James Ralston, MD, MPH
Program Co-Director and Research Education Core Co-Lead, Washington LHS E-STAR
Senior Investigator, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute
James Ralston is a general internist, KPWHRI senior investigator, and University of Washington (UW) affiliate professor of both Health Systems and Population Health, and Biomedical and Health Informatics. His research focuses on improving the care of patients with chronic illness, including those with multiple chronic conditions. James has 2 decades of leadership experience on PCORI, AHRQ, NIH, and RWJF funded studies. As care delivery technology services liaison for KPWHRI, he oversees all use of health information technology in embedded research at KPWA. View James' faculty bio on the research institute’s website.
Paula Lozano, MD, MPH
Program Co-Director, Washington LHS E-STAR
Senior Investigator, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute
Paula Lozano is a KPWHRI senior investigator, experienced pediatric health services researcher, and a recognized LHS leader who brings more than 20 years of health care and research leadership experience and expertise in primary care transformation. As medical director for research and translation, she is responsible for overseeing all embedded research at KPWA. Lozano established an internally funded LHS program, the Center for Accelerating Care Transformation (ACT Center) the platform on which dozens of LHS research projects have been successfully conducted at Kaiser Permanente Washington (KPWA) since 2017. View Paula’s faculty bio on the research institute’s website.
Claire Allen, MPH
Associate Director, Washington LHS E-STAR
Manager, Collaborative Science, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute
Claire Allen is a KPWHRI senior collaborative scientist and manager of the Collaborative Science Division, has deep expertise managing, coordinating, and facilitating multistakeholder engagements in both health systems and research settings, including in safety net settings. She brings more than 12 years of experience leading and implementing quality improvement initiatives in care delivery; developing, coordinating, and implementing large-scale research projects; and leading and developing LHS projects and infrastructure in the ACT Center and in safety net settings. View Claire's faculty bio on the research institute’s website.
India Ornelas, PhD, MPH
Research and Data Analysis Core Co-Lead, Washington LHS E-STAR
Professor, University of Washington School of Public Health
India Ornelas is professor and interim chair of the UW Department of Health Systems and Population Health. She has over 20 years of experience conducting stakeholder-engaged research in underserved communities. Her work focuses on addressing health disparities in racial and ethnic minority and immigrant populations. Extensive community-based participatory research experience includes leading 2 NIH-funded intervention trials engaging Latino communities to address mental health and substance use disparities in Washington state. India brings expertise in implementing quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods study designs, as well as experience mentoring early career scholars in these approaches. View India’s faculty bio on the School of Public Health website.
Maggie Ramirez, PhD, MS
Research Education Core Co-Lead, Washington LHS E-STAR
Assistant Professor, University of Washington School of Public Health
Maggie Ramirez is the William L. Dowling Endowed Professor in Health Administration, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Systems and Population Health at the UW SPH, and former AHRQ/PCORI-funded LHS trainee in the CATALyST K12 program. She is a health services researcher and industrial engineer. Maggie studies dementia care in Latino populations and has expertise in health equity and health IT interventions. View Maggie's faculty bio on the School of Public Health website.
Yates Coley, PhD
Research and Data Analysis Core Co-Lead, Washington LHS E-STAR
Associate Biostatistics Investigator, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute
Yates Coley is a KPWHRI Biostatistics Unit Associate Investigator and former AHRQ/PCORI-funded LHS trainee in the CATALyST K12 program. They now lead a NIMH-funded R01 to improve racial and ethnic equity in suicide risk prediction and co-lead the Advanced Analytics team for the ACT Center. Their work as a co-investigator and lead statistician includes projects spanning cancer screening and treatment, mental health, dementia and aging, metabolic bariatric surgery, and health services. Yates was recently honored with the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies’ Emerging Leader Award for their innovative work integrating rigorous and practical statistical methods into clinical prediction models and LHS research. View Yates' faculty bio on the research institute website.
