Speaker Profiles

TRACY BALBONI, MD, MPH holds degrees from Stanford, Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. She currently serves as instructor in radiation oncology at Harvard Medical School and is a core researcher in the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Center for Psycho-Oncology and Palliative Care Research. Her primary research interests are located at the intersection of oncology, palliative care, and the role of religion and spirituality in the experience of life-threatening illness. Her research endeavors have included examining religion and spirituality in the experience of advanced cancer as part of the NIH-funded Coping with Cancer study. Dr. Balboni has also received awards from the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality supporting a mixed quantitative-qualitative research protocol evaluating religion and spirituality operating among oncology physicians, nurses, and advanced cancer patients. Her work also includes forging improved dialogue between academic theology, religious communities, and the field of medicine.

MYRA CHRISTOPHER, President and CEO of the Center for Practical Bioethics, has led the Center since its inception in 1985. Christopher served as the national program officer of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's National Program Office for State-based Initiatives to Improve End-of Life Care from 1998-2003. These roles allow Christopher to continue her lifelong mission to improve care for seriously ill people and their families. Christopher is currently a member of the National Advisory Board for the Duke Institute for Care at the End-of-Life and the University of Kansas School of Nursing Advisory Board. She has served on many other commissions and advisory boards including: a Technical Advisory Group for Medicaid exploring reimbursement for palliative care, the National Association of Attorneys General and the American Bar Association Commission on Law and Aging. In 2010, Christopher will receive the Consumer Advocacy Award from the American Academy of Pain Medicine.

ELLEN L. IDLER, PhD, is the director, Religion and Public Health Collaborative, and Professor, Department of Sociology and Rollins School of Public Health. Ellen Idler is a Fellow and chair of the Behavioral and Social Sciences Section of the Gerontological Society of America. She studies the influence of attitudes, beliefs, and social connections on health, including the effect of self-ratings of health on mortality and disability, and the impact of religious participation on health and the timing of death among the elderly. Her current projects include studies of the impact of religion on end-of-life decision-making and age-related patterns in suicide rates. Her research has been supported by National Institute on Aging funding, including a FIRST Award. She has served on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Sociology, the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Sociological Forum, the Slovenian Journal of Aging, and Rutgers University Press.
ANDREA C. PHELPS, MD received her undergraduate degrees in music and chemistry from Duke University in 2001. She enrolled in the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, where she was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society and graduated with Distinction in 2006. She completed a residency in internal medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where she was awarded the James A. Tullis Award for academic excellence. She is currently a clinical fellow in the Harvard Palliative Medicine Fellowship and will shortly begin Hematology-Oncology fellowship training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Phelps began working under Dr. Holly Prigerson in the Dana-Farber Center for Psycho-Oncology and Palliative Care Research in 2007 and is currently pursuing research in the field of religion/spirituality and end-of-life care under the mentoring of Dr. Prigerson and Dr. Tracy Balboni.