Please take a moment to review all of the candidates prior to casting your ballot. You will find the link to vote at the bottom of this page.
Chair Nominations

Tensing Maa
I am a Pediatric Intensivist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and medical director of our simulation program. I have been a member of INSPIRE since 2011 and currently serve on the Executive Board. The last 2 years have brought extraordinary societal and healthcare challenges, which INSPIRE has met by continuing to grow into a non-profit organization, developing alliances with SSH, creating and raising money for a new DEI grant, and fostering emerging simulation research leaders through the novice investigators group and fellowship program. These significant accomplishments happened despite the pandemic-related challenges and reveal the true strength and resilience of the collaborative learning community we have built. I would be pleased and honored to serve INSPIRE as Co-Chair of the Executive Board as we continue to promote the culture of open sharing that is fundamental for successful interprofessional and international partnership on research projects, mentorship and development of junior researchers, and implementation of innovative solutions. If elected as Co-Chair, I will expand INSPIRE infrastructure to better support its members, maintain and grow our sponsors, and lead initiatives that evolve our understanding of how simulation can be used to advance inclusion, patient safety and quality care.
Tensing Maa, MD, FAAP, is the Medical Director of the Simulation Program at Nationwide Children's and Co-Chair of the Code Blue Committee. She is board certified in Pediatrics and Pediatric Critical Care and serves as an Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics for The Ohio State University College of Medicine, where she also attended medical school. Dr. Maa received her Bachelor of Arts in biology from the University of Chicago. She completed her residency at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center in Tucson and her fellowship in pediatric critical care from the McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University, Children's Memorial Hospital, Chicago, IL. Her specific areas of interests include patient safety, simulation in healthcare, resuscitation and neurocritical care.
Director Nominations








Ingrid M. Anderson
Professionally my goal is to improve the quality and safety of pediatric care provided through simulation-based teaching and research, while helping trainees discover their own passion for simulation based education and develop mentoring networks to support their journeys. My background is as a Pediatric Critical Care Attending and simulation educator, curriculum developer and more recently researcher. I spent the early phase of my career developing my own debriefing skills and generating enthusiasm for simulation based education locally at my institution. Through PICU fellow bootcamp, I was able to impact a broader audience of PICU fellows early in their training through lectures, simulations, debriefing and small group work on breaking serious news. I continue to dedicate most of my non-clinical time to creating, running and debriefing simulations and am particularly passionate about my work with interprofessional teams. Through INSPIRE and IPSS I have ventured into simulated based research in the past few years. I have found this work to be the most rewarding and exciting: collaborating with interprofessional teams on simulation research projects nationally and internationally. I want to continue this work myself and to help other members of interprofessional teams around me find their way to these opportunities sooner. I would like to help connect these faculty, learners and fellow simulation enthusiasts with research opportunities and mentors both inside and outside their institutions to support and promote their energy and interest to contribute meaningfully to the field. My Vision for INSPIRE is to support and promote collaboration in simulation-based research, scholarship and innovation. Building and increasing developmental networks and research opportunities will foster our community of curious researchers who are passionate about improving the lives of children through research related to simulation-based education, debriefing, and resuscitation. Thank you for considering me for this position. Respectfully, Ingrid M Anderson, MD
As the Director of Simulation for the Department of Pediatrics at Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital (RBCH), I have created a simulation program and instituted the following since 2015: Interprofessional team resuscitation training and code team leadership in the pediatric intensive care unit and pediatric emergency department, emergency response and resuscitation training on the general pediatric floors and at satellite inpatient pediatric units and emergency departments, and ongoing training sessions with our critical care transport team. Additional projects include interdepartmental workshops teaching basic and advanced airway skills, procedures for pediatric residents, and ultrasound training for central line placement. More recently, I have collaborated on curricular development in breaking serious news and end of life discussions. At the medical school I have collaborated with an interprofessional team to create a “conflict resolution” course for students from MD, RN, social work, and dental schools. I have taught at “Interprofessional Teams” course for collaborative practice 1. Nationally, I have facilitated and lectured at PICU Fellow Bootcamp at CHOP and Wash U for the past 5 years. I am currently working a project to validate a tool for assessment of pediatric procedural sedation training and several ImPACTS (Improving Pediatric Acute Care Through Simulation) projects –Impacts ED 3.0 and the ImPACTS Critical Care Transport Project. My success in teaching and program development are evidenced by the teaching awards recognizing my contributions to medical education and simulation-based training. I am eager to increase my impact on helping learners and other sim enthusiasts develop their skills and research interests through multisite projects and collaboration. INSPIRE is the ideal platform for this work. I would welcome the opportunity to be part of this team.
Isabel T. Gross
INSPIRE has played a vital part in my growth as a simulation researcher. I have been a member INSPIRE for the past seven years and I have attended every INSPIRE meeting since I joined. From 2017 to 2021, I served as the Scientific Review Committee Chair coordinating the ALERT review process, responding to research consultations, and reviewing INSPIRE award submission. At IMSH 2019, I was fortunate enough to serve as the meeting co-chair. I am a founding chair of the IPSS-INSPIRE Pediatric Simulation Fellowship connecting simulation expertise across the globe (2018 to present). The fellowship brings simulation fellows and IPSS/INSPIRE mentors together for collaborative initiatives and scholarly projects. My current position on the INSPIRE board has facilitated me to serve as a liaison providing direct support for cohorts of enthusiastic IPSS-INSPIRE Pediatric Simulation Fellows from Europe, Saudi Arabia, Latvia, Malaysia, India, New Zealand, and the United States in their leadership, education, and research development. As the fellowship chair, I serve as a liaison on the INSPIRE Novice Simulation Research. I am an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Yale University School of Medicine. As I am from Germany and currently working in the United States, I am very excited about continuing collaborations between European and US members and members from all over the world. I have been fortunate to work with young physicians internationally to grow simulation efforts, mentor their scholarly work, and oversee and facilitate community outreach simulations. I am excited to share my dedication for pediatric simulation research on an international level and I am looking forward to share my time and talent to help further guide the network to reach our mission: To improve the delivery of medical care to acutely ill children by answering important research questions pertaining to resuscitation, technical skills, behavioral skills, debriefing and simulation-based education.
Dr. Isabel Theresia Gross is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Yale University School of Medicine. She earned her MD and PhD at the Albert-Ludwigs University Freiburg, Germany. Thereafter, she started her pediatric residency in Tuebingen, Germany, and then completed a pediatric residency and chief residency at the University of South Florida. During residency, she completed an MPH with a concentration on Disaster Management and Humanitarian Relief. Dr. Gross completed her pediatric emergency medicine fellowship at Yale University School of Medicine and is now an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Yale University. She was the Chair of the SRC 2017-2021, is on the executive board of INSPIRE, and she serves on the Board of Directors for the International Pediatric Simulation Society (IPSS). She is a founding chair of the IPSS-INSPIRE Pediatric Simulation Fellowship as well as the founding chair of the Healthcare Distance Simulation Collaboration. Dr. Gross is an established simulation-based researcher and research mentor for her international colleagues. Her simulation-based research focus is on distance simulation, international outreach simulations, and the explorations of new methods and technologies in simulation-based education.
Ilana Harwayne-Gidansky
For the past decade, INSPIRE has been an integral part of my life. I was fortunate enough to receive feedback on my fellowship project through the ALERT process nearly a decade ago, and now am privileged to be able to give back in the form of mentorship and support. This is INSPIRE’s greatest strength- the accessibility, openness, and collaborative nature of our community. We all work toward the common goal of improving children’s lives through simulation. During this time, I have worked with many of you on different projects. I have served on many committees in different roles, and most recently co-chaired the INSPIRE @IMSH 2022 meeting. These experiences have given me a broader understanding of the larger workings of INSPIRE. I am running for the executive board of INSPIRE so that I can continue to grow and contribute to our exceptional community. As a member of the Executive Board, I would leverage my experiences in education and patient safety to advance the vision of INSPIRE to catalyze discovery and innovation for pediatric simulation. If elected, I will continue to foster collaboration on all levels, offer leadership for our initiatives, and provide mentorship to our members.
Throughout my career as a pediatric intensivist, I have focused on improving the landscape of medical education with a specific focus on simulation-based learning. I started my career by examining the efficiency of teaching clinical reasoning to residents. I studied the efficiency of knowledge transfer for a clinical prediction rule by comparing immersive simulation to clinically integrated teaching in the pediatric emergency department. The results of this study resulted in several publications and presentations at national meetings. While employing simulation-based medical education, I noticed that we were observing several latent safety threats (LST). Through this observation, we instituted a quality improvement project to better capture those LSTs found during simulation. It is through this work that I have parlayed my interest in simulation-based medical education into improving patient safety and the quality of care delivered. My primary interest is utilizing in-situ simulations for these purposes. I have developed and led Children’s Hospital in-situ simulation programs, most recently at The Bernard and Millie Duker Children's Hospital. I’ve created several simulation-based initiatives within this role. These have included a quality and patient safety pathway within this program that provides seamless reporting of any safety threats exposed during simulations, which are then reviewed and mitigated similarly to real safety threats. I have been able to parlay this expertise to contribute to several through multi-center collaborative simulation work, simulation use in education, and system assessment, specifically with the International Network for Simulation-based Pediatric Innovation, Research, & Education (INSPIRE) Network.
Chris Kennedy
Hi, allow me to introduce myself, I am Chris Kennedy, a Pediatric Emergency Medicine from Children’s Mercy in Kansas City, Missouri. I believe in the power of simulation to improve lives and transform healthcare. INSPIRE is a phenomenal organization. It is completely inline with my passions- develop and mentor others and engage in the positive power of collaborations. Like many nonprofits there are constant threats to survival to this group to move forward. Over the next several years we must plan and execute strategies aimed at development to stabilize the long-term financial outlook, while maintaining the very strengths that got us here- innovation and collaboration. We must strive to remain relevant and still continue to grow, but moving our success forward is a great problem to solve. So, why me: I have dedicated my career to educating others. Born in Kansas, I pride myself on practical thinking and straightforward direct communication. I have mentored over 60 trainees through the steps in development and publication of research. This process has truly enriched my thinking and I continue to cherish new ideas and innovative solutions. I have the expertise, leadership, training, expertise and motivation necessary to successfully carry out the role of an executive committee member for the International Network for Simulation-based Pediatric Research, Innovation, & Education (INSPIRE). Currently I serve on the INSPIRE scientific review committee and as the initial co-chair of the awards committee. I am committed and I look forward to providing my expertise to help in anyway to mentor others in the network in the all phases of their work, from pediatric research protocol development, measurement and pilot study design and implementation. I have a broad background in pediatrics, pediatric emergency medicine and trauma with specific training and expertise in high fidelity simulation evaluation methods and systems appraisal. In addition I am committed to the development of practical decision-making training tools. In the past, I served as a subspecialty program director for fellows in pediatric emergency medicine in a level 1 pediatric trauma center for fifteen years and am currently involved in community based pediatric trauma training research in the US and United Kingdom. This work focuses on comprehensive multisource tool development for pediatric trauma readiness. My current research involves the development of decision-making adaptive learning virtual platforms for pediatric trauma training and assessment. In addition, my research includes violence and the impact on children and development of a universal screening program for intimate partner violence in a children’s hospital setting. As PI or co-Investigator on several private foundation funded- and federally-funded grants, I laid the groundwork for the proposed research by developing effective means to educate providers at all levels about difficult conversations and interventions. I successfully administered the projects (e.g. staffing, research protections, budget), collaborated with other researchers, and produced several peer-reviewed publications from each project. From this work I am aware of the importance of frequent communication among project members and of constructing a realistic research plan, timeline, and budget. I have served as an elected board of executive committee member for 3 national organizations. In these roles I have developed plans for development, membership processes, strategic plans and interfaced with government and regulatory agencies for education. I would love to serve you. Thanks for Your Consideration, Chris Kennedy, MD Director of Simulation-based Research Children’s Mercy Hospital
Dr. Chris Kennedy has a broad background in pediatrics, pediatric emergency medicine and trauma, with specific training and expertise in high fidelity simulation evaluation methods and systems appraisal. He understands the importance of the methods needed to train highly reliable teams with varying levels of expertise using simulation, and is committed to the development of practical decision-making training tools. Dr. Kennedy served as a subspecialty program director for fellows in pediatric emergency medicine in a level 1 pediatric trauma center for 15 years and is currently involved in community-based trauma training research in the US and United Kingdom. His research includes violence and the impact on children and development of a universal screening program for intimate partner violence in a children’s hospital setting. As PI or co-Investigator on several private foundation funded- and federally-funded grants, he laid the groundwork for the proposed research by developing effective means to educate providers at all levels about ways to improve care for Children. Dr. Kennedy successfully administered the projects, collaborated with other researchers, and produced several peer-reviewed publications from each project. As a result of these previous experiences, he is aware of the importance of frequent communication among project members, as well as the importance of a realistic research plan, timeline, and budget. B. Positions and Honors 1996-1999 Fellowship Director of Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Children’s Hospital Medical Center of Akron, 1999-Present Attending Physician, Division of Emergency Medicine, Children’s Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, 1999-Present Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Emergency Medicine, Children’s Mercy Hospital, 2000-2011 Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship Director, Children’s Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, MO 2007-Present Co-Director of Center for Excellence in Pediatric Resuscitation, Children’s Mercy Hospital, 2013-Present Research Director for Simulation, Children’s Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, MO Honors 2002-06 Faculty Educator of the Year Award, Truman Medical Center Emergency Medicine Residency Program 2011 APLS Lifetime Achievement National Award for Pediatric Resuscitation, American Academy Pediatrics C. Contributions to Science Pediatric Emergency Attending Physician. As an attending physician in a high volume pediatric emergency department Dr. Kennedy has cared for thousands of injured, assaulted, and critically ill children and their families. I am committed to improving the lives of children and stopping the cycle of violence. To address this issue, I served as Co-PI on a grant to start the first universal screening program for intimate partner violence in a children’s hospital setting. This federally funded initiative laid the groundwork to provide the education and screening that has resulted in a 300% increase in the referral for services and placement in domestic violence shelters. Research products: (1) Dowd, MD, Kennedy C, Knapp JF. Mothers’ and health care providers’ perspectives on screening for intimate partner violence in a pediatric emergency department. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2002 Aug;159(8):794-9. PMID:12144370; (2) Knapp JF, Dowd MD, Kennedy CS, Stallbaumer-Rouyer J., Henderson D. Evaluation of a Curriculum for Intimate Partner Violence Screening in a Pediatric Emergency Department. Pediatrics. 2006 Jan;117(1):110-6. PMID:16396867. Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Referral Center Attending Physician. As an attending physician in a level 1 trauma referral center for pediatric trauma in Kansas City. Dr. Kennedy has seen how providers in both the tertiary care and community hospital struggle to provide the best care for children. To address this issue, he co-founded an onsite high fidelity simulation program—the Center for Excellence in Pediatric Resuscitation. This program focuses on the development of highly reliable team skills and preparation to care for critically ill children. This work led to my leading role in an international collaboration. I currently serve as the US-PI for an international team of investigators developing evaluation tools to improve function of both providers and facilities in community hospitals. This work also led to the development of the Field Assessment Conditioning Tool (FACT). Research products: (1) MacKinnon RJ, Kennedy C, Doherty C, et al. Fitness for purpose study of the Field Assessment Conditioning Tool (FACT): a research protocol. BMJ Open 2015;5:e006386. PMCID:PMC4401849; (2) Marken P, Zimmerman C, Kennedy C, Schremmer R, Smith KV. Human Simulators and Standardized Patients to Teach Difficult Conversations to Interprofessional Health Care Teams. Am J Pharm Edu. 2010 Sep 10;74(7):120. PMCID:PMC2972514. Current Simulation-Based Research. Dr. Kennedy currently is currently conducting simulation-based research to identify provider errors in child abuse recognition and improve the Basic Life Support recertification. He has experience in intimate partner violence screening, injury prevention, trauma and emergency department ultrasound, foreign languages and diversity, and patient simulation. Research products: 1) Ahluwalia T, Toy S, Kennedy C (February 19, 2019) Use of Cognitive Task Analysis to Understand Decision-making for Management of Blunt Abdominal Trauma in Children. Cureus 11(2): e4095. DOI 10.7759/cureus.4095 (2) Anderst JD, Moffatt M, Nielsen M, Frazier TN, Kennedy C. Using simulation to identify sources of medical diagnostic error in child physical abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect. 2016 Feb;52:62-9. PMID:26779947; 3) Reed DJ, Hermelin RL, Kennedy CS, Sharma J. Multidisciplinary on-site team-based simulation training in the neonatal intensive care unit: a pilot report. J Perinatol. 2017 Apr;37(4):461-464 4) Doughty, C; Kessler D, Zuckerbraun N, Stone, K, Reid J, Kennedy, C, Nypaver M, Auerbach, M. Simulation in Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellowships, Pediatrics, 2015 2015 Jul;136(1):e152-8. 5) Falgiani,T, Kennedy, C and Jahnke, S "Exploration of the Barriers and Education Needs of Non-Pediatric Hospital Emergency Department Providers in Pediatric Trauma Care," International Journal of Clinical Medicine. Vol. 5 No. 2, 2014, pp. 56-62; D. Additional Information: Related Research Support and/or Scholastic Performance Research Support EMSC 0140210-1 Dowd (PI) 2004-2007Intimate Partner Violence Education and Protocol: A Model for the Child-Centered Visit Dr. Kennedy’s team developed, piloted and implemented an educational and screening program to assess for domestic violence, and investigated the impact of this program. The universal screening program that was funded continues today and has been implemented in all clinical areas of a children’s hospital. Over one million visits have been screened to date Role: Co-PI
Normaliz Rodriguez
I am The Associate Medical Director for the Center for Medical Simulation and Innovative Education as well as a Pediatric Emergency Medicine Physician at John Hopkins All Children’s Hospital. My vision and mission for the future of INSPIRE is to continue to foster a culture of mentorship as well as grow our inclusion of international simulationist by breaking down barriers and improving their access to INSPIRE and INSPIRE resources.
INSPIRE mentorship has supported me throughout my entire career. My passion for simulation began while I was working at Weill Cornell Medicine/NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. There I became involved with simulation education, teaching residents, nurses and families. With the help of an incredible mentor, I created the Simulation Discharge Planning Committee and was the Director of the Simulation-based Discharge Program. During the programs development we spoke with a physician who was doing similar work at Texas Children’s. She is an INSPIRE member and shared all of her materials with us as well as her experience with developing a similar educational program. I subsequently won the Partnership Award from the Institute for Patient and Family Centered Care for my collaboration with the Family Advisory Council on the design and implementation of an innovative program to improve tracheostomy care education for patients and their families. This was my first INSPIRE experience. Generous mentorship and collaboration with the goal of improving patient care. I then started my fellowship in Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Children’s Minnesota where I was mentored by three other INSPIRE members. That year I attended my first INSPIRE meeting and observed the ALERT presentations where I truly appreciated the potential for mentorship and feedback. I especially recall a session in which top simulation specialists from around the world discussed “lessons learned” from their careers with regards to research, program development and other experiences. Everyone I met was approachable, invested and believed in the mission of INSPIRE. A mission I knew I wanted to be a part of. I presented an ALERT the following year and used the feedback I received to develop my fellowship project. I once again attended during my third year where I reached out to several INSPIRE members at the conference and asked them for advice concerning applying for a simulation fellowship. They were more than generous with their time and their advice was crucial in my decision to pursue a Medical Simulation Fellowship. INSPIRE and its members have paved the way and mentored me throughout my career in simulation and my goal is to continue to pave the way and mentor others, primarily those in the Latino community both in the United States and abroad. I hope to continue this incredible culture of collaboration and mentorship, expanding it to Latin America and advocating for the continued inclusion of diverse groups, from around the world. Aligning this with INSPIRE’s mission of improving the delivery of medical care to acutely ill children by answering important research questions pertaining to resuscitation, technical skills, behavioral skills, debriefing and simulation-based education. Advocating for the development of content in both the simulationist’s and patient’s primary language, by translating materials and promoting their inclusion. This includes expanding tele-simulation, considering specific travel grants to educators in these countries, and creating a path for simulationist to be able to present and receive mentorship through INSPIRE in their primary language.
Normaliz Rodriguez, MD, FAAP is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine Physician and Medical Simulation Specialist. Originally from Miami, Florida, she completed her bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of Miami. Dr. Rodriguez earned her medical degree at Universidad Central del Caribe in Puerto Rico in 2012 and completed her Pediatric Residency training at the University of Puerto Rico, Medical Science Campus in 2015. She went on to work as an Instructor of Clinical Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine and an Assistant Attending Pediatrician at NewYork-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital and Komansky Children’s Hospital. While at Weill Cornell Medicine she created the Simulation Discharge Planning Committee and was the Director of the Simulation-Based Discharge Program. In 2017 she won the Partnership Award from the Institute for Patient and Family Centered Care for her collaboration with the Family Advisory Council on the design and implementation of an innovative program to improve tracheostomy care education for patients and their families. Dr. Rodriguez then went on to complete her fellowship in Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Children’s Minnesota in 2020. While at Children’s Minnesota she developed a simulation-based education program for caregivers of gastrostomy dependent children. In 2021 she completed her Medical Simulation Fellowship at John Hopkin’s All Children’s Hospital and stayed on as the Associate Medical Director and the Medical Simulation Fellowship Director at the Center for Medical Simulation and Innovative Education.
Dr. Rodriguez has also been an active member of the International Network for Simulation-based Innovation, Research and Education (INSIPRE) since 2018. She was the Co-Chair for INSPIRE 2021 and was on the meeting organizing committee of INSPIRE at IMSH 2022. At INSPIRE at IMSH she was appointed to the IPSS-INSPIRE Fellowship Committee. In addition, she has joined the meeting organizing committee of the upcoming International Pediatric Simulation Symposium Workshops (IPSSW) annual meeting in 2022 as well as the INSPIRE meeting at IPSSW. Other areas of interest include minority and bilingual inclusion, advocating for broad language access services to assure the language and cultural equality of all patients. She was appointed to the Diversity Equity and Inclusion Taskforce for the Society for Simulation in Healthcare and is an active member of the National Association of Medical Spanish.
Anita A. Thomas
Dear INSPIRE Community,
I am excited to submit my nomination to join the INSPIRE Executive Committee. I am an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine and a Pediatric Emergency Medicine physician at Seattle Children’s Hospital in Seattle, WA, United States.
My personal mission statement is to provide the best possible equitable care for all pediatric patients in the emergency department setting regardless of their background, relying on simulation as an educational and quality improvement modality for healthcare providers in the emergency department.
Since I was a pediatrics resident, I have been passionate about simulation education. I have been fortunate to be mentored by INSPIRE leadership like Marc Auerbach, Kim Stone, Jen Reid, and others, who have fomented this passion. I have been an INSPIRE member for several years and owe many collaborations to relationships formed via INSPIRE meetings. These connections enabled me to collate a group of pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) simulationists, Pediatric Emergency Medicine Didactics and Simulation (PEMDAS), that creates PEM specific simulation curriculum for widespread dissemination. I have worked closely with and currently serve on the advisory group for the Improving Pediatric Acute Care Through Simulation (ImPACTS) collaborative, which stemmed from INSPIRE. Additionally, I have been able to work with several simulationists on research within telesimulation and helped with the inaugural Healthcare Distance Simulation Summit during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lastly, I have been fortunate to present some of my research as INSPIRE ALERT presentations, where I received crucial feedback.
While I have some research background within pediatric simulation, I have a lot to learn. The INSPIRE community is a powerful resource for pediatric simulationists and I aim to utilize the passion and expertise of INSPIRE to address patient and systems issues that we face as pediatric simulationists. Not only do I want to help lead and disseminate this work, but I also want to learn from you all as my colleagues as pediatric simulation research evolves.
My strengths include planning, leadership, and following through. My experience with various international simulation organizations and research collaborations demonstrate that I can prioritize and achieve results via teamwork. I would be honored to have the opportunity to apply my passion and experience to the INSPIRE Executive Committee
Thank you for your consideration,
Anita A. Thomas, MD, MPH
I grew up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA and attended college and medical school at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. I completed pediatrics residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital in 2013, and pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) fellowship at the University of Washington/Seattle Children’s Hospital in 2016, where I have remained as faculty within PEM. My research is focused on simulation, medical education, and dissemination of best practices. I founded a national group of PEM simulationists, Pediatric Emergency Medicine Didactics and Simulation (PEMDAS), that creates PEM specific simulation curriculum for widespread use. This allows me to work collaboratively with PEM faculty at other institutions, and to work with trainee authors who are interested in PEM, simulation, and medical education. For every publication I work on as first or senior author, I aim to include at least one trainee (student, resident, or fellow) and an interprofessional team member (non-physician). To date, I have co-authored 14 MedEdPORTAL peer reviewed simulation-based curricula and four Cureus simulation-based technical reports. I pursued specific medical education training in 2016 via the Association of American Medical College’s Medical Education Research Certificate, the 2017-2018 University of Washington Teaching Scholars cohort, and then participated in Academic Life in Emergency Medicine’s (ALiEM) Faculty Incubator class of 2019-2020. I subsequently served as an ALiEM alumni mentor, where I formed connections within simulation and general emergency medicine and spearheaded a project looking at pediatric simulation within emergency medicine residencies. I have remained actively involved in ALiEM as a core mentor since 2021, which has springboarded my experience within social media medical education (SoME) and allowed me several digital scholarship opportunities. I have served as the director of PEM fellow simulation since 2018, and am currently looking to incorporate more equity based simulation within the PEM fellows curriculum, with a goal of one equity focused learning objective per simulation. I have sought simulation opportunities through the Society for Pediatric Simulation (SPS), helping to lead avatar based telesimulation for the 2021 SPS conference, as well as through the national Improving Pediatric Acute Care Through Simulation (ImPACTS) network, where I had amazing mentorship and the opportunity to translate in person simulation to telesimulation. In 2020, I helped with the inaugural Healthcare Distance Simulation Summit and continue to be involved with that group and associated research efforts. Through all of these experiences, I have gained specialized skills to be a successful simulationist and disseminator of best practices and will continue to implement them with all levels of interprofessional trainees. Clinically, I am a nocturnist and serve as associate program director of the University of Washington PEM fellowship and am core faculty for the University of Washington pediatrics residency. On a personal note, I love living in Seattle, WA with my husband Abhishek, who works in tech, my 4 year old daughter Ophelia, my almost 2 year old son Orson, and our 10 year old black lab mix Boomer. We enjoy exploring the PNW outdoors, our local breweries, and traveling, which we plan to resume once our kids can get vaccinated.
Nancy M. Tofil
My mission is to improve the effectiveness of education of health care providers. I find the best way to do this is through the use of simulation whether it be the traditional sim with debrief or using rapid cycle deliberate practice. Thought my experience with multicenter simulation research studies I have found tremendous benefit of the INSPIRE simulation network. Because of these experiences and due to the strong collaborations I formed within the network, in 2015 I went from a member to an active leader first as a member of the Scientific Review Committee (SRC) and then in 2019 as a member of the Executive Board and a Co-Director of the SRC. The SRC reviews all ALERT presentations for our two annual INSPIRE meetings as well as help organize mentors and moderators. Our goal is to make all feel welcome to present their research ideas even if they are in their infancy. My personal goal is to encourage non-physicians as well as young faculty especially those without significant mentors who are involved with INSPIRE.
Nancy M. Tofil, MD, MEd. is a Professor of Pediatrics and the Division Director of Pediatric Critical Care at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). She obtained her medical degree from The Ohio State University College of Medicine and her Masters of Education from UAB. She completed her pediatric residency and critical care fellowship training also at UAB. She is the medical director of the Pediatric Simulation Center at Children’s of Alabama/University of Alabama at Birmingham. The Simulation Center has trained over 75,000 learners in almost 15 years. Our center has a focus on interdisciplinary learning and parent education. Dr. Tofil is also the Senior Associate Program Director for the Pediatric Residency Training Program. She has been an active member of INSPIRE since 2010 and a member of the Scientific Review committee reviewing and mentoring ALERT presentations since 2015. In 2019, she became a board member of the Executive Council. In that role, along with Isabella Gross and now Priti Jani, she co-directs the Scientific Review Committee.
Barbara M. Walsh
I have been working in simulation since 2006 when UMass Medical School had a tiny, one room, simulation center with few high and low fidelity mannikins. It was there that my passion developed in creating curriculum and using simulation to educate and train our residents. Over time it evolved into a combination of using simulation with medical trainees, higher level practitioners and interprofessional groups for both education and research. To really hone my skills, I was encouraged by the Dean of the Medical School, who valued and recognized the power of simulation, and took a faculty development course in simulation training, a 2-day course by Laerdal and finally matriculated to the Center for Medical Simulation in the early 2010s to become as skilled and expert as I could be with simulation training, curriculum design, and debriefing. The quality of work and training shaped much of what I do today. One of the limitations that I had at UMass was the paucity of simulation specialists at my institution with whom I could share work, ideas, collaborate on projects, carry out research and further my academic niche. I had no mentors. It was challenging. Then I joined SSH which led me to IPSSW and INSPIRE. It was eye opening and incredible. I was finally among colleagues who were experienced, expert and as passionate about simulation as I was. There were tremendous leaders and potential mentors and now an ability for me to actually grow my career in a significant way. I was intimidated at first and then realized this was an amazingly talented group of interprofessional health care providers who actually wanted to join forces and use simulation for multiple purposes in terms of research and education, specifically around the care of children. Through joining IPSSW and INSPIRE in particular, I was able to help found ImPACTS and carry out meaningful and important research. This led to other networking and projects with diverse colleagues around the US and the global community. The past two years I have been involved in international work with the distance simulation summit and have continued to develop and expand my simulation outreach program, COMET – community outreach mobile education training, that I have been doing since 2010. Vision for INSPIRE INSPIRE has shaped my personal and professional life. It has opened my academic world up to amazing research opportunities, academic discussions, robust contemplation of issues in the simulation world, and topics of importance in research regarding pediatric emergency care using simulation. It has also afforded me some truly remarkable friendships and experiences. While INSPIRE has continued to increase its numbers, and is growing since its inception in leaps and bounds, it still has the feel of a small community of like-minded simulation experts and novices. One of the most noteworthy features of INSPIRE is its inclusivity and openness to all-comers. It continues to promote a message of encouraging new simulation practitioners – fellows, nurses, residents, and other inter-professionals to contribute to its mission. I have colleagues in other disciplines such as EM and OB/GYN and there are no analogous collegiate entities that are this productive, inclusive and collaborative. INSPIRE embodies something special that resonates with me. My vision as an INSPIRE leader would be to continue its global mission: grow the consortium, encourage and groom young investigators to engage in novel projects, provide senior mentorship and to continue to strive to answer the most important research questions in pediatric care. Any new field in medicine is always in evolution. One ongoing goal would be flexibility and adaptability as we venture into new fields that overlap with simulation, for instance the ever growing and expanding field of serious medical gaming, virtual reality and tele/distance simulation. We have had many intriguing and novel projects in this arena and there will be many more to come. I feel that INSPIRE, under my potential guidance, will continue to be a leader in the simulation world, pushing the boundaries, exploring new ideas and concepts, setting a collegiate example for other societies. The group will always encourage a sense of purpose, working together, moving the agenda forward for all ideas and research topics. The ultimate goal will continue to be high quality, diverse, projects whether research, educational, curricula, or global initiatives. Experience as it relates to candidacy for Executive board I have the energy, drive, dedication, and experience to embark on this new journey as an executive on the INSPIRE board. I persevere under all circumstances and never, ever give up. I have had a vision for my COMET program since its birth in 2010. Now it has grown to encompass many areas of medicine that are not just pediatric simulation (adult EM, OB/NRP, Airway). I have done novel research as a PI, as a senior mentor and as a collaborator among many larger groups, including international collaboration. I now embark on my third year with the International Distance Simulation Summit working group and am the Co-Chair for the program development for this year’s event. As an executive board member, I will bring my 15 plus years of experience in the simulation world to the INSPIRE group. I have learned over time that the most productive means is collaboration and inclusion. I will work effortlessly in my passion to make INSPIRE continue to be the most productive entity in global pediatric simulation research, education, programming and innovation. I will continue to rely on the greater network, the former senior executive participants and newer members to keep the vision and mission fresh and relevant. I am a person who works well with others and always wants to evolve for the greater good. As an executive leader, I will spearhead INSPIRE to the next level in the medical simulation world.
I have been immersed in simulation work for well over a decade and completed graduate course work in simulation training and debriefing. I am the Director of In Situ and Mobile Outreach Simulation and the Associate Director of the Solomont Simulation Center at Boston Medical Center where I am creating innovative, inter-professional in situ programs at in the hospital proper as well as community sites. I am adept at designing and implementing novel pilot studies that have led to participation in high level simulation research through the ImPACTS (Improving Pediatric Acute Care Through Simulation) collaborative. This has led to multiple published manuscripts and we continue to use simulation to study gaps in care, systems issues and use as an educational modality. I have created and launched a quality and patient safety initiative - Community Outreach Mobile Education Training (COMET), evaluating general emergency departments in their care of critically ill children using in-situ simulation training. This program, which was started in 2010, aims to bridge gaps in pediatric acute care, evaluates systems issues, and improves team work at each site (EDs, Health centers, & EMS). I have published this work in Advances In Simulation, sharing how to build such a program. I have also authored a simulation article in EM Clinics of North American which discusses using simulation for risk management and patient safety in emergency departments. I have been part of the INSPIRE network (International Network Simulation-based Pediatric Innovations, Research and Education) since 2011. Through this group, other collaborative projects have continued to emerge. Currently, we have a multi-site study using simulation to look at graduating senior EM resident’s readiness to care for critically ill pediatric patients as they prepare to become attendings. Furthermore, I have continued quality and patient safety work through simulation with a current in-hospital grant at BMC evaluating systems issues in inter-departmental patient resuscitations involving OB, EM, PEM and NICU. This study is in the data analysis phase. At this time, I am actively involved in the International Distance Simulation Collaborative. My work in simulation has evolved from using simulation for training into using it more as a study methodology and a patient quality and safety tool.
Junior Director Nominations




Rachel Elkin
I am a current third year pediatric emergency medicine fellow; following graduation, I will begin a simulation fellowship in July. One of my formative experiences in simulation came early in residency, when I participated in the INSPIRE CPR coach study. Despite being at the end of a 24-hour call, I emerged excited and energized, as I began to consider the diversity of possibilities simulation affords in the educational and academic settings, as well as its power to transform the way we learn and practice. I have been fortunate to train at an institution with a strong foundation in simulation, with access to both local and remote mentors - many of whom are part of INSPIRE - who have guided me and helped me to deepen my simulation practice during residency and fellowship. As a member of the Junior Executive Board, I would love to be able to "pay it forward" by helping our membership - particularly those new to INSPIRE or early in their simulation journeys - forge meaningful connections, find their niche within this supportive community, and find opportunities for educational or academic collaboration. To that end, building on the conversations and mentorship that occur during our bi-annual meetings, a mentorship directory could provide opportunities for flash- or long-term mentorship throughout the year. In addition to allowing potential mentees to identify potential mentors with similar interests or a shared connection, such a system may also offer benefits to those INSPIRE members who may be looking to gain experience as a mentor. In parallel with this, some minor modifications to the survey utilized to generate the INSPIRE annual report could allow for the creation of a complementary, living directory of ongoing projects. A searchable function could allow members to quickly identify projects of interest based on topic or keyword, or projects specifically looking for collaborators. Finally, an INSPIRE journal club could create a forum for both junior and more experienced members to come together to discuss articles of interest from the simulation literature, and could serve to highlight some of the incredible work that INSPIRE members are doing. Outside of my simulation work, I have been grateful to have served in editorial positions for both Pediatrics and the Journal of General Internal Medicine, with an emphasis on helping those early in their career to "find their voice" in their writing and publish successfully. I would be delighted to leverage these experiences to assist INSPIRE in providing members at all levels with resources focused on academic writing and dissemination.
Rachel is a pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) fellow at New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital (Columbia University Irving Medical Center). She serves on the Emergency Department's simulation committee and regularly develops and facilitates cases for the PEM division's weekly interprofessional in situ simulations. Additionally, she recently served as junior faculty for BASE Camp, an intensive simulation-focused weekend for pediatric emergency medicine fellows, nurses, and child life specialists. On the academic side, her interests center around how novel technologies and instructional designs, particularly within simulation, impact educational, psychometric, and clinical outcomes. Her fellowship work has focused on the use of real time cognitive load measurements during virtual reality-based simulations. She also is active in a number of distance simulation projects through the Healthcare Distance Simulation Collaboration, and most notably led a scoping review of the distance simulation literature that examined almost 7,000 articles.
Jabeen Fayyaz
I am Jabeen Fayyaz, Staff Physician, Division of Emergency Medicine. I am writing this letter for expressing my interest in being a member of the INSPIRE Junior Executive Board. I belief that I would be a valuable member with the Local and international diverse perspective and expertise I would bring to the Committee. I am part of IPSS since 2019 and has been involved with various IPSS faculty members. Last year I had been chosen as a member of INSPIRE fellowship committee as well as a member of social media committee for INSPIRE. Recently I had been appointed as a Co-Chair of Distance Telesimulation Subcommittee as well as member of SSH equity and diversity committee. I am a hardworking, team-oriented individual with a good sense of ethical values, a multicultural clinical and educational experience and diverse cultural perspective being Pakistani woman and single mother. I believe in Inclusiveness and can bring the voice of all the faculty to the committee in addition to my experience and expertise. The appealing components for me would be, the bidirectional liaison among the leaders where I can be heard and further progress my skills because of multidisciplinary interactions across the IPSS with a diverse skill set of various experts and leader in field as well as many networking opportunities. I am looking forward for being considered as a Board of Director for this exciting committee. I can assure all my dedication and motivation to fulfill the mission and vision of INSPIRE with the best of my efforts.
I had Graduated from Pakistan and worked as PEM faculty at Aga Khan university hospital and was among the leaders that had got the EM specialty recognized by college of Physician and surgeon of Pakistan. After spending 2.5 years in Oman, I had completed my Pediatric emergency medicine (PEM)fellowship from The Hospital for sick children (HSC) in 2017-18 and had been working as a PEM staff physician and Sim educator at HSC since. I had also completed my master’s degree in health professional education from Aga Khan University hospital in 2018. During my last 2.5 years of simulation educator, I had been leading and collaborating various simulation based educational activities in the department. Although during PEM simulation fellowship I learned how to develop and implement simulation-based curriculum and debriefing strategies but the expertise to conduct educational and specifically simulation-based research was lacking, which is a key part of my academic growth. I recently started my PhD at MGH IHP at Harvard. As a part of my PhD, I am exploring cultural sensitivities in Virtual simulation in collaboration with university of yale faculty and medical anthropologist from Vienna. I am current Scholar for SSH as well. As a clinical fellowship program director as a part of my role, I encounter various learners internationally every year, so I am very passionate about extending the simulation boundaries and expertise outside the sick kids. Being originally from Pakistan I have a keen interest in laying the foundation of Simulation based education (SBE) in PEM in Pakistan. There is no formal PEM training available in Pakistan, the EM training is recognized few years back and there is an effort to develop the PEM training program. Indus Hospital & Health Network (IHHN), Karachi Pakistan, provides quality healthcare free of cost to millions of deserving patients through its countrywide network of hospitals. Currently, the Korangi campus in Karachi has a capacity of 300 beds and is further being expanded to facilitate 1000 beds. IHHN purpose is to provide indiscriminate, quality healthcare to all in a state-of-art hospital in Pakistan with 800 per day daily emergency visit, 30 % of being critically ill children. Capacity building has always been a challenge. There is a huge need of simulation based educational interventions in PEM. By implementing the Tele simulation-based curriculum for PEM in the EM residents and later developing a certification program for PEM including physician and nurses through the IPSS -INSPIRE platform will have a huge impact in bridging these gaps. Also, by involving the local faculty members as collaborators and mentors I will enable them to get benefit from it and able to develop themselves as Simulation leaders locally. I had conducted with IHHN first ever simulation instructor workshop as a part of Biennial conference of IHHN which is attended by educators all over Pakistan. The experience was rated very high by the participants and because of high demand the second is planned to be conducted in March with Faculty from INSPIRE, Pedistars, Ireland and Canada. I had been recently invited by the Department of Educational development of Jinnah Sindh Medical University to Co supervise a master’s Student thesis and to develop a Simulation module for the MHPE program. At The hospital for Sick children, I am the resuscitation lead in the Simulation program, and I helped in implementing the competency based medical education program for PEM acuity that is the first of its kind in Canada. I had also the Lead faculty in implemented “Acute event debriefing” at my ED. I am one of the faculty for Adam Cheung master debriefer academy “Clinical debriefing course”. I had been able to utilize simulation as a source of process improvement for Neonatal resuscitation in collaboration of Neonatal teams and implement neonatal resuscitation in the team training in Situ. I had revamped the curriculum during COVID to complete Virtual simulations using “Virtual Resuscitation Room” for all levels of learners as well as APLS, Sedation course and Acute care pediatric resuscitation course. The Junior resident’s curriculum was enhanced by asynchronous simulation using “Affinity learning” and Synchronous virtual simulation using the Kolb’s model of experiential learning. In collaboration of IMPACTS USA, TREKK Canada and McMaster university I had been one of the lead faculty for community outreach simulation for the community EM program. We conducted 3 CPD days of simulation-based activities for 11 community EDs with IPE.
Ryan Fredericks
Although I have been heavily immersed in technology and programming since childhood, I am relatively new to the simulation world. In 2018 during my pediatric critical care fellowship training, my colleague and I taught ourselves how to design and run our own interprofessional simulations both out of a fascination for the technology and due to a paucity of this powerful medical education modality at our institution. I was eventually guided to INSPIRE by 2019, joining my first meeting at IMSH 2020. INSPIRE’s welcoming atmosphere and wonderful members have provided me with many opportunities to network, learn, and grow my simulation research in ways that I want to be able to provide back to other INSPIRE members. Since that first INSPIRE meeting, I’ve joined the INSPIRE Novice Simulation Research Committee as a core member in early 2020 that co-designed/evaluated the INSPIRE Needs Assessment, was nominated as the Medical Director for Pediatric Simulation at Kentucky Children’s Hospital in 2020, completed a fellowship in medical simulation at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in 2021, and am a part of the team bringing you INSPIRE Grand Rounds next month. Influenced by the data from the INSPIRE Needs Assessment completed by members like you, my vision for INSPIRE is to continue to develop ways to enhance INSPIRE’s mentorship and connectivity, creating programs that meet the needs of our members in unique ways at times that are globally-friendly. My goal is to continue to support our monthly Novice Research Committee’s educational and networking sessions, expand similar opportunities for our more experienced members, to develop a centralized and up-to-date repository of international funding and simulation research resources on the INSPIRE website, create an online forum to collaborate on pediatric simulation research projects and provide feedback, and to continue to support virtual and hybrid meetings.
Dr. Ryan Fredericks is a pediatric critical care physician and Medical Director for Pediatric Simulation at Kentucky Children’s Hospital (Lexington, KY, USA). He completed his fellowship in medical simulation from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center last year and has since been focused on developing multidisciplinary simulation-based medical education training for medical response teams, utilizing quality improvement methodologies to optimize clinical workflows and care processes to advance pediatric acute care. He joined INSPIRE in 2019, has been a core committee member of the INSPIRE Novice Simulation Research Committee for the past two years, and recently joined the committee that developed and is hosting the new INSPIRE Grand Rounds program.
Anisha Kshetrapal
Throughout pediatric emergency medicine fellowship, my personal mission statement was "To develop clinicians with clinical and cultural competence while continuing to treat patients using current evidence and learn how to conduct excellent medical education research." As the simulation fellow through kidSTAR, it then became "To become an excellent simulationist while learning about teamwork in acute care settings." My background as a simulation fellow this year has informed my desire to serve in the Junior Executive Board Position through INSPIRE. INSPIRE is where my own research ideas for simulation have garnered feedback and taken flight, and I am committed to doing the same for others. Specifically, the novice simulation group has provided me with broad exposure to ideas and other folks interested in using simulation as a research tool.
Anisha is an instructor in pediatric emergency medicine and inaugural simulation fellow through kidSTAR Simulation Lab at the Ann & Robert H Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. She is interested in entrustment, autonomy, and teamwork, and has conducted research demonstrating her commitment to learning more about these interrelated ideas. Her fellowship research, entitled "Overextending: A qualitative study of trainees learning at the edge of evolving expertise" was recently accepted to JGME. She received her MD through the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine at Florida International University in 2013, and her MSEd in medical education through the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education in 2016.