MEET OUR TEAM

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Moshe Fridman, PhD is a statistician with extensive experience in data management and data analysis. He serves as the statistician for the MQI working group and for several other obstetrical studies involving national multi-level data as well as private industry multi-center clinical trials. His areas of expertise are the analysis of observational data and methods to reduce sampling bias (e.g., matching), multi-level modeling involving patient data collected from multiple hospitals/clinics and modeling of rare events. He received a bachelor’s degree in computer science and statistics and a Master’s degree in statistics from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He earned a doctorate degree in statistics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1993 and has over 20 years of experience in the field. He has published over 100 statistical methodology, clinical, and health services research studies in various clinical areas and is currently a co-investigator in several federal, state, and privately-funded grants. He owns AMF Consulting, Inc., a statistical analysis firm that provides services to pharmaceutical companies and research organizations working out of Los Angeles.

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Naomi Greene MPH PhD is a perinatal epidemiologist with years of a variety of experience in maternal and child health. Dr. Greene received her MPH in Community Health Sciences, and PhD in Epidemiology both from the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA. She spent the first 20 years of professional life as a high-risk obstetrics and gynecology research sonographer, establishing an outcomes database and heading up the ultrasound arm of a familial breast/ovarian cancer screening program. Her recent research has focused on early life origins of health and disease, for the most part concentrating both on prenatal exposure to maternal medications and epidemiologic methods. Dr. Greene has thus developed skills needed to manage and optimize big datasets. Since re-joining the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Cedars-Sinai, Dr. Greene has mentored Residents and Fellows with their research projects as well as analyzing both large and small datasets for these projects. In addition, she has put extensive effort into improving the quality and completeness of data from the electronic medical record used at Cedars as well as creating auto-generated reports extracted from these records to assist in ongoing quality assurance as well as research projects. Finally, Dr. Greene has had the honor of joining MQI and collaborating on this group’s work since 2015.

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Kimberly D. Gregory, MD, MPH is the Helping Hand of Los Angeles Chair in Maternal Metal Medicine, and the Vice Chair of Women’s Healthcare Quality and Performance Improvement at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Dr. Gregory is also a Professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the UCLA School of Public Health. She received her bachelor’s degree from UCLA and her medical degree from Charles Drew University School of Medicine and Science. She completed her internship and residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston and her fellowship in maternal-fetal medicine at Los Angeles County + University of Southern California Medical Center. Dr. Gregory received her Master of Public Health degree (MPH) from Harvard School of Public Health. Board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology and maternal-fetal medicine, Dr. Gregory has received grants to investigate her research interests in measuring maternal health care quality, patient safety, obstetrical healthcare utilization, cesarean section rates and complications of labor and delivery, such as uterine rupture and management of macrosomia. Dr. Gregory has written articles for many peer-reviewed publications, such as the American Journal of Public Health, Obstetrics & Gynecology, and the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She is a member of several professional organizations, including the National Medical Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society of Maternal Fetal Medicine. Dr. Gregory has been appointed to the U.S. Public Health Services Prevention Task Force and the Board of Directors for the Society of Maternal Fetal Medicine. She has served on numerous health and public policy committees at both the state and national level.

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Lisa M. Korst MD, PhD is a health care analyst with wide experience in medical practice, health care operations, epidemiology, study design, health information technology and exchange, and strategies for measuring service quality, performance, and safety. Dr. Korst received her bachelor’s and medical degrees from the University of California at San Diego. Her initial training was in obstetrics and gynecology, and she worked in both public and private practice. She is familiar with both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, with a focus on measurement of the quality of perinatal care. She was an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and received her PhD in Health Services from UCLA in 1999. She has an established history of peer-reviewed publications, and support from the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. She currently is on the Executive Committee of the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative. She owns Childbirth Research Associates, LLC, providing consulting and analytical services to academic institutions and researchers, and informatics and biotechnology firms.

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Jeanette McCulloch, IBCLC brings together strategic communications skills with practical experience providing birth and breastfeeding services and a proven record of maternal/infant health advocacy.

Jeanette worked for more than a decade on women’s health policy and other issues though public interest and public relations campaigns. As an account supervisor with Valerie Denney Communications, she oversaw communications strategies for local Chicago-based community organizations, statewide legislative and PR campaigns, and national advocacy efforts. Her primary issue areas included low-income access to health care, environmental justice, criminal justice and grassroots community organizing.

Jeanette has led numerous trainings and message development sessions for nonprofit organizations, including birth advocacy efforts. She has co-published (with Amber McCann) in the Journal of Human Lactation on the topic of establishing an online and social media presence for your IBCLC practice, and co-authored abstracts and posters for the APHA and ACOG on birth consumers’ use of social media and communications needs. She blogs on birth and breastfeeding research, use of social media, and consumer activism.

Morgan McKay, MSW provides administrative support in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She received a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of California, Riverside and a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Southern California. Morgan has over 10 years of experience providing program management and project coordination in community and corporate healthcare settings.

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Samia Saeb, MPH, CCRP is a Program Manager at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She has worked with the MQI team since 2012. Her credentials include a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from California State University Long Beach and a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Southern California. She is a Certified Clinical Research Professional and also serves as a Community Based Participatory Research expert. She manages several Federal and State research projects, as well as national Multicenter Clinical Trials. Her research includes patient-centered care, implementation and evaluation research, health education and promotion and healthcare quality improvement. She is published alongside her MQI colleagues in various peer-reviewed journals.