Stepping Strong Center Leadership

Mitchel B. Harris, MD
Co-director, The Gillian Reny Stepping Strong Center for Trauma Innovation
Chair, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital
Professor, Orthopaedic Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Harris’ overarching goal for the Stepping Strong Center is to bring together individual scientists and clinicians with a common interest in trauma to help streamline research and encourage multi-institutional collaborations. Until fall of 2016, Harris served as the chief of Orthopaedic Trauma Services at the Brigham, where he was awarded the Stepping Strong Distinguished Chair of Orthopedic Surgery. Currently, he is a professor of orthopedic surgery at Harvard Medical School, chair of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, and the administrative chief of orthopedic trauma for Mass General Brigham System. He has received the International Volvo Award for Low Back Pain Research, three Teacher of the Year awards, and the Hippocrates Society’s Humanitarian Award (2015) from the Brigham and Women’s Physician Organization.

Ali Salim, MD
Co-director, The Gillian Reny Stepping Strong Center for Trauma Innovation
Division Chief, Trauma, Burns, and Surgical Critical Care, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Professor, Harvard Medical School

As a leader in trauma care research and support programs for trauma survivors, Dr. Salim is focused on the Stepping Strong Center’s mission to advance trauma research, education, community engagement, and policy advocacy. He also serves as a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the chief of the Division of Trauma, Burns, Surgical Critical Care, and Emergency General Surgery at BWH. As a traumatologist and a surgical intensivist at BWH, Salim is a clinically active trauma, general, and critical care surgeon and devotes his time with equal intensity to research, surgical education, and clinical service. His clinical interests focus on the care of acutely ill trauma, emergency surgery, and intensive care unit patients and his clinical research is focused on the care and outcomes of trauma patients, traumatic brain injury, improving the physiology of organ donors, and improving the rate of organ donation.

Matthew J. Carty, MD
Director of Strategy and Innovation, The Gillian Reny Stepping Strong Center for Trauma Innovation
Director, Lower Extremity Transplant Program
Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Carty is focused on reinventing how lower extremity amputations are performed in order to provide amputees with greater control of prosthetics and restore their limb responsiveness. In collaboration with Hugh Herr, PhD, from the Center for Extreme Bionics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and with funding from the Stepping Strong Center, Carty’s team has completed multiple studies in animal models and human simulations. Carty and his team have performed a modified amputation procedure in more than 10 patients. The pioneering surgery makes it possible for an amputee to use a bionic prosthetic that acts like a natural limb.

Stepping Strong Center Medical Executive Committee

The Medical Executive Committee consists of plastic and orthopaedic surgeons, bioengineers, and basic scientists. The committee advises the center on scientific and medical direction, utility of current initiatives, prioritization of future grant-making areas, and selection of Innovator Award recipients. In addition, committee members provide strategic advice to the Stepping Strong Advisory Board members and Stepping Strong-affiliated faculty.

Medical Executive Committee Members

• Ali Salim, MD: Stepping Strong Medical Co-Director, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School
• Mitchel Harris, MD: Stepping Strong Medical Co-Director, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School
• Natalie Artzi, PhD: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, MIT, Broad Institute
• Matthew Carty, MD: Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital, Harvard Medical School
• Zara Cooper, MD, MSc: Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
• David Crandell, MD: Harvard Medical School, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital
• George Dyer, MD: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School
• Omid Farokhzad, MD, MBA: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School
• Eric Goralnick, MD, MS: Brigham and Women’s Hospital
• Jeff Karp, PhD: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Broad Institute, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology
• James Lederer, PhD: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School
• David P. Mooney, MD, MPH: Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
• Bohdan Pomahac, MD: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School
• Olivier Pourquie, PhD: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School
• Christian Sampson, MD: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School
• Indranil Sinha, MD: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School
• Mike Weaver, MD: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School
• Jack Wixted, MD: Beth Israel Deaconess, Harvard Medical School

Learn more about the Stepping Strong team