Bio Type: Advisory Board

Dr. Michael Ashburn is professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care and a Senior Fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the Director of the Penn Pain Medicine Center and was named to the Penn Academy of Master Clinicians in 2014.

Dr. Ashburn completed his undergraduate training at Auburn University in physics, his MPH at the University of Utah, his MBA at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and his medical training at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. He completed his residency in anesthesiology at the University of South Alabama Medical Center, and a fellowship in pain medicine at the University of Utah. He is board certified in Anesthesiology, Pain Management, Hospice and Palliative Medicine through the American Board of Anesthesiology, and in Addiction Medicine through the American Board of Preventive Medicine.

Dr. Ashburn was a member of the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Utah from 1987 – 2002 and served as Professor of Anesthesiology and Director of the Pain Management Center from 1996 – 2002. Dr. Ashburn was president of the American Pain Society from 2000 – 2002. In addition, Dr. Ashburn served on the Board of Directors of the Rehabilitation Accreditation Commission, (CARF) from 2001-2003, where he served as a member of 3 National Advisory Committees on Pain. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania in 2007, Dr. Ashburn was the co-founder and Executive Vice President for Clinical and Regulatory Affairs for ZARS Pharma of Salt Lake City.

Dr. Ashburn was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow from 1995 – 1996, where he served as a health policy advisor for Senator Orrin Hatch (R, UT) in Washington, DC. He served as the Chairman of the Pain Care Coalition from 2000-2002, and as the chair of the Pennsylvania Pain Coalition from 2009 to 2012. Dr. Ashburn has served as an expert witness for the Drug Enforcement Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Department of Justice, as well as the states of Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Dr. Ashburn served on the Pennsylvania House Advisory Committee on Opioid Addiction (2014- 2015), the Pennsylvania task force to develop core competencies for the prevention and management of prescription drug abuse for use by Pennsylvania medical schools (2016- 2017), and the Pennsylvania Legislative Advisory Committee on Addiction Treatment Services (2016 – 2018). Dr. Ashburn currently serves on the Pennsylvania State Task Force on Prescription Drug Abuse, the Advisory Board for the Pennsylvania Prescription Drug Monitoring Database, and co-chairs the University of Pennsylvania Health System Opioid Task Force.

Dr. Ashburn serves on the editorial board for Pain Medicine and The Journal of Opioid Management. He has been active in clinical research, mainly centered on the development of outcome measurement systems for chronic pain and palliative care, the integration of specialty care into primary care practice through the patient-centered medical home model of care, the study of non-invasive drug delivery systems, and the conduct of safety and efficacy trials intended to evaluate a drug or device for the treatment of pain.

Dr. Peggy Compton is an Associate Professor and the van Ameringen Endowed Chair in the Department of Family and Community Health at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and an elected member of the International Association in the Study of Pain, and the College on Problems of Drug Dependence. Her area of clinical expertise is the intersection of opioids, addiction and pain. The unifying theme of her program of research is the understanding of pain responses in individuals who abuse or are addicted to opioids, licit or otherwise, and her novel data have contributed to a growing body of literature on the phenomenon of opioid-induced hyperalgesia, as well as informed guidelines for the management of pain in persons with opioid addiction or on maintenance opioid therapy.

Complementing Dr. Compton’s expertise in the pain responses of opioid addicts is her clinical work establishing methods to identify substance use disorders and addiction in chronic pain patients on ongoing opioid analgesic therapy. She has published extensively in the scientific literature on substance use disorder in chronic pain patients on opioid therapy, and the pain responses of opioid addicts with and without chronic pain. Her role as a teacher, researcher, and mentor is strengthened by interdisciplinary research collaborations with the NIDA Center for Studies of Addiction at the Perelman School of Medicine, the Penn Pain Medicine Center in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Pennsylvania Health Systems, and the University of Pennsylvania NIH Center of Excellence in Pain Education (COEPE).

Having worked in several public treatment settings, she is expert in the use of methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone in the treatment of opioid use disorder. She has served on FDA, SAMHSA and NIH expert panels on prescription opioid abuse, and contributed to position statements from the American Pain Society, College on Problems of Drug Dependence, and the American Society of Pain Management Nurses on pain management for patients with addictive disease. She currently serves as principal investigator on a NIDA-supported grant exploring hyperalgesic responses in individuals undergoing opioid taper.

Dr. Deborah Driscoll was appointed Senior Vice-President for the Clinical Practices of the University of Pennsylvania and Vice Dean for Professional Services at the Perelman School of Medicine in October 2019 after serving as Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Director of the Center for Research on Reproduction and Women’s Health for 14 years. She maintains a clinical practice in the Divisions of Reproductive Genetics and Maternal Fetal Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

A graduate of Smith College and New York University School of Medicine, she completed a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and a fellowship in Clinical and Molecular Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Driscoll is internationally known for her research on the 22q11.2 deletion syndrome and for her expertise on genetic screening and the care of women with genetic conditions. Dr. Driscoll was the principal investigator of the NICHD Women’s Reproductive Health Research (WRHR) career development program and the March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the recipient of several awards including a Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, AAMC Women in Medicine and Science Leadership award, FOCUS Award for the Advancement of Women in Medicine, and the Perelman School of Medicine Elizabeth Kirk Rose, MD Women in Medicine award and the Alumni Service award.

Dr. Driscoll has served on numerous committees for the University of Pennsylvania Health System and as chair of CPUP Clinical Operations Committee and chair of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Medical Board. Nationally, she has served as Treasurer of the American College of Medical Genetics, President of the Council of University Chairs in Obstetrics and Gynecology and President of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Director of Community Engagement, Penn Center for Public Health Initiatives
Community Engagement Chair, Penn Medicine Center for Health Equity Advancement
Associate Director, Center for Community & Population Health, Department of Family Medicine & Community Health

Heather Klusaritz, PhD, MSW is the Director of Community Engagement for the Penn Center for Public Health Initiatives and the Associate Director of the Center for Community and Population Health in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Klusaritz holds faculty appointments in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, the Masters of Public Health program, and the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Klusaritz has worked clinically as a member of interdisciplinary care teams treating vulnerable populations at the Penn Medicine for almost 20 years. Her research interests focus on access to health care for marginalized populations and the design of health systems to eliminate disparities in health access and outcomes. Currently, Dr. Klusaritz co-directs the HRSA-funded National Center for Integrated Behavioral Health that aims to generate best practices of scalable inter-professional integrated behavioral health training in primary care, and is a Co-Investigator of a Community Medicine Leadership Fellowship within a geographic care network of primary care provider champions and educators who share complex and high utilizing patients. Dr. Klusaritz has done extensive work on patient-centered medical home and played important roles in practice transformation including screening for and addressing social determinants of health. Dr. Klusaritz works collaboratively with multiple community partners throughout West Philadelphia to improve the health of underserved communities and is the co-founder of a program that connects patients to critical social welfare benefits, helps navigate health system access, and engages in medical-legal advocacy.

Dr. Judith Long is a Professor of Medicine and the Chief of General Internal Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. She is a former Director of the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP) at the Corporal Michael J. Cresenz VA Medical Center. Dr. Long has extensive experience directing clinical research trials to improve outcomes for vulnerable patients with chronic diseases. Her recent research has focused on interventions to reduce disparities in health using peer mentors, community health workers, technology, and behavioral incentives both within and outside of the VA health system. As a Division Chief, Dr. Long actively supports a learning health system approach to testing, scaling, and sustaining efforts to improve outcomes and reduce disparities in care for all patients and actively champions the use of equity-specific quality goals, equity dashboards, technology, nudges, and community health workers to achieve these goals. Dr. Long also actively engages in training health services and policy researchers and has extensive experience mentoring fellows and junior faculty. She is currently an active mentor of several NIH and VA- funded career development award recipients.

Philadelphia’s syringe exchange and wound care clinic. The foundation of her clinical philosophy and practice is harm reduction – a social justice movement as well as a practical approach to reducing the negative consequences of substance use. In addition to producing concrete evidence-based strategies to improve the health and well-being of people who use drugs, harm reduction shines a light on the rich, everyday opportunities health professionals have to learn from and work with people who use drugs. As a Bloomberg Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, her work centers on reducing stigma, and strengthening Penn’s capacity to respond to the opioid/substance use crisis through the integration of harm reduction, and bridging Penn’s medical services to community-based and public health efforts.

Dr. Bonnie Milas is a clinical professor of anesthesiology & critical care medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Her clinical practice involves caring for patients undergoing cardio-pulmonary surgical procedures, with expertise in transesophageal echocardiography.  As an intensivist she also cares for these patients in the intensive care unit following surgery.  She deals with the ravages of infected heart valves from intravenous drug use, and handles the post-operative management of opioid withdrawal and pain control.

Dr. Milas is an outspoken advocate for those suffering from opioid use disorder.  She is painfully aware as she has lost both sons to this disease.  Dr. Milas has published opinion pieces in the Philadelphia Inquirer and USA Today in an effort to reduce social stigma.  Through her work locally with the Bucks Co. Drug and Alcohol Commission and nationally with the American Society of Anesthesiologists she is an ardent educator of naloxone overdose rescue with REVIVEme.com.  Dr. Milas is the Chief Narcan Rescue Officer at her institution.  She is a Friend of SafeHouse-the safe injection site given the legal go-ahead in Philadelphia.   She testified before the Philadelphia city council to support the SafeHouse effort. Most recently, she provided personal testimony at the FDA in support of over the counter naloxone access, which received final approval March, 2023.   Dr. Milas is committed to saving lives of those suffering with OUD.

Dr. Maria Oquendo is Professor and Chairman of Psychiatry at University of Pennsylvania. Her medical education is from Columbia University and Payne Whitney Clinic, New York Hospital Cornell.  She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, one of the highest honors in medicine. Dr. Oquendo uses multimodal imaging to map brain abnormalities in mood disorders and suicidal behavior. Her expertise ranges from psychopharmacology to Global Mental Health, with over 385 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Oquendo is Past President of APA and the International Academy of Suicide Research and chairs the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Scientific Board of Directors.  She is President-Elect of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

Dr. Karen M. Puopolo, M.D., Ph.D. is a neonatologist who specializes in neonatal infectious diseases. Dr. Puopolo is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. She is a member of the Division of Neonatology at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Section Chief for Newborn Medicine at Pennsylvania Hospital. Dr. Puopolo received her undergraduate degree in physics from Yale University, and went on to obtain her M.D. as well as a Ph.D. in molecular physiology from the Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. She completed Pediatric residency and Neonatal-Perinatal fellowship training at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Puopolo was appointed to the faculty of Harvard Medical School from 2000-2014 where she was a physician and researcher at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Channing Laboratory. She began her neonatal research career as a laboratory-based scientist investigating mechanisms of virulence in Group B Streptococcus. Her current research focuses on neonatal sepsis epidemiology and risk assessment. In collaboration with Dr. Gabriel Escobar, she developed and validated models to quantify the risk of neonatal early-onset sepsis. She is currently funded by the National Institutes of Health and the CDC to study the impact of neonatal antibiotic exposures on the newborn and early childhood microbiome, and on infant and early childhood growth. Dr. Puopolo is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on the Fetus and Newborn.