Programs

Rebecca G. Baker, Ph.D., is the director of the Helping to End Addiction Long-term® Initiative, or NIH HEAL Initiative®, in the Office of the Director, NIH. Dr. Baker leads coordination of NIH HEAL Initiative programmatic activities between the Office of the Director and relevant Institutes and Centers (ICs). She manages the Office of the NIH HEAL Initiative, including NIH HEAL Initiative staff, and oversees management of NIH HEAL Initiative governance committees. Dr. Baker helped develop the NIH HEAL Initiative, working closely with NIH and IC leadership. She also provides expert advice to and represents the NIH Director on initiative-related activities, including interagency efforts in pain and opioid research and policy.

Prior to holding this position, Dr. Baker was special assistant to the NIH Director and the Principal Deputy Director working directly with NIH leadership to analyze complex biomedical research policy issues and assist in the development of new science and policy initiatives. Before that, she worked in the NIH Office of Science, Outreach, and Policy, where she worked on legislative, communications, and policy issues. Dr. Baker also worked in the NIH Office of Science Policy, where she contributed to the development and implementation of the NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy. Previously, she worked as a postdoctoral scientist using next-generation DNA sequencing to identify novel disease-causing genes in patients with rare immunological diseases. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and her bachelor's degree from Cornell University.

Julie Shulman, PT, PhD, DPT, PCS completed her PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences from the MGH Institute of Health Professions in 2020 and received her Doctorate in Physical Therapy from Duquesne University in 2007. Dr. Shulman is the supervisor of physical and occupational therapy at the Mayo Family Pediatric Pain Rehabilitation Center at Boston Children’s Hospital in Waltham. Dr. Shulman’s research aims to bridge gaps critical gaps between the bench and bedside but expanding use of clinically meaningful measures of disability in youth with chronic pain, including exercise testing, quantitative sensory testing, and standardized measures of motor performance. In addition to skiing as many days as she can each year, Dr. Shulman enjoys teaching and mentoring rehabilitation clinicians in evaluation and management of pediatric pain disorders.?

Deirdre Logan, Ph.D. ABPP, is Director of Psychology Services in the Division of Pain Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care & Pain Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) and Associate Professor of psychology, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Logan received her PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of Michigan and completed postdoctoral training at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where she subsequently served on faculty in the Department of Anesthesia. She has led the pain psychology program at BCH since 2007. She also directs the postdoctoral fellowship program in pediatric pain psychology and is a member of the ACGME pain fellow training committee at BCH. Dr. Logan’s research focuses on psychological aspects of pediatric chronic pain, with emphasis on the roles of school and family systems in the child’s pain experience. An additional area of focus is on implementation and evaluation of care innovations in intensive interdisciplinary pediatric pain rehabilitation. She has published over 80 peer reviewed papers. Currently Dr. Logan is working on ways to use digital health technology, particularly augmented and virtual reality interventions, to advance the treatment of pediatric chronic pain conditions.

Pradeep Dinakar, MD, MS, MBA, FAAP

Dr. Dinakar's clinical work, research, and teaching focuses on Multidisciplinary pain management with a special emphasis on minimally invasive interventional pain techniques in both children and adults. He directs the Pediatric Interventional Pain Program at Boston Children's Hospital and runs its outcomes research projects. As an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology at the Harvard Medical School he teaches and trains medical students, residents and fellows.

His background includes training in Neurology / Child Neurology at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Pain Medicine at the Harvard Combined Pain Fellowship through the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He also has a Master’s in business administration (M.B.A) through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T) Sloan School of Management.

Jean C. Solodiuk, RN PhD is the Director of Nursing in the Division of Pain Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care & Pain Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH). Before working in pain management, Dr. Solodiuk was a pediatric intensive care nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Rochester, Strong Hospital. Dr. Solodiuk received her PhD at Boston College, Boston Massachusetts. Dr. Solodiuk’s clinical and research focus are on the improving the safety and efficacy of pain management in hospitalized children and the pain assessment and management of children with intellectual disability.

Andrea Gordon, MD is Director of Integrative Medicine at the Tufts University Family Medicine Residency Program at Cambridge Health Alliance, and an Associate Professor of Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. She is fellowship trained in Integrative Medicine, which she teaches residents and medical students, as well as offering integrative medicine patient care and consultations. A founding member of the organization Integrative Medicine for the Underserved (IM4US), she continues to work with them to help bring these modalities to all who can benefit. She served as faculty for the FMEC Integrative Health Learning Community (IHLC), designed to improve the delivery of person-centered integrative health practices into routine primary care, and has begun the first Integrative Medicine Educator Fellowship.

Dr. Savitz is the Medical Director of the Acquired Brain Injury Program at Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital of New England and is an Assistant Professor of Tufts Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Department. She has spearheaded, along with head of pharmacy at Encompass Rehabilitation Hospital, a pain committee since April of 2019. Our pain committee focuses on decreasing opioid use during rehab stay and increasing use of modalities, pain consults by therapy, and increased interdisciplinary education of nursing, therapy and physicians on non-opioid pain interventions. Additionally, Dr. Savitz is passionate about and has practiced T’ai Chi and Qi Gong for the past 16 years. She has also competed in China winning a gold medal for a Qi Gong group Yang Shen performance and a bronze medal for a T’ai Chi square foot performance.