular diseases such as amyotophic lateral sclerosis, myasthenia gravis, inflammatory myopathies, and muscular dystrophies. Dr. Barohn attended the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine earning both his BA in 1975 and M.D in 1980. He attended Residency Training at Wilford Hall USAF Medical Center and Fellowship Training at The Ohio State University. He spent many years at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas before working at KU in 2001.

Dr. Henry is a tenured Full Professor with dual appointments at the College of Veterinary Medicine and the School of Medicine at the University of Missouri. She earned her DVM at Auburn University in 1990, her MS from Auburn in 1993 and gained board certification in oncology in 1994. Dr. Henry joined the faculty at the Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine from 1994 to 1997 before relocating to the University of Missouri as an Assistant Professor of Oncology. She has served on the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM) Board of Regents and is past president of both the Veterinary Cancer Society and the ACVIM Specialty of Oncology. In April 2010, Henry was named Faculty Facilitator for the Mizzou Advantage One Health/One Medicine initiative by the Office of the Provost—a position in which she serves to foster multidisciplinary educational and research opportunities between human and veterinary medicine and the basic sciences, both within the University of Missouri and with outside collaborators. She has been appointed Associate Director of Research for the Ellis Fischel [human] Cancer Center and serves as the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies at the College of Veterinary Medicine. Her research interests include canine bladder cancer, mammary cancer, osteosarcoma, and comparative oncology/cancer epidemiology.

Dr. Picking is a Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at University of Kansas. Currently, she is developing broadly protective subunit vaccines against bacterial pathogens including Shigella spp. and Salmonella enterica. She firmly believes that it is unacceptable in this century to have children dying from diarrhea. Her team has other vaccines in the pipeline.

Currently, I am a clinician/scientist in the field of cell based immunotherapy. Clinically, I serve as Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Missouri Kansas City/Children’s Mercy Hospital practicing hematopoietic stem cell transplant. My research interests include immune reconstitution post-stem cell transplantation and solid tumor immunotherapy. My focus as Director of Innovation in Cellular Therapy is building research collaborations to further various cell based immunotherapy approaches in cancer, autoimmune disease and solid organ transplantation tolerance.

Wayne is the President and CEO of the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute (KCALSI).Prior to joining KCALSI, Wayne was the Vice President of Global Research at Hill’s Pet Nutrition (Colgate) in Topeka, Kansas where he led nutrigenomics research for new product discoveries and commercialization. Prior to joining Colgate, Wayne worked for Pfizer Human Health in Groton, CT for 11 years and was an Executive Director of Global Clinical Technology. In that role, he was responsible for translational research and led the company’s North American clinical facilities in the development, validation and implementation of new clinical technologies to accelerate development decisions for human pharmaceuticals. Technologies developed included MRI and PET imaging methods and ligands, novel infrared methods, voice acoustics and many other novel technologies. Wayne attended Purdue University, earning his B.S. degree in 1980, D.V.M. in 1984, and Ph.D. in 1994. Dr. Carter became board certified in the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine in 1992.

Matt Lineberry, Ph.D. is the Director of Simulation Research, Assessment, and Outcomes for the Zamierowksi Institute for Experiential Learning (ZIEL). ZIEL is a unique partnership of the University of Kansas Medical Center and University of Kansas Health System which provides advanced simulation-based health care education to optimize learning and patient outcomes. ZIEL educational programming spans all health professions, from first-year students to seasoned practitioners, and is particularly focused on enhancing inter-professional collaborative care. In addition to his role with ZIEL, Dr. Lineberry is an Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management at KUMC. ZIEL is unique in its commitment to interdisciplinary basic and applied research. The ZIEL Simulation Research Collaboratory (the “ZIEL CoLab”) supports research teams through simulation research-specific consultation, resources, and centrally-driven research execution. Current centrally-driven programs of research cover a variety of topics in simulation technology, curriculum design, performance assessment, and patient outcomes research. These major programs focus on patient care topics of greatest need locally and nationally, including invasive procedural skills and teamwork skills for crisis situations. Dr. Lineberry’s personal program of research is focused on optimizing deliberate practice of challenging tasks in healthcare, with particular emphases on (1) designing and investigating the validity of assessments, particular assessments for learning, (2) learner-adaptive training technology, and (3) healthcare simulation instructional design. He and his collaborators' work has been supported with nearly $2 million in grant funding in the last two years, from the generous support of agencies including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, and National Board of Medical Examiners. Matthew holds a Ph.D. in Industrial & Organizational Psychology with an emphasis in Statistical Methods from the University of South Florida (USF), where he was a Presidential Doctoral Fellow. Previously, Matt served as a Research Psychologist for the U.S. Navy’s training systems command and later as Assistant Professor of Medical Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

I am a health economist who has spent many years teaching and doing projects in performance improvement. I also work on a varied portfolio of projects doing cost effectiveness analysis.

Dr. Mark Patterson is a graduate of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Pharmacy where he earned his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences (2006), and the Yale University School of Public Health where he earned his M.P.H. in Chronic Disease Epidemiology (2002). After receiving his Ph.D., Dr. Patterson completed his post-doctoral fellowship in health services research from the Duke Clinical Research Institute and then worked for two years as a health services research analyst at the Research Triangle Institute in Durham, North Carolina. Dr. Patterson’s specialization areas include 1) exploring the role of health information technology to improve communication, prescribing patterns, and medication reconciliation within post-acute care settings; 2) managing and building large datasets that are used to build predictive models for health outcomes studies, and 3) facilitating focus groups and conducting qualitative analysis on focus groups transcripts. Dr. Patterson was a recent recipient of a 2016 New Investigator Award from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) on a project entitled “Workflow impact on medication errors occurring during transitions of care between rural facilities”. He is currently co-principal investigator on a UMKC-based grant using Cerner's HealthFacts data to investigate the protective effects of probiotics on the incidence of hospital-acquired infections.  As an Associate Professor at UMKC School of Pharmacy, Dr. Patterson serves as the course coordinator for a required 3-credit course titled “Economics of Health and Medicine”, a survey course introducing 2nd year pharmacy students to the theories and applications of microeconomics, pharmacoeconomics, and pharmacoepidemiology to pharmacy practice. Outside the classroom, Dr. Patterson serves as faculty advisor for the UMKC Student Chapter of Association of Managed Care Pharmacy and as an American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) Pharmacy Post-Graduate Preceptor for the Veterans Affairs Heartland Network VISN15 Pharmacoeconomics Residency PGY2 Program.  His other professional responsibilities include serving on the editorial board of Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy (RSAP) and the advisory board for the Pharmacoeconomics PGY2 Program.