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Meet the Judges

With judging now underway, we are thrilled to highlight our esteemed panel of judges, who draw from diverse backgrounds in psychology, health, and technology.

We received 75 thoughtful and impressive proposals and selecting only 5 semi-finalists is no easy task. On behalf of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and New Venture Fund, we extend a huge thank you to the judges for their time, effort, and contribution to the Mood Challenge and for helping transform mood research.

Read on to learn more about the judges and stay tuned for the semi-finalist announcement in July! Sign up to receive Challenge updates here.

LisaFeldmanBarrett

LISA FELDMAN BARRETT
University Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Director of the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory, Northeastern University

Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, is University Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Director of the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory (IASLab) at Northeastern University, with research appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Barrett’s research focuses on the nature of emotion from both psychological and neuroscience perspectives, and more recently has developed a broad, integrative approach to the functional architecture of the brain. Earlier in her career, she was an early adopter and innovator of experience-sampling methods. Dr. Barrett is the recipient of numerous research awards and in 2007 she received the prestigious NIH Director’s Pioneer Award for transformative research on emotion. Her research has been continuously funded by NIH and NSF for almost 20 years, and is currently supported by the Mind and Life Institute, the Army Research Institute, and the Templeton Foundation. Dr. Barrett is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Psychological Science, as well as several other scientific societies. In addition to publishing over 180 peer reviewed papers and book chapters, Dr. Barrett has authored a White Paper on the science of emotion for the National Research Council, she has testified before Congress in support of basic behavioral research funding and she has edited five volumes, including the Handbook of Emotion. Her first authored book, How emotions are made: The new science of mind and brain, will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2017.

jefffrazierv2

JEFF FRAZIER
CEO & Founder, THREAD Research 

Jeff Frazier is the CEO and founder of THREAD Research, a pioneering mHealth medical research company that has launched 3 of the first 8 apps that leveraged Apple’s ResearchKit. Most recently, THREAD Research partnered with Apple and Johns Hopkins University to launch EpiWatch®, the first mobile seizure tracker for patients with epilepsy with a synced Apple Watch® app.

Jeff’s aspirations in mobile research are lofty; he has challenged his team to collaborate with the world to answer every human biological question by 2030. Jeff and his team are hard at work developing the fastest technologies and methods possible in order to surface those human biological truths. Often, Jeff can be found ranting about the need for more collaboration in research, claiming, “This work is too important to humanity for us to not share what’s working with one another!”

KevinJohnson

KEVIN JOHNSON
Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor and Chair of Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Dr. Johnson is an internationally-respected developer and evaluator of clinical information technology. His research interests have focused on bridging the chasm between our current healthcare system and the optimal use of health information technology to support care and improve patient safety. His specific areas of expertise are in medication management technologies and implementation, computer-based documentation strategies, and clinical decision support. Recent projects include leading evaluation of the AHRQ and Tennessee-funded State and Regional Demonstration Project for Health Information Exchange in West Tennessee, AHRQ funding to evaluate the impact of e-prescribing decision support on pharmacy callbacks, and a RWJF-funded effort to develop state-of-the-art applications utilizing personal health records, under their Project HealthDesign Initiative. Dr. Johnson also developed RxStar, Vanderbilt’s e-prescribing system.

Kevin Patrick

KEVIN PATRICK
Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the UCSD and Director of the Center for Wireless and Population Health Systems at the Qualcomm Institute/Calit2

Kevin Patrick, MD, MS is Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and Director of the Center for Wireless and Population Health Systems at the Qualcomm Institute/Calit2. He is Director of the Health Data Exploration project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He served as Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine for 20 years (1994-2013), and has served on the Secretary’s Council for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Armed Forces Epidemiology Board. His research, supported by the NIH, NSF, CDC, RWJF, explores how to use mobile, home and social technologies to measure and improve the health of individuals and populations.

indusubaiya

INDU SUBAIYA
CEO and Co-Chairman, Health 2.0

Indu Subaiya is the CEO and Co-Chairman of Health 2.0, the leading conference and media platform company that promotes, showcases and catalyzes new technologies in healthcare through a worldwide series of conferences, code-a-thons, prize challenges, and more. Her guests have included Chelsea Clinton, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Tim O’Reilly, Aneesh Chopra and hundreds of other health, tech, and media luminaries. Indu has moderated panels and hosted conferences around the world as Health 2.0’s innovator community has grown to over 110 cities globally.

Regarded as an engaging interviewer and thought leader on health technology issues, she has moderated panels at SXSW Interactive, The Clinton Health Matters Activation Summit, and USC/Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. Indu also serves on advisory committees with the Office of the National Coordinator, the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Health Data Consortium.

Prior to Co-Founding Health 2.0, she was Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Physic Ventures, Vice President of Healthcare and Biomedical Research at Gerson Lehrman Group, and Director of Outcomes Research at Quorum Consulting, Inc. Indu holds an MD from Stony Brook University School of Medicine at the State University of New York, an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and a BS in Science and Technology Studies from Cornell University.