Current Fellows

Academic Year: July 1, 2023 - June 30, 2024

Madison Bakken, DNP, FNP-C

Madison Bakken, DNP, FNP-C, is a Family Nurse Practitioner. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. She then completed a nurse residency program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where she had the opportunity to work with surgical transplant patients. After the residency, she moved back to North Carolina and worked as a registered nurse in the Emergency Department at Watauga Medical Center for five years. She completed her doctoral Family Nurse Practitioner program through Lenoir-Rhyne University in 2021 and continued her career at Watauga Medical Center as a cardiology nurse practitioner. Through her work as a nurse and as a nurse practitioner Madison has come to understand the importance of palliative medicine. She enjoys getting to know her patients and understanding their priorities of care. Her goal is to help bring palliative care awareness and resources to underserved rural areas in the future.

Dorreen Danesh, MD

Dorreen Danesh grew up in Boca Raton, FL and attended medical school at the University of Florida. Raised by Iranian immigrants, she developed a strong interest in improving the care of refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers. She moved to Boston for internal medicine residency at Boston Medical Center, where she had the opportunity to care for Boston's underserved patient population and dedicated time to working with a panel of new Afghan arrivals during the recent refugee crisis. Dorreen is interested in the role of the patient story in addressing human rights violations and inequity. She hopes to spend her career expanding palliative care access to marginalized patient populations.

Manuel Fanarjian, MD

Manny received his bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering from Duke University, where his research focused on biosensors and medical devices. Before attending medical school at UNC, he worked for three years in the cardiovascular division of St. Jude Medical. He completed an internal medicine residency at the University of Pennsylvania in 2020 before taking an inaugural position in the Harvard HealthTech Fellowship. Prior to starting palliative medicine fellowship, he worked part-time as a hospitalist at the West Roxbury VA and led the research team at HumanFirst, a venture-backed company enabling the use of wearable technologies and connected sensors in clinical trials and at-home care programs. He is interested in working toward a more seamless, patient-centered integration of palliative medicine principles into care delivery, as well as expanding the footprint of the biodesign framework within healthcare systems and medical education curricula.

Miranda Ravicz, MD

Miranda was born in Fairbanks, AK, and grew up in Palm Springs, CA. She attended college and medical school at Harvard, briefly left Boston to spend a year in Seoul teaching a wellbeing curriculum for high school students, and returned to the Northeast for internal medicine-pediatrics residency at MGH. She is interested in how culture impacts a person's experience of serious illness, and in tailoring palliative care practice for specific populations including adolescents and young adults.

John Rhee, MD

John received his bachelor's degree in Policy Analysis and Management from Cornell University and attended medical school at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He completed his intern year at Mount Sinai Hospital and neurology residency at Mass General Brigham, where he served as one of the chief residents in his final year. He is currently a neuro-oncology fellow at MGB/DFCI, and he is interested in working at the intersection of neuropalliative care, neuro-oncology, and neurology.

Ramón Rodriguez, MD

Ramón Rodríguez grew up in Providence, Rhode Island and received his bachelor's degree in Human Biology from Brown University. Following this, he completed a post-baccalaureate research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health. Ramón attended medical school at Columbia University, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed an Internal Medicine residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Throughout his medical training, Ramón has been actively engaged in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts. As the co-leader of his residency's DEI Committee, he spearheaded efforts to promote the recruitment of physicians underrepresented in medicine (UIM) and worked to enrich the experiences of current UIM trainees by facilitating mentorship opportunities, community outreach, advocacy work, and community building. Within Palliative Care, Ramón is interested in addressing end-of-life disparities impacting Black, Latinx, and non-English speaking patients.

Shareef Tanyos, MD

Shareef Sam Tanyos received his bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from Dartmouth College. During medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, he took a year off to learn economics and study the impacts of profit-prioritization on the systematic perpetuation of racial and gender inequities, community disruption, psychological trauma and illness. He developed educational workshops on how these intersecting forces manifest in clinical illness, which he then facilitated during and after his residency training. He completed internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital in 2019 and as a senior resident he co-chaired the residency's social justice committee. While working as an attending hospitalist, he has deepened his interest in how interdisciplinary teams can address the intersections of structural forces with both physical and mental illness and has begun training to be a somatic experiencing practitioner. He hopes to continue exploring these themes as a palliative care provider.

Addison Sember, PharmD

Addison Sember was born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio. She completed a direct-admit 0+6 pharmacy program at The University of Findlay in Ohio where she received her PharmD degree and graduated Valedictorian of her pharmacy class. Addison moved to Phoenix, Arizona to complete her general practice PGY-1 pharmacy residency training at the Phoenix VA Healthcare System. Through past clinical experiences during pharmacy school and in residency training, Addison developed a passion for pain and palliative care. One of her specific interests involves expanding the pharmacist’s role and scope of practice within the palliative care setting. Some of Addison’s favorite hobbies include spending time outside either trail running, hiking, or skiing.

Rosa Terrance, DNP, APRN, GNP-BC

Rosa Terrance was born and raised in Baton Rouge, LA. Rosa graduated with her BSN from Prairie View A&M University. She obtained her MSN degree from Southern University and A&M College; with a concentration of Gerontology, she became the first to complete the Gerontological Nurse Practitioner degree program at the university and in the state of Louisiana. Years later, she returned to Southern University to complete her doctoral studies, earning a Doctorate of Nursing Practice with an emphasis on organizational leadership, in which she graduated with summa cum laude honors. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing. Rosa’s background includes nephrology, community health, geriatrics, palliative and hospice care. From students to clinicians to patients and families, Rosa’s passion is teaching. She hopes to enhance her training so that she can stretch her realm of influence and ultimately increase diversity in palliative care.

Maureen Villars, DNP, AGPCNP-BC

Maureen Villars is a board-certified Adult-Gerontology Primary care Nurse Practitioner. Nursing was a second career for her, as she graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration and a concentration in Management Information Systems. She worked in the Information Technology (IT) industry for 30 years in roles like Software Quality Assurance Engineer, Applications Analyst, and EMR Administrator. Halfway through pursuing an MBA, her father was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer and died within 4 months. Taking care of him at end-of-life, served as her “calling”. She stopped the MBA program and pursued the Doctor of Nursing (DNP) program at UMASS Medical School in Worcester, MA, graduating in May 2020 at the height of the Covid pandemic.

Her doctorate project and academic interest center on enhancing end-of-life preparedness for patients and families that have cultural restrictions. Specifically, cultures that view any end-of-life preparation as taboo. Outside work, Maureen enjoys family time and travels with her husband and her three children.