Dr. Barnes is Health Sciences Clinical Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the UC Davis School of Medicine. He is co-Medical Director of the UC Davis Medical Center’s Emergency Department, inland northern California’s only level-1 trauma center, and the former Program Director for the Emergency Medicine residency. Dr. Barnes’ academic interests include education, quality and safety, resuscitation, and simulation. He is director of faculty development and leads his department’s sustainability and environmental stewardship initiatives. He regularly engages and mentors residents and students conducting quality improvement projects. Dr. Barnes is the physician lead for a bold initiative to bring AHRQ's TeamSTEPPS program to all physicians, nurses, and staff in the Department of Emergency Medicine.

Dr. Barnes earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from the Oregon Health & Sciences University in Portland, OR and completed his residency training in Emergency Medicine at UC Davis Medical Center.

Kristen Bettega is a policy analyst with the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis. Since joining the school in 2011 as a research project manager, she has supported multiple research projects focusing on improving quality in nursing homes and support for family caregivers. Ms. Bettega provides data management support for Cal Long-term Care Compare, a website dedicated patients and families in choosing a nursing home, home health, or hospice care. Prior to joining the school of nursing, she was a research specialist for a California non-profit organization that helps children in crisis and their families.  Ms. Bettega earned her BA from UC Davis.

Dr. Noelle Boctor is a hospitalist in the Department of Internal Medicine at UC Davis Health. She is the Co-founder and Co-Chair of the Scholarly Works Committee for the Hospital Medicine Division at UC Davis and has published in various domains including original translational research, case reports, and clinical images. She serves as an Academic Coach for the medical students in the Academic Research Careers for Medical Doctors and the MD/PhD program, as well as a Residency Mentor for Internal Medicine residents at UC Davis. Dr. Boctor holds several educational roles at the UC Davis School of Medicine where she works with medical students from all four years and is involved in curriculum development. Her professional interests are grounded in medical education, optimization of quality of care, and striving to provide culturally competent care by using her fluency in four languages.

Dr. Boctor obtained her medical degree at Rush Medical College in Chicago, Illinois. She completed her Internal Medicine internship and residency at the UC Davis Medical Center and is board-certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine.

Dr. Bohringer is a Professor of Clinical Anesthesiology at the University of California Davis School of Medicine. He is board certified in anesthesiology, critical care medicine and transesophageal echocardiography. He worked 12 years in cardiothoracic anesthesia and currently leads the neurosurgical anesthesiology team. As an anesthesiologist, Dr. Bohringer has a special interest in patient safety and he has authored papers on quality improvement in intensive care, opioid-free anesthesia, the prevention of intraoperative bronchospasm and myocardial injury, sleep apnea, anesthesia drugs, neuromuscular block reversal and airway management.

Dr. Bohringer completed his medical school education at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia in 1989. Following internship and two years of general residency at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, he completed anesthesia and intensive care fellowship training at the John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle, Australia.

Dr. Bourgeois is Health Sciences Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Vice Chair for Hospital Psychiatry Services at the University of California Davis. He is a Fellow and 2021 Hackett Awardee of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry and Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.  His academic interests include consultation-liaison psychiatry, neuropsychiatry, fragile X-associated neuropsychiatric illness, psychopharmacology, decisional capacity, and medical education.

Dr. Bourgeois previously served as Staff Psychiatrist and Director, Mental Health Clinic, 9th Medical Group, Beale Air Force Base CA; Faculty Psychiatrist and Director, Inpatient Mental Health Services, Department of Psychiatry, 60th Medical Group/David Grant Medical Center, Travis Air Force Base CA; Faculty Psychiatrist and Chair, Department of Psychiatry, 59th Medical Wing/Wilford Hall Medical Center, Lackland Air Force Base TX; Faculty Psychiatrist and Director, Psychosomatic Medicine Division, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Davis Medical Center, Sacramento CA; Faculty Psychiatrist, Consultation-Liaison Service, Vice Chair - Education/Department Education Coordinator, and Clinical Head of Service, General Psychiatry Division, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioural Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine, McMaster University, Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, Hamilton ON, Canada; Faculty Psychiatrist, Psychosomatic Medicine Division and Vice Chair, Clinical Affairs, Department of Psychiatry, Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, San Francisco CA; and Faculty Psychiatrist and Chair, Department of Psychiatry, Baylor Scott & White Health, Central Texas Division, Temple TX.

Tennille Daniels is a Senior Researcher in the Health Division at American Institutes of Research (AIR). She has extensive experience managing and implementing large scale federal health care quality and patient safety projects, most recently supporting CMS in providing technical assistance to small, underserved and rural clinicians participating in the Quality Payment Program. She also led the Strategic Innovation Engine for CMS to identify innovations that would significantly improve quality and safety if spread and implemented at large scale. Prior to joining AIR, Ms. Daniels served as the Senior Program Manager for the American Hospital Association/Health Research and Educational Trust Hospital Engagement Network as part of the Partnership for Patients (PfP) initiative to reduce all-cause patient harm and hospital readmissions. She has served as a contributing author for several health care quality and patient safety annual reports. Ms. Daniels earned her Master of Public Health degree from Emory University with a concentration in health policy and management.

Mr. Gale is a Researcher in the Health Division at American Institutes for Research (AIR). He has conducted research and analysis in patient safety and healthcare quality for over eight years, most recently writing several chapters of the AHRQ Making Healthcare Safer III report. Mr. Gale has experience in quantitative and qualitative data management and analysis, literature reviews, qualitative data collection, and coordinating with academic journals. Mr. Gale holds a M.A. in Economic Policy Analysis from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Dr. Hood is a Pharmacist at UC Davis Health, Department of Pharmacy. Her classical training area of expertise is medication safety, use and policy and she manages the UC Davis Pharmacy Residency training programs. Her academic interests involve quality improvement, workforce development, and enhancing safety in the medication use process. She also sits on a variety of local, state, and national committees that are devoted to the continuous improvement of those areas.

Dr. Hood earned her Doctor of Pharmacy from Creighton University and completed a post-graduate pharmacy residency at Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin focused on acute care prior to completing a post-graduate residency specializing in medication use, safety and policy at UC Davis Health.

Courtney Klopfenstein is a Research Associate in the Health Division at American Institutes for Research (AIR). Courtney graduated from The University of Iowa with her Master of Public Health Policy in May of 2020. She has experience in policy research and advocacy at the state and federal level. Some of her areas of interest include healthcare quality and payment reform, patient safety, provider wellbeing, rural health, and maternal health.

Merton Lee is a Researcher in the Health Division at the American Institutes for Research (AIR). His work includes prescription drug insurance-related oversight, new models of pharmacist care that improve patient safety, and patient-centered outcomes research. He also practices as a clinical pharmacist in an interprofessional geriatric primary care practice. Dr. Lee has a PhD in English from University of Illinois, and a PharmD from University of Maryland, Baltimore, and has worked in the field of health communications for over 10 years.

Dr. Natale is a Professor of Pediatric Critical Care and is the Associate Chief Medical Office for Children’s Health at UC Davis Health, Vice Chair for Quality and Safety in the UC Davis Department of Pediatrics, and Director of Quality and Safety, UC Davis Children’s Hospital. Dr. Natale’s research interests include patient safety, health equity, and patient safety processes. Dr. Natale’s academic interests includes interprofessional education focusing on patient safety, family engagement in safety, communication related to clinical errors, relationship between health care provider well-being and patient safety.

Dr. Natale earned an MD from Michigan State University and PhD in physiology from University of Michigan. She completed residency training in pediatrics at Albert Einstein School of Medicine and completed her fellowship training in pediatric critical care medicine from Johns Hopkins. She also completed a UC Health Fellow, UC Center for Healthcare policy and Innovation and is also UC Davis/ UC Irvine Physician Health and Wellbeing Fellow. Dr. Natale is board certified in pediatrics and pediatric critical care medicine.

Dr. Nichols is a Clinical Professor and Interim Associate Dean for Academics at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at the University of California Davis, where she teaches maternal child health and evidence-based practice. Her academic interests include preparing new nurses to be leaders in quality and safety, advocates for diverse patient populations, and change agents for healthier families and communities. As a perinatal clinical nurse specialist and an expert in simulation-based learning, Dr. Nichols collaborated with the Center for Advanced Pediatric and Perinatal Education (CAPE) to establish patient safety perinatal simulation programs.

Dr. Nichols earned a BSN and a Doctor of Education in Curriculum and Instructional Design from the University of San Francisco. She also earned a Master of Science in Perinatal Nursing from UCSF and completed a 2-year post-doctoral research fellowship in women’s health at SFVA/UCSF. She currently serves on the editorial board of Nursing Administration Quarterly and is a Fellow of the Academy of Nursing Education of the National League for Nursing.

Lauren Roygardner is a Senior Researcher in the Learning, Translation, and Quality Measurement program at American Institutes for Research (AIR). She is a mixed methods researcher and analyst (quantitative and qualitative) with over 12 years of research and evaluation experience. Dr. Roygardner has served as Evaluator for behavioral health grants funded by SAMHSA (Certified Community Behavioral Health – CCBHC; and Primary and Behavioral Health Care Integration-PBHCI), has analyzed U.S. Census Data for health policy briefs, and is an experienced clinician with expertise in outpatient community mental health. Dr. Roygardner has expertise in developing logic models, tracking performance measures, and designing mixed methods surveys, and conducting program evaluation. Dr. Roygardner has an MSW in social work with a concentration in research from Fordham University, and a PhD in psychology from The Graduate Center at the City University of New York.

Dr. Shaikh is  Medical Director of Healthcare Quality at UC Davis Health and a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California Davis School of Medicine. The focus of Dr. Shaikh’s work is on designing, implementing and evaluating health systems improvement methods across a broad range of health care settings to improve health care delivery and outcomes. She served as Clinical Quality Officer at the California Department of Health Care Services from 2012-2015. At UC Davis, she has led over 500 clinicians in quality improvement and patient safety initiatives across multiple departments, linking initiatives to trainee education and managing improvement teams through a learning health system model.

Dr. Shaikh completed her medical education at Goa Medical College, India and pediatric residency at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York. She earned an MPH from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and a master’s degree in Clinical Research from the University of California Davis. She trained in quality improvement at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Intermountain Healthcare, and Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Dr. Garth Utter is a Professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of California, Davis. He joined the UC Davis faculty in 2005 and has remained clinically active as a trauma and acute care surgeon and surgical intensivist. Dr. Utter has research interests in a variety of clinical and health services topics. He has helped evaluate and refine the function of several of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Patient Safety Indicators through AHRQ and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services-funded contracts. He also has focused on the application of the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Clinical Modification and Procedure Coding System in surgical outcomes research. He has an interest in single-center randomized trials, of which he has completed five on such topics as motivational interviewing to reduce injury risk, chest tube management, and type of fluid resuscitation for acutely injured patients.

Dr. Utter completed his medical education at the University of California, San Francisco, residency in general surgery at the University of California, Davis, and fellowship in trauma and surgical critical care at the University of Washington/Harborview Medical Center. During fellowship, Dr. Utter earned a Master of Science degree in Epidemiology.

Cindy Van is a Senior Researcher in the Health Division at the American Institutes for Research (AIR). She has extensive experience leading patient safety initiatives and root cause analyses, and implementing IHI improvement methodologies, high-reliability principles, and TeamSTEPPS. Prior to joining AIR, Cindy managed projects focused on clinical quality measurement and coaching learning health system participants at a non-profit and led improvement projects at different healthcare systems in the Washington, DC metro area. Cindy earned her Master of Science in Health Systems Administration from Georgetown University. She is a trained Six Sigma Black Belt, TeamSTEPPS Master Trainer, and a Certified Professional in Patient Safety.

Meghan Weyrich is a health policy research associate with the University of California, Davis Center for Healthcare Policy and Research. She has extensive experience managing research projects of varying scales and complexities, particularly in the areas of patient safety, quality measurement, and evidence-based practice. She currently supports work involving the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) and their respective quality indicator and patient safety programs. Ms. Weyrich works with the Kaiser Permanente Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) to produce systematic evidence reviews for AHRQ that are used by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to update their clinical preventive service recommendations in primary care. She is also a contributor to the California Health Benefits Review Program (CHBRP), providing medical effectiveness analyses of proposed California legislation impacting health insurance benefit mandates. Ms. Weyrich earned her MPH from Boston University.

Lorri Zipperer is a Digital Projects and Systematic Review Librarian at the Blaisdell Medical Library with the University of California Davis. Ms. Zipperer was a founding staff member of the National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF).  She has been monitoring the published output of the patient safety movement since 1997 and has been with AHRQ Patient Safety Network since the site launched in 2005. Her editorial work has produced books and articles on topics including knowledge management, patient safety, resilience engineering, and systems thinking. Ms. Zipperer is an American Hospital Association/NPSF Patient Safety Leadership Fellowship alumnus and an Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) Cheers award winner.  She develops content to engage multidisciplinary teams in creative thinking and innovation around knowledge sharing to support high quality, safe patient care. Ms. Zipperer earned her MA in Library and Information Studies from Northern Illinois University.