Seattle-Denver Center of Innovation (COIN)

Catherine Butler, MD
Dr. Butler is a nephrology research fellow and bioethics masters student at the University of Washington working under the primary mentorship of Dr. Ann O’Hare. Her research interests include healthcare intensity at the end-of-life for older adults with advanced kidney disease, ethical concerns that arise in the care of this population, and issues of distributive justice in kidney transplant allocation. She received her BA from Tufts University and her MD from Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine and completed her internal medicine residency and clinical nephrology fellowship at the University of Washington.

Kevin Duan, MD
Dr. Duan is a pulmonary and critical care medicine fellow at the University of Washington in the research track, and is mentored by VA investigators. His research interests include studying health policy and health economics as a way to improve value in the health care system for patients with pulmonary diseases. He completed medical school at the University of Michigan, followed by residency and a chief residency in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Sonali Mishra, PhD
Dr. Mishra is a postdoctoral fellow in the HSR&D fellowship program. She received her PhD from the University of Washington Information School and her master's degree in Human-Computer Interaction from the University of Michigan School of Information. Her recent work has focused on designing technologies to support patient engagement in hospitals to improve care quality and prevent medical errors. She has also done work examining the design of technologies to support tracking in the context of Parkinson's Disease. 

Mayuree Rao, MD
Dr. Rao is an internal medicine physician whose research interests include innovative health care delivery models and self-management programs for diabetes, hypertension, and multimorbidity in primary care. Her prior research has focused on community health worker programs for patients living with diabetes in resource-poor settings. She received her BA from Stanford University and completed medical school at Brown University, followed by residency and chief residency at the University of Washington. She is also currently pursuing a master’s degree in health services at the Univeity of Washington School of Public Health.

Tessa Steel, MD, MPH
Dr. Steel is a Pulmonary/Critical Care doctor and research fellow at the Seattle-Denver COIN. Her research interests include health system approaches to treatment of alcohol withdrawal syndrome and delirium during acute and critical illness, as well as integrating inpatient and outpatient care for patients with addiction. She works under the mentorship of Dr. Eric Hawkins, using large VA datasets to understand the epidemiology of alcohol withdrawal syndrome, variation in treatment practices, and associated variation in patient outcomes. She completed medical school with a masters degree in public health at Oregon Health & Science University, residency in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, and fellowship in Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine at the University of Washington.