Meet the M.A.D.E. Mentors!
Finance Mentors:
Dennis Chow, Director of Revenue, Financial Operations and Strategy, has worked at BMC for close to 15 years. He served as an accounting assistant and staff accountant for the Pediatrics department before joining Department of Medicine as a junior accountant. Over the past decade, he has served in various roles ranging from senior accountant and senior budget & financial analyst to his current role as Director of Revenue, Financial Operations and Strategy. Throughout his career, his tasks have involved implementing new financial and budgetary processes, as well as reviewing and improving upon existing ones.
Mike Galatis, Associate Director of Revenue, Financial Operations and Strategy, has been in the DoM for 7 years, working in research, accounting, revenue cycle, and currently acts as Associate Director of Finance. His responsibilities include revenue cycle, analysis, and clinical operations in the department. More importantly, he’s working to increase the data literacy and transparency within the department. Whether it be productivity dashboards for clinicians or revenue metrics for department leadership, most of his efforts are examining opportunities to improve the bottom line of the department. He’s focused on bridging the gap between analysis and execution, and providing department leadership with digestible information to make strategic decisions upon.
Rhea Kahrim, Administrative Director, Section of Rheumatology, started the Department of Medicine in 2008 and has worked in numerous positions in different sections starting in Infectious Diseases, moving to Internal Medicine Residency, Medicine Finance, GIM and as of March 2023 in Rheumatology as the Administrative Director. All of her positions within the Department of Medicine involved finance/accounting to some degree.
Ginny Leung, Sr. Business Analyst, is our Senior Business Analyst in DoM. She has been in her role for 1.5 years where her main responsibilities include generating monthly clinician dashboards and action plan templates as well as ad hoc analysis as needed. She is also experienced in finance operations. Prior to joining DoM, she was a Business Manager in Department of Neurology for 2 years.
Elliot Albirt, Sr. Financial Analyst, joined the Department of Medicine in January 2022, in the Central Finance group as a Senior Financial Analyst. In that time, his work has covered supporting the annual budget, monthly/quarterly/annual reporting as well as ad hoc requests and some accounting support. Prior to joining BMC, he worked in a few different industries, including other healthcare focused organizations. In his personal time, he enjoys his family, dogs, and some time running or cycling when he has the chance.
Duan Yang, Administrative Director, Section of Endocrinology, Diabetes & Nutrition, joined DoM since January 1, 2022. She is the Administrative Director for the Section of Endocrine. Previously Duan was in a role of Division Administrator in both the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism and the Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology, in the Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego.
Duan has more than 10 years of experience in departmental financial and administrative management at UC San Diego. In her role as RAI & Endo/Met Division Administrator, Duan manages all of the administrative, academic, and research, training, marketing and financial activities of the division. She was responsible for the research, education, and clinical missions of the Divisions, and the faculty hiring, promotions, wRVU tracking, salaries negotiation and other faculty support activities.
Grace Michta has been working at the Department of Medicine Finance Team for almost 3 years and this is her 13th year at Boston Medical Center. She received both her Bachelor and Master Degrees from Suffolk University. Conveniently, she lives two miles from BMC so she can walk to and from work, making her commute also my workout! In her spare time, she loves taking care of her garden and enjoying very long walks with her daughter. She has a green thumb as many of her friends are always asking her to bring their dead plants back to life. So far she have been very successful in reviving them!
Research Mentors
Donna Gibson, Administrative Director, Computational Biomedicine Section, began her career in research administration in 1996 when she accepted a position managing a federally-funded Center grant. Her position moved to the Department of Medicine in 1998 where she continued working in research administration and also began to manage a small DoM section. She has been the administrative director for the Section of Computational Biomedicine since 2012 and also the administrative director for the Section of Preventive Medicine & Epidemiology since 2021. She lives in Walpole with her husband and three kids and this September they will be moving two of the three into college (her son into BU for his sophomore year and her daughter into UMass Boston for her freshman year).
Colleen Grenier, Administrative Director, Infectious Disease Section, is the Administrative Director of Infectious Diseases. She has been working at Boston Medical Center for 15 years and have been involved with research throughout her entire career. She started out in the central Grants Administration Office (now known as ‘Research Finance’) where she learned the high-level ins and outs of Research Administration. From there, she made the jump from ‘central administration’ to ‘departmental administration’ and worked as a Grant Manager in Infectious Diseases. In that role, she worked closely with several Principal Investigators to make sure their grants were administratively in order. She has worked with just about every PI within ID on their research projects, ranging from wet lab research to clinical trials to international collaborators. She has held many different roles within Infectious Diseases and is still learning something new about research every single day. She loves working with all the faculty and staff and feels pretty lucky to support the fantastic research going on here at BMC.
Meenakshi Lakshminarayanan, Administrative Director, Center for Regenerative Medicine (CReM), is the Administrative Director at the Center for Regenerative Medicine (CReM). She has been at the CReM for 10 years, since its inception, so in many ways they have grown in the ways a start up does! Prior to this, she worked in a research laboratory as a Researcher and this collective experience has helped her understand both research and research finance. She works closely with the faculty who belong to different sections within the Department of Medicine (DOM), so she works with Sections ADs, grant managers and central DOM administration significantly.
Aline Hillman, Administrative Director, Pulmonary Center, is the long time Pulmonary Center Administrative Director handling all research/grant and non-clinical related financial activities including acting as primary liaison between PI’s (faculty and trainees) with CAMed OPD for preaward and with BU OSP (multiple grant related functions) and BU PAFO (post award), all research/grant postaward functions including salary management for PI’s/faculty, trainees and research staff. Primary liaison to BU HR for hiring and other actions, as well as to many other BU research/administrative/financial offices. Administrator for a large training grant (in year 47!). Aline is very familiar with BU systems (grants, administrative processes HR, etc.) but not with BMC systems.
Katherine Warthen is a business professional with over 20 years of experience and knowledge in grants and contracts administration, Budget management. Katherine boasts solid financial administration, project management, accounts payable/receivables, payroll processing and supervisory skills. Katherine graduated from SUNY Buffalo State College with a BS in Business Administration/Management and has held previous roles at Boston Children’s Hospital and Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. Katherine has been a grants manager in the DoM for 1 year.
Rachelle Joseph is a Boston native and attended college at Northeastern University for both undergraduate and graduate school. For undergrad, she majored in Accounting and continued on to become a Double Husky majoring in Education. After teaching elementary education in the Boston Public School system, she transitioned into research at Boston Medical Center. There she enjoyed supporting Infectious Disease faculty in International research on TB infection and diagnostics from 2011 through 2017. This experience helped her gain a passion for Research Administration which motivated her to broaden my skills in the Department of Medicine. In 2017 she became the Director of Research Administration. Over the past 6 years, she has worked with a team of Grant Managers to support researchers and Department Leadership with research projects that span across 14 areas of Medicine. In my free time, she enjoys dining at new restaurants, playing tennis, and traveling.