Actionable Research

Dr. Mary Hardy, board certified in internal medicine and a specialist in botanical and integrative medicine, has actively combined complementary and alternative therapies with traditional Western medicine for over thirty-five years in both her clinical practice and research projects. After completing her undergraduate studies at Vassar College, she returned to her hometown, New Orleans, to attend medical school at Louisiana State University. She then completed her internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Tufts New England Medical Center.  

In 1998, Dr. Hardy founded the Integrative Medicine Clinic at Cedars-Sinai and participated in a National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (the Federal Government’s lead agency for scientific research in this area) funded research project that evaluated the barriers and facilitators of Integrative Medicine practice based on her clinic. She also has extensive experience in evaluating the evidence base for the efficacy and safety of complementary/ integrative medicine as part of her work as a research associate at the RAND Corporation (a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization). 
 

In March of 2025, the CHB hosted a free public screening of Dottie: A Film About Dementia and Empathy. Dottie is a 20-minute, award-winning short film co-written by C. Robin Marcotte and Jeff Stern, a Distinguished Lecturer in Bentley University’s English & Media Studies Department. The film was produced in partnership with Articine, a nonprofit that bridges arts and medicine and narrated by Ken Stuckey, an Assistant Professor also in Bentley’s English and Media Studies. The film explores the lived experience of dementia, focusing on themes of empathy, embodied memory and the dignity of those affected, including both patients and caregivers. After the film, attendees were invited to meet the cast and production team and discuss the film with Bentley faculty along with members of Articine.

Rochelle Walensky, M.D., M.P.H former Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, visited Bentley University in fall 2024. During her visit, she engaged with students in the Business of Health (ID 320) course, leading a discussion on the intersection of health, government and society and sharing insights from her own career.  Before her time at the CDC, Dr. Walensky served as a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and later as Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Marquardt is an Economist in the economics research department at Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. She is a member of the microeconomics team and conducts research in the field of health economics.  She leads the national conversation on the economics of child mental health and wellbeing and she contributes to the Fed's regional and national policy missions.

Dr. Marquardt's presentation was entitled Health Economics at the Chicago Fed: A look at big pharma, nursing home competition and ADHD drug shortages. 

Due to the sensitive nature of her job, the event was not recorded.

Jessica Mudry is Professor and Chair of the School of Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University. She is an organic chemist, after which she moved to science communication, media production and research for the BBC and the Discovery Channel - she continues to create for the annual World Congress of Science and Factual Producers, ZDF, and NSERC.  

Her scholarship focuses on the languages of science, health and medicine in politics and popular culture.  She is the Director of the Creative School's Healthcare User Experience (HUE) Lab where her work in health communication and health equity finds a good home. She is an associate scientist at St. Michael's Hospital and she works closely with the department of surgery there on a variety of medical humanities projects. She teaches health communication in the MPH program, and has been an Erasmus Scholar, at the École des Hautes Études en Santé Publique (EHESP) in France, and has completed several courses at Harvard University's Medical School.  

Her past academic projects have included work in Food Studies; Science and Technology Studies; Public Health, and Environmental Communication.  She has been awarded funding from NSERC, SSHRC, MITACS, FQRSC and the Public Health Agency of Canada.

As a clinician-investigator and physician leader, Dr. Justin Sanders' work focuses on the promotion of authentic healing relationships in serious illness through social science informed and equity-focused communication and implementation research. He is the co-founder of the Virtual Communications Research Lab (VCR) at Bentley University.

Dr. Sanders presented on Virtual Reality and the Patient Experience: Serious Illness, Healing Relationships and the Potential for Immersive Technologies to Improve Patient Experience

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Dr. Roland J. Thorpe, Jr. joined us for three days in March 2019 and presented on how he built the Black Men's Health Project and other studies on Black Men's Health. From the its website: "The Black Men's Health Project is the largest and most comprehensive initiative of its kind in U.S. history. The mission of the Black Men's Health Project is to gain a deeper understanding of the unique health challenges of Black men and develop culturally competent strategies and solutions to improve the health outcomes for Black men." (Note that you must be part of the Bentley community to view the video.)

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Dr. Tanniru's research focuses on digital leadership in health care, looking at innovations in patient care delivery services enabled by advanced technology, and the effective strategies health care facilities have to use to incorporate these innovations in support of continuity of care inside and outside the hospital walls.

Dr. Tanniru presented on Digital Leadership in Healthcare: An Enabling Leadership to Support Health Care Transformation.

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Dr. Suchman's work focuses on organizational change and how people can work together more effectively across all levels of health care. Through his teaching and writing (more than 90 articles and book chapters and the book Partnerships in Healthcare: Transforming Relational Process. He has become a leading proponent of a partnership-based clinical approach known as Relationship-Centered Care.

Dr. Suchman presented a seminar titled: Tending the Space Between: Interdependence and the Relational Core of Integrated Health Systems.

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