Devin Absher, PhD

Vice President

Devin Absher joined KP in 2022 to further both genomic research and precision medicine as VP of the Kaiser Permanente Research Bank. The Research Bank’s integration of genetic data, medical data, and health surveys, on over 400,000 KP participants, will serve as a vital resource for KP’s ground breaking research and its innovative delivery of advanced clinical care.

In addition to his research, Dr. Absher has also been involved the clinical implementation of genetics, leading the Genomic Health program at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology. Under his leadership, the program developed and deployed pharmacogenetic and precision oncology clinical testing for use in diverse clinical settings, including community and rural health systems. These programs offered a comprehensive suite of clinical services, laboratory tests, and software tools that enabled the implementation of genomics for the benefit of patients who would otherwise not have access to precision medicine.

Sarah Rowell, MPH

Sr. Director, Program Management and Strategy Execution

Sarah Rowell is the Administrative Director of the KP Research Bank. She manages all administrative aspects of the KPRB, including developing and sustaining financial, legal and operational aspects of research infrastructure including activities associated with enrollment of participants and the collection of health surveys, and biospecimens. Sarah received a master’s degree in public health from the University of California at Berkeley. She served as associate director of the Research Program on Genes, Environment, and Health (RPGEH) until 2014. Prior to her work with the RPGEH, Sarah managed large-scale research projects at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research, including Genes and Response to Antidepressants (GRAD) Study and the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN).

Terrence Chinn, MS

Data Systems Lead

Terrence Chinn is the Systems and Data Core Lead for the KP Research Bank coordinating the data needs of the KPRB. He was instrumental in launching the participant recruitment systems for the KPRB and now focuses on the preparation of the data collected to provide to approved research projects. He has been with KP Northern California’s Division of Research since 2008 and joined the KP Research Bank in 2015. Before the KPRB, he was the project manager and programmer on research projects on bipolar disorder, multiple sclerosis, and hypertension.

Prior to working at Kaiser Permanente, he worked in the Aerospace industry and in management consulting firms developing software applications and decision models to manage risk for pharmaceutical, R&D, and electric utility companies. He has master’s and bachelor’s degrees in computer engineering/computer science.

Alex Lituev, MD

Biorepository Lead

Dr. Lituev has over 20 years of combined clinical and research experience, and proven success in managing Biorepository, Histology, and Digital Imaging laboratories. He served as a Medical Director at Epigene Diagnostic, molecular diagnostics company, Director of Biospecimen Repository at the Center for Translational Research at CHI, one of the nation’s largest health systems; Senior VP at Cureline, a biopharmaceutical services company; CMO at the Medical center of Neuro-technology. In addition, Dr. Lituev served as a Principal and Co-principal Investigator for number of studies including TCGA, NCI-NIH, CHI/CTR multicenter pre-clinical Oncology and Autoimmunity.

He received his MD from Pavlov’s Medical University, St. Petersburg, Russia with Residency in Internal Medicine and Anesthesiology and completed postgrad program – Clinical Research Conduct and Management at UC Berkeley. Dr. Lituev has coauthored number of publications and has spoken at many conferences.

Lisa Croen, PhD

Pregnancy Cohort Lead

Lisa Croen, PhD, is a senior research scientist at the Division of Research (DOR), Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC), and the director of the Kaiser Permanente Autism Research Program. Her research interests include the epidemiology of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, environmental exposures and gene/environment interaction, and the delivery of health services to Autistic individuals across the life span.

Currently, Dr. Croen is the co-principal investigator at Kaiser Permanente of the NIH-funded ECHO study, principal investigator of several NIH-funded studies including Early Markers for Autism study (EMA) and Immune and Metabolic markers during Pregnancy and Child Neurodevelopment (IMPaCT), and site principal investigator on several large federally funded autism studies including the Study to Explore Early Development (SEED), the Early Autism Risk Longitudinal Investigation (EARLI), and the Autism Intervention Research Network on Physical Health (AIR-P).

In collaboration with clinical colleagues, she is conducting mixed methods studies to evaluate autism treatments at KPNC, the transition from pediatric to adult healthcare among KPNC Autistic patients, barriers and facilitators of healthcare service use among Latino families affected by autism, and the health status and healthcare utilization of Autistic adults. Dr. Croen received her master’s degree in public health and her doctorate in epidemiology, both from the University of California, Berkeley.

Teaniese Davis, PhD, MPH

KP Georgia Scientific Lead

Dr. Tina Davis is a trained behavioral scientist with experience in qualitative research methods, intervention development, and evaluation. The formative phase of intervention development relies heavily on understanding individuals’ and groups’ experiences related to phenomena. I have extensive experience developing interview and focus group guides, eliciting robust qualitative data from individuals and groups, as well as coding and organizing qualitative data and managing coders. Dr. Davis has also successfully collaborated on manuscripts to publish qualitative research featuring our work with various populations to develop, implement, and evaluate theory-based interventions for adolescents and young adults.

Stacey Honda, MD

KP Hawaii Scientific Lead

As AMD of Diagnostic Specialties and Research, Dr. Honda oversees diagnostic imaging, laboratory services and Research for the Hawaii Region/HPMG, including both hospital and clinic-based services. As Chief of Pathology and Medical Director of Laboratories, Dr. Honda oversees all aspects of the quality and services of our regional, hospital and clinic based laboratory services. As Director of Point of Care Testing, Dr. Honda oversees all hospital and clinic based POCT in the region. In addition, Dr. Honda serves as the Medical Director of our KP Center for Integrated Healthcare Research Hawaii where she oversees the activities and scientific direction of the research center and has served as PI on a variety of projects including a pragmatic trial (PPACT – Pain Program for Active Coping and Teaching), site PI for the Cancer Research Network as well as being the HI site PI for the KP Research Bank. She also currently serves as site PI for CONNECT, a cancer prevention project; i-SCREEN as part of CSRN (Cancer Screening Research Network); and a Breast Cancer Survivorship Cohort. Her interest includes clinical and cancer related projects.

Dr. Honda earned her medical degree from the University of Hawaii, John A Burns School of Medicine. Upon completing her pathology residency at the University of Hawaii Pathology Residency Program, during which she was based at Kaiser Permanente Hawaii, Dr. Honda joined HPMG in 1997. Dr. Honda also has a PhD degree in Biomedical Sciences, which she received from the University of Hawaii Biomedical Sciences Interdisciplinary Graduate Program. Dr. Honda is board certified in anatomic and clinical pathology.

Michael Horberg, MD, MAS, FACP, FIDSA

KP Mid-Atlantic States Scientific Lead

Dr. Horberg is Associate Medical Director for Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group (KPMAS MAPMG), serving greater Baltimore and District of Columbia, suburban Maryland and northern Virginia. In that role, he is responsible for Research, Medical Education, Community Health, Medicaid, Genomics, HIV and STI, Complex Care, LGBTQI+ Health and Infection Prevention.

Dr. Horberg is the director of HIV/AIDS nationally for KP, serving nearly 80,000 members with HIV, as well as Clinical Lead for HIV/AIDS and STI, creating clinical multidisciplinary guidelines to improve such care in KP. He has chaired the KP HIV, Liver Disease, STI, and LGBTQ Health Conference since 2003, bringing together clinical and research staff to ensure best practices.

Under President Obama, Dr. Horberg served on the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA), and co-chaired the Access to Care and Improved Outcomes Committee. Dr. Horberg is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA). He is Past-Chair of the Board of Directors of the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA). He has served on the IDSA Quality Performance Committee, and presently co-chairs the HIVMA/IDSA HIV Primary Care Guideline Committee. Dr. Horberg presently serves as the physician chair of the CDC-sponsored Health Care Action Group, promoting sexual health. He has chaired multiple Expert Panels on HIV-related provider performance measures (including ones sponsored by CMS, NCQA, and IDSA), and has served on NIH and CDC peer-review panels. He is past-president of the national Gay and Lesbian Medicine Association.

Dr. Horberg leads HIV, STI, and Infection Prevention for MAPMG. He directs LGBTQI+ care and led creation of Pride Medical and Gender Pathways clinics within KPMAS. In his role as medical director for KPMAS Community Health and chief medical officer for KPMAS Maryland and Virginia Medicaid, he works to improve health equity and care access for underserved populations in the region.

As Executive Director for research, he is responsible for all research in KPMAS. In this role, he leads a department of clinical and data research with over seventy employees. His HIV research interests are HIV quality measures, care improvement, and determinants of optimized multidisciplinary care for HIV-infected patients. He studies epidemiology of HIV, hepatitis, sexually transmitted and COVID infections, leading all hepatitis care programs and COVID efforts in KPMAS. Dr. Horberg has published over 200 manuscripts and delivered over 100 presentations at scientific meetings (all peer-reviewed).

As Director for Medical Education, he is the Designated Institutional Official for KPMAS, with responsibility for all undergraduate, graduate, and continuing medical education. He also leads the KPMAS Medical Genetics and Genomics strategy, and is Executive Sponsor for Commission on Cancer Accreditation and National Surgical Quality Improvement Program.

Dr. Horberg attended Boston University Medical School, and received his Master of Advanced Studies from University of California San Francisco. He completed his residency in internal medicine at University of Chicago Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center. He is a resident of Maryland, with his husband Chip and their pet poodle Grant.

Robert Hufnagel, MD, PhD

Genetics Lead

Dr. Robert Hufnagel is a physician-scientist who joined the Center for Integrated Healthcare Research in 2023. After receiving his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, Ohio), he completed his Pediatrics and Clinical Genetics residency at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, followed by fellowships in Clinical Ophthalmic Genetics at the National Eye Institute (NEI/NIH) and Clinical Molecular Genetics and Genomics at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI/NIH).

His research is dedicated to improving utilization of genomic data in medicine at point-of-care. Research focuses include the role of genome sequencing for rare and common diseases, models for variant classification of pathogenicity, and genotype-first approaches to diagnosis and management. These projects combine clinical data, biostatistics, and high-throughput sequencing analysis to establish patient-centered disease models for translational and preclinical studies.

Dr. Hufnagel also serves in leadership roles in several clinical and research organizations, including the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG), the Clinical Genome Resource (ClinGen), the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), and the Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB).

James Ralston, MD, MPH

KP Washington Scientific Lead

James D. Ralston, MD, MPH, is a general internist with Washington Permanente Medical Group and a senior investigator at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute. Dr. Ralston conducts health services research focused on improving chronic illness care and the patient services aspects of medical informatics. He is also an affiliate professor in the Department of Health Services at the University of Washington (UW) School of Public Health and in the UW’s Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics. Through grants from AHRQ, the NIH, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, he has led and collaborated on several user-centered design projects to improve chronic illness care.

Cathy Schaefer, PhD

KP Northern California Scientific Lead

Catherine Schaefer, PhD, has been a research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research since 1989. Dr. Schaefer trained as an epidemiologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and she received postdoctoral training in psychiatric epidemiology at Yale University. Dr. Schaefer’s primary research interests include the epidemiology of psychiatric and neurologic disorders, early antecedents of adult chronic disease, and genetic epidemiology. In collaboration with others at the Division of Research, and scientists at local universities, Dr. Schaefer is heading the effort to develop an applied genetic epidemiology program at the Division of Research. The program will serve as a resource for new research focused on the genetic epidemiology and pharmacogenetics of many diseases.

Claudia Steiner

KP Colorado Scientific Lead

Claudia A. Steiner, MD, MPH, is the Executive Director of the Institute for Health Research. She joined the department in March of 2017.

Dr. Steiner earned her medical degree and completed residency training in Internal Medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (now the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus). Subsequently, she obtained a Masters of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health (now the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) while completing a research fellowship through the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Steiner served as Director for the Division of Healthcare Delivery Data, Measures and Research, in the Center for Delivery, Organization, and Markets within the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) until February of 2017. There she led the division’s development and dissemination of data and software tools for use in research, policy analysis, quality improvement, and public reporting, with a particular focus on Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) and the AHRQ Quality Indicators. She conducted research in the areas of the influence of ambulatory surgery on standards of care, utilization, and clinical outcomes; the epidemiology of infectious diseases, including healthcare associated infections; the prevalence and factors associated with readmissions to the acute care setting; and the use and impact of new medical technologies. She was a practicing internal medicine physician for 25 years with the Johns Hopkins Community Physicians, and continues to serve as a practicing internist for adult patients with the Colorado Permanente Medical Group (CPMG).

Sheila Weinmann, PhD, MPH

KP Northwest Scientific and Cancer Cohort Lead

Dr. Sheila Weinmann is a member of the KPRB Leadership Team and the KP Research Bank Scientific Lead representing Kaiser Permanente Northwest (serving NW Oregon and SW Washington). She is an epidemiologist whose research focuses on cancer etiology, screening, and progression, with particular emphasis on molecular epidemiology. Her interests also include pharmacoepidemiology and infectious disease epidemiology.

Dr. Weinmann has more than 25 years’ experience leading epidemiologic studies at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Oregon and at the University of Washington. Presently, she is leading a study of molecular factors in relation to breast cancer recurrence and well as studies of statin use in relation to breast and prostate cancer recurrence. She has also led epidemiologic studies on efficacy of screening for prostate cancer, cervical cancer, and colorectal cancer; molecular and other factors in relation to prostate cancer mortality after prostatectomy; renal cell cancer risk factors and the molecular biology of renal cell cancer progression; and pregnancy outcomes after surgical treatment for cervical dysplasia. In addition, Dr. Weinmann has conducted research on bladder cancer, childhood cancers, varicella, herpes zoster, human papillomavirus (HPV), invasive pneumococcal disease, pertussis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and primary cardiac arrest.

Dr. Weinmann received her PhD in epidemiology from the University of Washington and her Masters of Public Health degree from the University of Texas. Her undergraduate degree is from Rice University. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine of Oregon Health & Science University. She is a former Executive Director of the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board and has worked on several studies of health problems among American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Read bio on NIH

Deborah Young, PhD

KP Southern California Scientific Lead

Dr. Deborah Rohm Young is Director of Behavioral Research in the Department of Research & Evaluation at Kaiser Permanente Southern California. Prior to that she was Professor and Founding Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Professor in the Department of Kinesiology in the University of Maryland School of Public Health. She is a recognized scholar in the conduct of community-based physical activity intervention trials, specifically for minority women and adolescent girls, segments of the population that suffer the most profound health consequences of a sedentary lifestyle. Dr. Young has received more than $8.5 million dollars in direct costs as a Principal Investigator in awards from the National Institutes of Health. Her peer-reviewed publications exceed 125 in number.

Dr. Young has served on multiple committees in the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association Council on Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health, and is co-chair of its Spring Program Committee. She is chair of the Community Level Health Promotion scientific grant review committee of the National Institutes of Health, and has served in an editorial capacity for three journals. Dr. Young served on the inaugural Science Board for the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, and chaired the board in 2006-2007.