Lab Members & Collaborators

Vice Chair in the Clinical Research and Leadership Department
Associate Professor of Clinical Research and Leadership

Office Phone: 202-994-9124
Email: paigem@gwu.edu

Research Interests: Paige L. McDonald is an Associate Professor of Clinical Research and Leadership at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Paige has been faculty at George Washington University since 2008 and has been teaching in higher education for over 25 years. Until July 2020, she served as the Director of Curriculum for a PhD in Translational Health Sciences, a program integrating multiple cross-disciplinary bodies of knowledge delivered in a blended, low-residency format. Since July 2020, she has served as Vice Chair of the department. Previously, she also served as the Executive Director for the GW Health Research and Education Collaboratory. In 2023, the work of this Collaboratory was transitioned to the GW Learning Health Systems Lab, which she continues to direct. The lab focuses on promoting evidence-based knowledge translation and learning in complex health systems. In relation to these goals, Paige is the convenor of an International Network for Activating Learning Health Systems (INACT-LHS). This international group of scholars and practitioners aims to promote the enactment of LHS on a global scale to improve health and healthcare. Paige is also an inaugural member of the GW SMHS Academy of Education Scholars and a founding board member of the International Society for Systems and Complexity Science in Health, where she served as society secretary for two years. In 2021 she was elected to the Board of Directors for the Online Learning Consortium and in 2022 and 2023 she was elected as Vice President of the Board.

Paige is a learning scholar whose recent scholarly interests include learning health systems (LHS), knowledge translation, and quality improvement in healthcare with a desired outcome of understanding how to promote knowledge translation and learning for continuous improvement in health and healthcare. Ongoing scholarly interests include the application of online and blended learning for higher levels of learning in health professions education.

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Adjunct Associate Professor of Clinical Research and Leadership

Email: kharwood@gwu.edu

Dr. Harwood is currently an Associate Adjunct Professor at George Washington University, Clinical Research and Leadership, and a private consultant.  He was formerly Professor and Dean of the College of Health and Education at Marymount University, Arlington, Virginia.  Dr. Harwood earned his BS in Physical Therapy from the State University of New York at Downstate Medical Center and his MA and Ph.D. degrees from New York University’s Biomechanics and Ergonomics Program. He practiced orthopedic physical therapy in acute care institutions, and private practices and developed his own consulting practice.  He held full-time academic positions at Columbia University, New York University, George Washington University, and SUNY, Health Sciences Center at Brooklyn.  In addition, he was the Director of Practice and then the Vice President of the Practice and Education Divisions for the American Physical Therapy Association.  Dr. Harwood published and presented nationally and internationally in the areas of physical therapy, functional testing, low back pain care and prevention, safe patient handling and movement, leadership, and health services research. He is a recipient of funding from the Foundation for Physical Therapy, CoHSTAR, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, and the Veterans Health Administration.

Research Interests: Dr. Harwood research interests include ergonomics, low back pain care, health care policy and quality. He has published and presented nationally and internationally in the field of occupational health, low back pain care and prevention, safe patient handling and movement, health care policy and quality, and leadership. He is a founding editorial board member of the American Journal of Safe Patient Handling and Movement, a manuscript reviewer for a number of physical therapy and rehabilitation journals, and a grant reviewer for the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR).

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Adjunct Professor of Clinical Research and Leadership

Email: vanderwees@email.gwu.edu

Dr. Philip Van der Wees is a Physical Therapist and Professor of Allied Health Sciences at the Scientific Institute for Quality of Healthcare (IQ healthcare) and Department of Rehabilitation of Radboud university medical center. The Chair focuses on quality improvement and implementation of allied health care in interdisciplinary networks, and to evaluate new technologies and treatment strategies for allied health care. He is coordinator of the research program ‘Value-based healthcare’, evaluating learning health systems and value-based healthcare in interdisciplinary networks of medical and allied health professionals.

Dr. Philip van der Wees is an Adjunct Professor of Clinical Research & Leadership at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences of the George Washington University.  He contributes to the PhD Program in Translational Health Sciences through research and teaching activities. His specific focus is to build a research infrastructure in Implementation Science for the PhD Program and to establish collaborative projects.

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Sarah is currently a PhD student in the Translational Health Sciences program at GWU.

She has spent over 15 years focused on the design, implementation, and evaluation of public health programs in the United States, Perú, Uganda, Kenya, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic, where she directed and managed projects and programs for the United States Agency for International Development, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. At Wayfinder Health Strategies, Sarah’s consulting firm, she is currently working on the development and evaluation of a federally funded online lupus self-management program. As a PhD student, she is using an implementation-science-focused lens to study the roll-out of a new cervical cancer screening program throughout various regions of Perú, and is working with INACT-LHS to develop, implement and evaluate the LHS toolkit.

She is also particularly interested in learning more about how LHS can be efficiently developed and operationalized in low-resource settings to improve quality of care.

Jessica is currently a PhD student in the Translational Health Sciences program at GWU.

With a background in nursing, she has had direct experience working in health care settings and found an interest in patient outcomes and quality improvement. Over the years she has implemented multiple quality improvement initiatives as well as developed QI training plans for other health care staff. She is part of the INACT-LHS team and is interested in further research into LHS and the patient perspective.

Her dissertation is focused on the planning and dissemination of quality improvement activities in health care organizations.