Our Team

Dr. Michael D. Kappelman, MD, MPH is the a pediatric gastroenterologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with an interest in the clinical care of children and young adults with inflammatory bowel disease. He also devotes considerable effort to quality improvement and epidemiological and outcomes research in this area. This includes studies of the prevalence, natural history, costs, and utilization of resources by children and adults with IBD, as well patient centered outcomes research and comparative effectiveness and safety research.

Dr. Kappelman is the Chair of the Pediatric Affairs Committee for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America and serves on the National Scientific Advisory Council. He alsoholds a number of leadership roles within ImproveCareNow, including serving on the network’s Strategy Council, Physician Leadership Group, and Data Management Division.

Peter Margolis, MD, PhD is the Co-Director of the James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Margolis’ work encompasses the application and study of quality improvement methods in a broad range of areas including primary and sub-specialty care, communities and public health settings to improve the health outcomes of children, families and communities. In 2006, he joined Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center to create a new center focused on Health Care Quality. Dr. Margolis has worked extensively with the certifying Boards and Specialty Societies to assist them in designing programs that will enable physicians to meet new Maintenance of Certification requirements focused on systems thinking and performance in practice. He is principle investigator of an NIH Roadmap transformative research grant on redesigning systems for chronic illness care, as well as grants from the Agency For Healthcare Research and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute aimed at developing learning health systems and transforming the infrastructure for research in the US. He currently serves as the Chair of the PCORNet Steering Committee.

Athos Bousvaros MD, MPH is a pediatric gastroenterologist who has worked at Boston Children’s Hospital for over 25 years. He completed his undergraduate degree at Williams College, his medical degree and residency at Duke University, and his gastroenterology fellowship at Boston Children's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard Medical School. As Associate Director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease program at Boston Children's Hospital, he spends much of his time treating complex cases of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis referred from across the country. His research interests include identifying the cause of IBD by studying the intestinal microbiome, developing new therapies for IBD, and examining the immune response of IBD patients to immunizations. He has over 100 original and review publications in medical literature.

He has served as Chair of the Chapter Medical Advisory Committee of the New England Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America and Chair of the CCFA Pediatric Affairs committee. He has also served as President of the North American Society for Pediatric GI and Nutrition (NASPGHAN), where he helped lead a campaign to promote child safety by getting high powered magnets out of the hands of toddlers. When not busy caring for patients or doing research, he enjoys developing patient education materials for children with chronic illness. These include the medical comics: “Pete Learns All About Crohn’s and Colitis” (with the CCFA), “Amy Goes Gluten Free,” “JD Shapes Up,” and “Sophie’s Science Project.” He has also co-authored the NASPGHAN book “Your Child with Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Dr. Colletti is a pediatric gastroenterologist and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. As the President and Executive Network Director of ImproveCareNow, he is actively engaged in quality improvement and research in pediatric Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. He has been the President of the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (NASPGHAN), on the Board of Directors of the Children’s Digestive Health and Nutrition Foundation, and Secretary-Treasurer of the Federation of International Societies for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition. He is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and completed his residency at Yale University and his fellowship at Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston. He has co-authored over 100 papers, book chapters and monographs, and has given over 140 national and international presentations.

Dr. Anastasia Ivanova has been on faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill since 1999. Her main research area is design and analysis of clinical trials including adaptive and Bayesian trials. These and other topics are covered in the clinical trials course she has been teaching since 2007.

Shehzad Saeed, MD graduated from Dow Medical College, University of Karachi, Pakistan in 1991. He then moved to the US to pursue postgraduate training serving his pediatric residency at The University of Chicago Children’s Hospital and pediatric gastroenterology fellowship at Floating Hospital for Children, Tufts University under the mentorship of Richard J Grand, MD. After finishing his training, he moved to Greenville, South Carolina and then the University of Alabama at Birmingham as junior faculty member. He assumed the GI fellowship director role in 2005, and then became the division director in 2006. He assumed the role of the Clinical Director of the Schubert-Martin Pediatric IBD Center at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center from 2010 till 2016 and has served as Clinical Director of GI as well as the Medical Director of the inpatient GI/Colorectal unit, as well as Director, GI Outpatient Operations, Liberty Campus, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. He has joined the division of Gastroenterology at Dayton Children Hospital in July 2016, and will be serving as the Chief Medical Value Based Care Officer of the hospital, spearheading development of value based care and a clinically integrated network for the hospital.

Dr. Saeed research and administrative focus is outcomes of children with IBD, Quality Improvement in IBD as well as the GI division. He serves on the Physician Leadership Group as well as Clinical Practice Committee for the ImproveCareNow network, a national QI collaborative for children with IBD and also serves as Associate Physician for Innovation. He has also worked closely with the Anderson Center for Health System Excellence at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center to develop and implement prototypes on patient engagement, N of 1 trials/personalized learning systems, patient reported outcomes, eVisits, and mentoring.

Morris is a health services researcher who develops and evaluates innovative strategies to improve the process and outcomes of care for patients with chronic diseases. Most of his research has been conducted with socioeconomically and/or medically vulnerable patients, including Veterans. The strategies have been designed to be implemented within health care systems should they demonstrate effectiveness as measured by clinical parameters, health services utilization/costs, and patient-centered outcomes.

He has received several national awards that recognize his accomplishments as a researcher, including the Under Secretary's Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research from the Department of Veterans Affairs (2003) and the Vision Award for Groundbreaking Research in Chronic Illness Care from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (2002).

Morris is also committed to mentoring students, fellows and junior faculty. He is Director of our PhD program and is co-Director of the Education Service for NC TraCS at UNC. He has also received numerous awards for his advising and mentoring, including the Class of 1996 Award for Advising Excellence from UNC (2015), the John E. Larsh, Jr Award for Mentorship from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health (2013), and the John M. Eisenberg Excellence in Mentorship Award from AHRQ (2005).

David Wohl’s son, Zac, has lived with Crohn’s disease since he was 5 years old. He joined the ImproveCareNow (ICN) Parent Working Group in 2012 and directs its Research Subcommittee. At the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where Zac receives IBD care, David founded the IBD Parent Advocacy Group, which aims to support and assist the clinic to provide high-quality care to its young patients. David co-leads the COMBINE Trial Engagement Team.

Lisa Pitch’s son was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease when he was 10 years old. They both feel fortunate that his clinic, Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition Associates (PGNA), is a participating ImproveCareNow center. Since then, Lisa has become a member of ICN’s Parent Working Group (PWG), and is also a member of the PWG Research Subcommittee. In addition, she is a member of the ICN Research Committee, and is on the Engagement Team for both the COMBINE Trial, and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute’s (PCORI) funded Healthy Mind, Healthy You Study.

Steven J. Steiner, MD specializes in pediatric gastroenterology at Riley Hospital for Children. Read his full bio here.

Jeremy Adler, MD specializes in pediatric gastroenterology at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. Dr. Adler's clinical interests include childhood inflammatory bowel disease and successful transition from pediatrics to adulthood.

Andrew Grossman, MD specializes in pediatric gastroenterology at Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania (CHOP). He is the co-director of CHOP’s Center for Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Hans Herfarth was recruited to the faculty of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology from the First Department of Internal Medicine of the University in Regensburg, Germany in May 2006. He is the Co-director of the UNC Multidisciplinary Center for IBD Research and Treatment.