Cedars-Sinai Health System
Director of Health Services Research
Director, Master's Degree Program in Health Delivery Science
Cedars-Sinai
Professor of Medicine
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Professor of Public Health
UCLA Fielding School of Public Health
Dr. Brennan Spiegel is the Director of Health Services Research for Cedars-Sinai Health System and Professor of Medicine and Public Health at UCLA, where he teaches digital health science, health analytics and health economics.
Dr. Spiegel directs the Cedars-Sinai Center for Outcomes Research and Education (CS-CORE), a multidisciplinary team that investigates how digital health technologies, including wearable biosensors, smartphone applications, virtual reality, and social media, can strengthen the patient-doctor bond, improve outcomes, and save money. CS-CORE unites clinicians, computer scientists, engineers, statisticians and health services researchers to invent, test, and implement digital innovations for the clinical trenches, always focusing on the value of technology to patient and their providers. His team developed the largest and most widely-documented medical virtual reality program in the world at Cedars-Sinai. He founded Virtual Medicine, the first international symposium dedicated to medical virtual reality (www.virtualmedicine.health), and is currently writing Virtual Healing, a book about therapeutic VR that will publish in 2020 through Basic Books, a leading science publisher.
Dr. Spiegel has published numerous best-selling medical textbooks, editorials, and more than 200 articles in peer-reviewed journals. He is listed in the Onalytica “Top 100 Influencer” lists for health technology, and is currently the highest ranked academic on this list at #13 in the world. His digital health research has been featured by major media outlets including Bloomberg, the Boston Herald, Forbes, CBS Evening News, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, Mashable, NBC News, NPR, PBS, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, among many others. His virtual reality research won the 2017 People’s Voice Webby Award for best technology on the internet. See www.virtualmedicine.health/press for full media coverage.
Beyond his focus on digital health innovations, Dr. Spiegel conducts research across a wide range of healthcare topics. As a member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Field Advisory Committee, Dr. Spiegel advises on how to conduct high quality clinical trials. His research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Hearst Foundation, Veterans Administration and the California Initiative for the Advancement of Precision Medicine. Dr. Spiegel is Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Gastroenterology – a leading peer-reviewed medical journal. A prolific speaker, Dr. Spiegel is frequently invited to present on his areas of expertise at national and international events, most recently as a keynote speaker at the Consumer Electronics Show, Connected Health Conference, Health 2.0, Health Informatics Medical Society, Exponential Medicine, and the American Psychiatric Association. He practices clinical medicine and maintains an academic teaching practice at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California.
University of Michigan
Rishindra M. Reddy, M.D., M.B.A. is the José José Alvarez Endowed Research Professor in Thoracic Surgery. He was born and raised in Michigan. He earned his undergraduate and medical degrees at Northwestern University and completed his general surgery residency at Washington University-Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. His spent two years during his residency, as a Clinical Research Fellow at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. He completed his Thoracic
Surgery residency at the University of Washington and was a visiting fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. His academic interests include improving outcomes for patients with thoracic cancers, financial disparities in patient care, and resident and medical student education. He has held numerous leadership roles
institutionally, regionally, and nationally. He is the former Surgery Clerkship Director and former Chair of the UM-Comprehensive Robotic Surgery Program. He currently serves as the Director for the Center for Surgical Innovation, the Associate Director for the Statewide General Thoracic Quality Collaborative through the Michigan Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, now the Cardiovascular Center MPlan OR Director.
Sanford Health
Dave Newman, MD, is chief medical officer for virtual care at Sanford Health, the largest rural health system in the country. A practicing endocrinologist and informaticist based in Fargo,
ND, Dr. Newman is passionate about health care disparities, especially zip code-based disparities.
An influential voice in the industry, Dr. Newman is regularly invited to contribute his clinical expertise, unique perspective and forward-looking insights on innovation in rural health care delivery. He has presented at high-profile national industry events including the Reuters Digital Health Summit, HIMSS AI in Healthcare Forum and the flagship ATA Nexus Conference among others. In 2023, Dr. Newman was featured in a STAT News documentary for his commitment to using technology to offset major obstacles to health care across the Dakotas, bringing care closer to home for his patients who live hundreds of miles away.
He received a B.S. from Drake University, an M.D. from the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, completed an Internal Medicine Residency at Hennepin County Medical Center and completed an Endocrinology Fellowship with the University of Minnesota.
In his spare time, Dr. Newman volunteers as a soccer coach for a Club and Olympic. Development Program and is an amateur DJ. He and his wife, Tracie Newman, MD, MPH, FAAP, have three children and reside in Fargo, ND.
NextGenSurgery
Richard S Hart BA MD FRCSC
Hepatobiliary, Pancreatic and General Surgeon
Founder/CEO NextGenSurgery Inc.
Stanford University
Conference Co-Chair
Behavioral Neuroscientist
Stanford University
Walter Greenleaf is a neuroscientist and a medical technology developer working at Stanford University. With over three decades of research and development experience, Walter is considered a leading authority in the field of digital medicine and medical virtual reality technology.
Research Focus:
Walter’s current research focus is on developing computer supported clinical products, with a specific emphasis on applying virtual reality and digital health technology to address difficult problems in behavioral and physical medicine such as Post-traumatic Stress, Anxiety Disorders, Depression, Traumatic Brain Injury and Stroke, Addictions, and Autism Spectrum Disorder.
His early research was on age-related changes in the neuroendocrine system and the effects on human behavior.
Academic Positions:
Walter is currently a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s MediaX Program, a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, and the Director of Technology Strategy at the University of Colorado National Mental Health Innovation Center. He previously served as the Director of the Mind Division, Stanford Center on Longevity, where his focus was on age-related changes in cognition.
Medical Product Development:
Walter has designed and developed numerous clinical systems over the last thirty-five years, including products in the fields of: surgical simulation, 3D medical visualization, telerehabilitation, clinical informatics, clinical decision support, point-of-care clinical data collection, ergonomic evaluation technology, automatic sleep-staging systems, psychophysiological assessment, and simulation-assisted rehabilitation technologies, as well as digital eHealth products for behavioral medicine.
Academic Leadership:
Walter is the Co-founder and Board Chair for the International Virtual Reality Health Association (IVRHA).
He helped establish the California State University Center for Disability Solutions and the International Society of Virtual Rehabilitation (ISVR). Walter is a scientific advisor and grant reviewer for the U.S. Public Health Service, National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), NASA, and the U.S. Department of Education (DoED). He has served as the Principal Investigator for research projects funded by the NIH and by NASA.
Corporate Management:
Walter founded and served as CEO for Greenleaf Medical Systems, a medical product development company; InWorld Solutions, a company specializing in the therapeutic use of virtual worlds for behavioral health care; and Virtually Better, a company that develops virtual environments for the treatment of phobias, anxiety disorders, and PTSD. Walter was the founding Chief Science Officer for Pear Therapeutics.
Academic Journals:
Walter is an Associate Editor for three academic journals: JMIR Mental Health, the Journal of Virtual Reality in Medicine, and Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.
Current Board Positions:
Walter serves on the Board of Directors for Brainstorm: The Stanford Laboratory for Brain Health Innovation and Entrepreneurship; for Cognitive Leap, a company that develops mental health solutions for children; and for Sine Wave, the developer of Sine Space, a multi-user online Unity 3D-based virtual world platform. He is currently the technology and neuroscience advisor to several early-stage medical product companies.
Walter earned a Doctorate in Neuro and Bio-Behavioral Sciences from the Stanford University School of Medicine, where he was awarded a NIMH Graduate Fellowship.
Ringling College of Art & Design
Department Head
Virtual Reality Development
Ringling College of Art and Design
At Ringling College of Art and Design, Martin Murphy is the Drs. Joel and Gail Morganroth endowed Department Head of the Virtual Reality Development major. His experience in computer graphics spans over thirty years, with a sustained focus on real-time applications. He has been a product designer and producer for interactive media for a variety of clients. In addition to his current leadership role, he has served as Worldwide Director of Art for major games publisher. He has also collaborated as part of a leadership team at a game studio. Among his many accomplishments, he has contributed to the creation of visual effects for feature films at Warner Brothers Digital Studio, broadcast graphics packages for the likes of CBS, FOX and CNN, theme parks attractions at Walt Disney World, and the creation of more than twenty video games for Activision, Midway Games, and SEGA. More recently, he has put his skills and experience to virtual worlds and immersive media. Martin has nearly 16 years of experience teaching in Higher Education. He was an adjunct faculty member at Columbia College in Chicago first, then a full time instructor at Ringling College, and he earned a Master's of Education at USF with a concentration in Instructional Technology and Simulation. Marty also serves as a competition judge for career and technology student organizations for high schools and middle schools across the state of Florida and Nationally.
Moffitt Cancer Center
Dr. Sarah Hoffe is the Section Head of GI Radiation Oncology at Moffitt Cancer Center and joined the faculty in 2006. She is a Senior Member at Moffitt and Professor in the University Of South Florida Morsani College Of Medicine’s Department of Oncologic Sciences. Dr. Hoffe’s research and clinical interests include cancers of the esophagus, stomach, liver, pancreas, bile duct, rectum, colon, anus, as well as neuroendocrine cancers. She has experience with advanced radiation therapy techniques such as intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), three dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT), stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), radioembolization, and image guided radiation therapy (IGRT) using endoscopically implanted fiducial markers. At Moffitt, she works closely with her multidisciplinary colleagues including GI surgeons, medical oncologists, gastroenterologists, radiologists and pathologists to develop new treatments for patients with GI cancers. She is very interested in 4D PET/CT imaging and works with the PET/CT committee at Moffitt In addition to GI cancers and radiation oncology, Dr. Hoffe is also interested in the integration of novel patient engagement technologies that will improve the patient experience, such as piloting novel virtual reality tools. After completing her undergraduate studies at Brown University, Dr. Hoffe received her MD degree from the University of Vermont. She then completed a transitional year internship at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville followed by residency in radiation oncology at Duke University Medical Center and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Hoffe devotes a significant portion of her time to the promotion of medical education. Nationally, she is the Director of eContouring at ASTRO, is on the advisory board for the Contemporary Radiation Oncology Journal, and is a contributor to the Up to Date Online educational site, having co-authored the section on bone metastases. She serves on the ASTRO Education Committee and the HIMSS connected patient committee. Locally, she is on the Editorial Board of Cancer Control Journal and is active at the USF Morsani College of Medicine where she is a coach for the SELECT program and the leadership competency co-director. In 2009, Dr. Hoffe was the first radiation oncologist at Moffitt to be selected as the Physician of the Year.
IVRHA
Executive Director
IVRHA (International Virtual Reality and Healthcare Association)
Professor
Champlain College
Professor
West Virginia University
Founder
VRVoice, The Social Media Monthly and The Startup Monthly Websites/Magazines
Council Member
AWE (Augmented World Expo) Advisory Council
Founder
Share The Cheer
In 2009, Robert started Cool Blue Media by organizing the first social media conference on the east coast of the United States, leading to the publication of the text book, "The Big Book of Social Media Case Studies, Stories and Perspectives" and shortly thereafter the only printed magazine covering social media, The Social Media Monthly. In May 2016, he launched VRVoice.co, a content vertical exploring virtual reality in the enterprise. In 2017, Robert started the largest annual conference on virtual reality and healthcare with events taking place both in the US and Europe.
Prior to 2009, Robert was the Senior Director of Global Strategy and Development of IT at Conservation International (CI). Robert joined CI in 2000 to take responsibility for connecting all of CI’s forty field offices to the Internet with broadband connectivity. During his 10 year tenure, he built an international staff of 25 IT professionals.
Robert has over ten years of additional work experience as a systems and sales engineer with various companies including CMGI, Hughes Network Systems, ioWave and Raytheon. Robert has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Villanova University, a master’s degree in environmental science and public policy from Johns Hopkins University, and is ABD at George Mason University.
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