Committees & Working Groups

Committees

Advisory Committee

Shalender Bhasin, MD (BWH); Terence Capellini, PhD (Harvard University); Ellen Gravellese, MD (BWH); Elise Morgan , PhD (BU); Sandra Shefelbine, PhD (Northeastern University); Yingzi Yang , PhD (HSDM)

Early Stage Investigators Committee

Diana Carlone, PhD (BCH) – CHAIR; Jia Chen, PhD (HMS); David Maridas, PhD (HSDM);  Jingting Yao, PhD (MGH Radiology); Gregory Wyant, PhD (MGH)

Director liaison:  Marie Demay

The ESI Committee is charged with identifying resources needed for members in training and ESIs to enhance their career development and succeed as independent musculoskeletal researchers. In the past, this has included organizing grant writing workshops, career panels, and Journal Clubs where ESIs present their recent publications.

Seminar Committee

Marc Wein, MD, PhD (MGH) CHAIR 2025; Michael Albro, PhD (BU); Beth Bragdon, PhD (BUSM); Christian Jacome-Galarza, PhD (BWH); Fjola Johannesdottir, DrPh (BIDMC); Lamya Karim, PhD (UMASS Dartmouth);  Nora Renthal, MD, PhD (BCH); Jingting Yao, PhD (MGH Radiology

(iv) The Seminar committee. Based on the success of the Symposium Committee, its mandate has been expanded to include planning of all seminars. This committee is responsible for planning the Wednesday Research Seminars, with a focus on providing trainees and ESIs from all Center institutions the opportunity to present new data and obtain important feedback from the community. They will  also solicit ideas from the Center community for special seminars which include invited speakers from outside the Center and topical seminar series like the “Rare Bone Disease” series and organize these presentations with Ms. Machado’s support. This committee will select both the Chair and co-chair of the annual Symposium among the Center members (nominated or self-nominated). Ms. Machado will assist the chair and co-chair in inviting speakers, planning logistics including abstracts reviews and organizing the symposium poster session. The Symposium chair serves for one year and is replaced by the co-chair.

CSR Symposium chairs :

  • 2023  Ata Kiapour PhD (BCH)
  • 2024  Julia Charles MD PhD (BWH)
  • 2025  Marc Wein MD PhD (MGH)

Director liaison:  Paola Divieti Pajevic

Workshop Committee

Eva Liu, MD (BWH Endocrine) – CHAIR;  Vikram Khedgikar , PhD (BWH Orthopedics); Nora Renthal, MD, PhD (BCH); Yingzi Yang, PhD (HSDM); Li Zeng , MD (Tufts)

Director liaison:  Paola Divieti Pajevic

The Workshop Committee is responsible for organizing workshops on research approaches and experimental techniques in musculoskeletal research, and hands-on tutorials on research methods.  Workshops are designed to help investigators initiate, refine, and trouble shoot research protocols and to allow trainees to acquire these techniques.  Examples of previous workshops include Histological evaluation of skeletal tissue (Eva Liu, BWH), Local Drug Delivery to Cartilage (Ambika Bajpayee NE), Analysis of Single cell RNASeq data (Fan Zhang, BWH), Tools and Techniques for Isolating and Studying Bone cells of Mice and Men (Paola Divieti Pajevic, BUSM).

Outreach Committee

Brianne Connizzo, PhD (BU) – CHAIR;  Julia Charles, MD, PhD (BWH); Christian Jacome-Galarza, PhD (BWH); Elaine Yu, MD (MGH Endocrine); Jason Chang, PhD (MGH Regenerative Medicine); Tadatoshi Sato, PhD (UMass Worcester)

Director liaison:  Mary Bouxsein

The charges of the Outreach Committee are to: 1) ensure widespread dissemination of Center activities and services, both in their home institutions and beyond, and 2) design and lead a summer student research program for the Center.  A key goal of the committee is to increase the number and diversity of Center investigators and to attract researchers from other disciplines.

Innovations Committee

JaeHyuck Shim, PhD (UMass Worcester) CHAIR;  Iannis Adamopoulos, DPhil (BIDMC); Diana Carlone, PhD (BCH Endocrine); Ata Kiapour, PhD (BCH Orthopedics); Eva Liu , MD (BWH Endocrine); Jingting Yao, PhD (MGH Radiology); Li Zeng, PhD (Tufts)

Director liaison:  Ata Kiapour

The Innovations Committee is focused on identifying new initiatives and services that will benefit our investigators and increase the impact of their research. This committee is also tasked with determining what aspects of these new initiatives should be offered by the Center, versus leveraging institutional resources. To achieve these goals, the committee continuously collects feedback from the Center members and the broader community to identify new opportunities to support our members.

Bioinformatics/RNAseq Working Group

Contact & Director liaison:  April Craft, PhD

Bioinformatics Working Group is held bimonthly on Thursday afternoons for the purpose of troubleshooting code, learning new computational pipelines, and discussing biological findings from bulk and single cell transcriptomic, genomic, and epigenetic data.  Please contact april.craft@childrens.harvard.edu to join the group, or to schedule an opportunity to get advice and/or share your unpublished work confidentially among your peers.

Arthritis Working Group

Contact:  Li Zeng , PhD

Director liaison:  Paola Divieti Pajevic

Clinical Working Group

Contact:  Deborah Mitchell , MD

Director liaison:  Marie Demay

The Clinical Working Group will identify resources required for clinical and translational investigators to increase the impact of their work, including approaches for addressing the molecular basis for phenotypes and therapeutic responses in human subjects.  This may include, but is not limited to, workshops on novel methods/approaches, invited speakers and journal clubs.