Beate Jahn, PhD is an Associate Professor and senior lecturer of Medical Decision Making at UMIT, the Harvard Chan School of Public Health and the Munich University and was a visiting researcher in Canada (PATH, THETA), at BGU, Israel and the Prasanna School of Public Health, India. Dr. Jahn is Vice President of SMDM. She is a dedicated teacher providing short courses at the North American and European Meetings, receiving the award for the best short course at the European meeting in 2012. Dr. Jahn’s research interests include decision-analytic modelling, quality-of-life assessment, decision aids and the translation of modeling results into policy and patient empowerment. Her field research includes evaluations of COVID-19 vaccination, colorectal-cancer screening and patient empowerment through balanced outcomes information, breast-cancer screening/treatment and research on obesity and healthy aging.

Kathrene (KD) Valentine, PhD Dr. Valentine is Research Staff with the Health Decision Sciences Center in the General Medicine Division at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is interested in shared decision making, risk communication, the validity of measurements of decision quality and patient preferences, and patient’s reactions to recommendations and guidelines. Her research program focuses on the application of insights from the psychological and quantitative sciences to create a better understanding of the formation, measurement, and influence of patient preferences in preference-sensitive decision contexts. Her training in decision sciences, risk communication, and quantitative and qualitative analytics, provides her with the unique perspective and methods to measure patient preferences and values, identify how and why these change over time, and how these influence decisions. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Missouri State University, a Master of Science in Experimental Psychology from Missouri State University, a Doctorate of Philosophy in Quantitative Psychology from the University of Missouri, and completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Health Decision Sciences Center in at Massachusetts General Hospital.