Aria Belle, MS, CGC
Aria Belle is a genetic counselor in Medical Genetics and Metabolism at Mass General for Children. They graduated from the MGH Institute of Health Professions Genetic Counseling program in 2024. She is dedicated to the LGBTQIA+ community and scientific advocacy valuing that queerness is natural, and binaries are inaccurate. Most recently they co-presented "Gender vs. Sex: Deconstructing essentialism and evolving language" at the MGH Genetics Update in Clinical Genetics Conference during September 2024.
Mike Boutin, EdD, ACC
Mike Boutin, EdD, ACC, is Assistant Dean for Faculty and Student Success in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. In his role as Asst Dean, he coordinates and provides student support dealing with issues of stress, time management, study skills, group and teamwork, and development of soft skills. He collaborates with faculty around a host of student issues.
Mike is an ICF-certified ACC-level executive coach. He teaches coaching in the School of Healthcare Leadership and serves as a coach for nurse leaders through the Center for Professional Development. He also teaches Counseling Skills in the CSD Department. Mike is also a certified Mental Health First Aid instructor, training faculty and students in the signs and symptoms of mental health challenges and how to respond.
Mike holds an adjunct faculty appointment in the Department of Health Professions Education where he supports doctoral students in their research.
Mike serves as the advisor to KinsIHP, the student LGBTQIA+ group, and to the IHP Musicians student group. He currently serves on the JEDI and Wellness Councils and is part of the leadership team for the IHP Community Pantry, which was established to address food insecurity within our community.
Simmons Borchert, MS, CGC
Simmons joined the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Genetic Counseling team in 2021 after graduating from Boston University with a Masters in Genetic Counseling. Simmons graduated from Bates College with a Bachelors in biochemistry and a minor in Spanish in 2012. Prior to graduate school, he worked in Dr. Wiggs’ lab at the Ocular Genomics Institute as a laboratory technician. As part of the genetic counseling team, Simmons provides genetic counseling and risk assessment to families and individuals with inherited retinal diseases. When not discussing genetics, Simmons can be found watching baseball and cooking.
Rev. jessica young chang
Rev. jessica young chang (she/her) is a reproductive chaplain. Originally from the Midwest, jessica has served communities of reproductive health and meaning making in Chicago as a community health worker and yoga teacher. After earning her Master's of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, jessica completed her residency at WakeMed Health & Hospitals, and then served as a staff chaplain at Massachusetts General Hospital. She currently lives and works in Boston.
Ragen Chastain, MEd, BCPA
Ragen Chastain, MEd is a speaker, writer, researcher, Board Certified Patient Advocate, multi-certified health and fitness professional, and thought leader in weight science, weight stigma, health, and healthcare. Utilizing her background in research methods and statistics, Ragen has brought her signature mix of humor and hard facts to healthcare, corporate, conference, and college audiences from Memorial Sloan Kettering and Nationwide Children's Hospital, to Amazon and Google, to Dartmouth, Cal Tech and the Yale School of Medicine. Author of the Weight and Healthcare newsletter, co-author of the Health at Every Size Health Sheets, and editor of the anthology The Politics of Size, Ragen is frequently featured as an expert in print, radio, television, podcasts, and documentary film. In her free time, Ragen is a triathlete, and marathoner who holds the Guinness World Record for Heaviest Woman to Complete a Marathon. Ragen lives in Oregon with her fiancée Julianne and a rotating cast of foster dogs.
Helen Chen, MS, CGC
Jin Yun (Helen) Chen is a certified genetic counselor working in the Department of Neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She provides genetic counseling services to both pediatric and adult neurogenetic populations, with specialization in neurodevelopmental disorder, neuromuscular, and movement disorders including Hereditary Ataxias, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Dementia. She participates in provider outreach and education related to genetic counseling and testing approaches for genetic neurological conditions. Prior to this, she worked as a laboratory genetic counselor in the Division of Genomic Diagnostic at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where she gained expertise in variants analysis and report interpretation for both sequence variants and copy number alterations, as well as utilized clinical expertise to perform clinical correlation for report interpretation and generation. She received her master’s degree in Genetic Counseling from Brandeis University. She is also the recipient for “The 2019 ACMG Foundation Carolyn Mills Lovell Genetic Counselor Award
Leeran Dublin-Ryan, PhD, MS, CGC
Leeran Dublin-Ryan, PhD, MS, CGC is a board-certified genetic counselor who specializes in rare disease clinical research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. They earned their PhD from Washington University in Saint Louis where they studied the effects of chaperone modulation on protein folding and prion formation. They earned their Master of Science in Genetic Counseling from Bay Path University in 2023. After a long history of experiencing anti-fat bias in the healthcare setting and hearing countless stories of the anti-fat bias others endured, Leeran focused their capstone research on characterizing anti-fat bias held, witnessed, and experienced by the genetic counseling student population. Leeran is passionate about improving the accessibility and quality of care higher weight patients receive from genetic counselors and other clinicians
Midge Hobbs, OT, OTD, OTR, FNAP
Midge Hobbs is the Assistant Dean of Interprofessional Education and directs the IMPACT courses at the Institute. She is also an Assistant Professor in the Occupational Therapy entry-level doctoral program and teaches Foundations in Teaching and Learning and the Mental Health Lab. In addition to her curriculum responsibilities, Midge is a trained Balint group facilitator and regularly co-leads sessions for faculty and staff.
Midge is originally from the UK and received her MA in Occupational Therapy from Tufts University in Boston. She earned a post-professional Doctor of Occupational Therapy at Thomas Jefferson University, where her innovative scholarship focused on narrative-based pedagogy to support interprofessional education and faculty development.
Clinically, Midge specializes in adolescent mental and behavioral health and is a clinical education consultant for Sheppard Pratt Residential Services in Baltimore, MD. She also has experience in long-term acute care, rehab, and home health, specializing in cardiopulmonary conditions.
Eric Nguyen, MA
Eric currently serves as the Senior Director of Consulting and Training at YW Boston, where he oversees the design and delivery of client services including organizational assessments, development of DEI action plans, leadership coaching, and trainings aimed at helping organizations develop and achieve their diversity, equity, and inclusion goals. Eric possesses extensive experience with creating and sustaining inclusive cultures, change management, coalition building, data-informed decision-making, and strategic planning processes. Much of his work prior to YW Boston focused on expanding academic opportunities for first-generation, undocumented, and low-income students of color at the secondary school and higher education levels. Eric serves his local community in various capacities, including membership on nonprofit boards and municipal committees.
Proud Parents
We are a group of parents from all over Connecticut. We want to help all parents so that parents with disabilities are not discriminated against, so families could stay together, and so children can grow up in loving homes. Our mission is to be leaders for parents with differing abilities to have the help they want and need so their families can stay together, and to fight against discrimination and unfair practices.
Anna Verwillow, MS, CGC
Anna (she/her) is a genetic counselor working at Mass General Brigham across a range of specialty clinics including the Preventive Genetic Counseling Service (cancer and preconception carrier screening in PCP-GC hub and spoke model), Pediatric Pulmonology, Adult Immunology, and Adult Nephrology. She worked previously as an Associate Product Manager on the storage of genetic information and genetic counselor workflow after earning her Bachelor’s in computer science and Master’s in biology from Stanford University. She graduated from Boston University’s genetic counseling program in 2023
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MGB employee, IHP GC alumni,current and prospective students In-person
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Non-MGB (receive CEUs) In-person
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Non-MGB (opt out for CEUs) In-person
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MGB employee, IHP GC alumni,current and prospective students Virtual
$50
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Non-MGB (receive CEUs) Virtual
$25
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Non-MGB (opt out for CEUs) Virtual