Mayday Fellows
The Mayday Pain & Society Fellowship: Communicating Science & Improving Care
About the Fellowship
The MAYDAY Fund has long encouraged pain experts to assume public leadership roles to help end human suffering from pain through public discourse about research, best practices in care and policy. From 2004 to 2015, this public engagement and leadership training was provided through the “Mayday Pain & Society Fellowship: A Media and Policy Initiative,” which provided 60 Fellows with communication and public outreach skills. This initiative was based on the belief that experts would increase their effectiveness in advancing the field of pain management and ensuring better care for patients by enhancing their communication skills.
Building on this experience, The MAYDAY Fund is launching a new Fellowship in 2018 to build the next generation of pain experts who can provide evidence-based and solutions-focused information about pain care and treatment, as well as promising research emerging in the field.
The new Fellowship will provide a three-day communication workshop in Washington, D.C., for clinicians and researchers based in the United States or Canada who are passionate about improving pain care and who are dedicated to building communications skills and strategies aimed to reduce human suffering from acute and chronic pain. The Fund will seek applicants working on research and evidence-based approaches to advance what is known about pain and how to best care for it. Targeted work might include: sharing critical research on the science of pain and on emerging evidence-based treatments, fixes to how pain is addressed in the health care system, training for frontline clinicians, sharing critical research on the science of pain and on emerging evidence-based treatments, and on addressing the disparities in care.
The application criteria and Fellowship requirements are included in the application below.
Training & Coaching
The 2023-2024 Mayday Fellows participated in a three-day training workshop held in Washington, D.C. Following the workshop, each Fellow will be provided with five hours of coaching support from a member of the coaching faculty at Burness to identify communications activities that they will complete within one year of the training.
There are no tuition costs. All travel, seminars, and communications coaching will be covered by The MAYDAY Fund.
Apply Now
Applications for the Mayday Fellowship are now closed. Please check back here for future updates on the Fellowship.
Mayday Fellows
2023-24 Mayday Fellows
Staja “Star”” Booker, PhD, RN
Assistant Professor, University of Florida
Tania Di Renna, Bsc, MD, FRCPC
Associate Professor, Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine, University of Toronto; Medical Director, Toronto Academic Pain Medicine Institute
Amy L. Drendel, DO, MS
Professor of Pediatrics, Medical College of Wisconsin; Interim Section Chief, Pediatric Emergency Medicine
Shravani Durbhakula, MD, MPH, MBA
Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Juan Hincapie-Castillo, PharmD, MS, PhD
Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; President, Board of Directors, National Pain Advocacy Center
Deepa Kattail, MD, MHS, FAAP
Pediatric Anesthesiologist & Pain Physician, The Hospital for Sick Children
Vani A. Mathur, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences & Institute for Neuroscience, Texas A&M University
Virginia McIntyre, BA, RTR, RTMR
President and Executive Director, People in Pain Network; National Advisory Committee, Pain Canada
Melanie Noel, PhD, RPsych
Professor, Department of Psychology, Killam Memorial Emerging Leader Chair, University of Calgary
E. Alfonso Romero-Sandoval, MD, PhD
Professor of Anesthesiology, Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Melissa Santos, PhD
Division Head of Pediatric Psychology, Associate Chair for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Connecticut Children’s
Janiece Taylor, PhD, RN, FAAN
Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Nursing
2020-21 Mayday Fellows
Antje Barreveld, MD
Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology, Tufts University School of Medicine; Medical Director, Pain Management; Director of Education and Outreach, Substance Use Services, Department of Anesthesiology, Newton-Wellesley Hospital
Kathryn Birnie, PhD, RPsych
Assistant Professor, Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, University of Calgary; Assistant Scientific Director, Solutions for Kids in Pain (SKIP); Psychologist, Alberta Children’s Hospital
Amber K. Brooks, MD
Associate Professor, Department of Anesthesiology/Section on Pain Medicine, Wake Forest Baptist Health
Gregory Dussor, PhD
Associate Professor and Eugene McDermott Endowed Fellow, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, The University of Texas at Dallas; Associate Editor, The Journal of Neuroscience
Kirsten Hanrahan, DNP, ARNP, CPNP-PC, FAAN
Director, Research and Evidence-Based Practice, Department of Nursing Services and Patient Care, University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics
Maile Young Karris, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine, Divisions of Infectious Diseases & Global Public Health and Geriatrics & Gerontology, University of California San Diego; Associate Director, San Diego Center for AIDS Research Clinical Investigations Core; Owen Clinic Research Director, University of California San Diego
Elisha E. Peterson, MD, FAAP
Director, Chronic Pain, Children’s National Hospital; Assistant Professor, Department of Anesthesiology, Pain, and Perioperative Medicine, The George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences
Edin T. Randall, PhD
Attending Psychologist, Mayo Family Pediatric Pain Rehabilitation Center, Boston Children’s Hospital; Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Nivez Rasic, BSc, MD, FRCPC
Medical Director, Vi Riddell Pain & Rehabilitation Program, Alberta Children’s Hospital; Pediatric Anesthesiologist, Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Anesthesia, University of Calgary
Ravi D. Shah, MD
Medical Director, Pediatric Chronic Pain Treatment Program, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago; Medical Director, Lurie Westchester Outpatient Surgery Center; Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University
Kimberly Wittmayer, MS, APN, PCNS-BC, AP-PMN
Pediatric Clinical Nurse, Pediatric Pain Service, Advocate Children’s Hospital
Rachel Zoffness, PhD
Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Pediatrics, UCSF School of Medicine; ECHO faculty, Dartmouth Hitchcock
Past Fellows
You can view a complete list of past Fellows and our Experts Guide here.
This Experts Guide connects you with some of North America’s leading experts in the fields of acute and chronic pain research and management. Experts from the United States and Canada are listed by subject area and by patient population, and are available to take your call for an interview or discussion. They represent a geographically diverse group from the many pain management medical disciplines. All of the experts are part of the Mayday Pain & Society Fellowship Program.
Advisory Committee
A multi-disciplinary Advisory Committee, comprising leaders working in the United States and Canada, will evaluate applicants with a clear passion for communicating evidence-based pain management strategies or research on basic and translational science to address pain. The Committee seeks those who want to bring their expertise to bear on public discourse, policy discussions, or in support of more research to improve knowledge about and access to pain treatment.
Advisory Committee For 2023-2024 Fellowship:
Samina Ali, MD
Professor, Pediatrics & Emergency Medicine, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Alberta; Vice-Chair, Pediatric Emergency Research Canada (PERC); Western Canada Hub Lead, Solutions for Kids in Pain (SKIP); Research Director, Pediatric Emergency Medicine, University of Alberta; 2019 Mayday Fellow
Christine Chambers, PhD, RPsych
Scientific Director, Canadian Institute of Health Research – Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health (CIHR-IHDCYH); Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Children’s Pain and Killam Professor, Department of Psychology & Neuroscience and Pediatrics, Dalhousie University; Scientific Director, Solutions for Kids in Pain (SKIP); 2012 Mayday Fellow
Hance Clarke, MD, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine and Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto; President-elect, Canadian Pain Society; Staff Anesthesiologist, Director Pain Services Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network; 2019 Mayday Fellow
Renee C.B. Manworren, PhD, APRN, FAAN
Posy and Fred Love Chair in Nursing Research, Director of Nursing Research and Professional Practice; Governor of Lurie Children’s PRESCIISE, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago; Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Chair, Women’s Faculty Organization, Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine; 2012 Mayday Fellow
Cary Reid, MD, PhD
The Irving Sherwood Wright Associate Professor of Medicine, Director of Cornell’s Translational Research Institute on Pain in Later Life, Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College
Steven Stanos, DO
Medical Director, Swedish Health System Pain Medicine and Services, Seattle, WA
Gregory Terman, MD, PhD
Professor, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine and the Graduate Program in Neuroscience, University of Washington; 2011 Mayday Fellow
Erin Y. Young, PhD
Assistant Professor, Anesthesiology, Pain and Perioperative Medicine; Director, Clinician Scientist and Research Track; Medical Student Research Liaison; Department of Anesthesiology, University of Kansas Medical Center; 2019 Mayday Fellow