Laura Damiano
Laura attended Brandeis University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in Health: Science, Society, and Policy, with minors in Legal Studies, Philosophy, and Business. While at Brandeis, Laura wrote her senior honors thesis on medical error disclosure policies, focusing on the relationship to the rate of medical malpractice claims.
Laura became interested in health law during several summer internships with Partners HealthCare, the integrated health system founded by Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Laura’s work at Partners was centered on the implementation and utilization of the electronic health record. She observed first-hand the direct impact policy has on the delivery of healthcare, inspiring her to pursue law.
Now a Health Law and Policy Fellow at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, Laura is an active member of the Health Law program, serving as President of the Health Law Society during the 2010-2011 academic year. Laura is currently the Managing Editor of Notes and Comments for the Family Court Review and her note, “When Parents Can Choose to Have the “Perfect” Child: Why Fertility Clinics Should be Required to Report Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis Data” was published in the October 2011 issue.
Laura spent the summer of 2010 working for the in-house counsel and chief compliance officer at HealthDrive Medical and Dental on a variety of legal and regulatory issues. During the summer of 2011, Laura worked in DC at the Nemours Office of Child Health Policy and Advocacy where she had the opportunity to attend congressional briefings, senate subcommittee hearings, and other meetings on Capitol Hill to promote policies that improve children’s health. Laura also completed an externship in spring of 2011 with the Office of University Counsel at Weill Cornell Medical College.
Ryan Mainhardt
Ryan received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Public Relations from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and a Master of Arts degree in West European Studies from Indiana University. For three years he worked in Bloomington, Indiana, as a compliance manager for Bloom Insurance Agency, an independent tele-insurance agency that markets and issues Medicare Advantage health plans, life insurance and dental insurance plans nationwide. At the Bloom Insurance Agency, Ryan was actively involved in training insurance agents, managing market compliance and responding to regulatory inquiries from various state insurance departments. In addition, Ryan has experience in other health care sectors, including two years as an assistant at an alcohol and other drug rehabilitation (AODA) facility, and a semester at an assisted living facility for the elderly, both in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Collectively, his years in health care influenced his decision to pursue law.
Ryan spent the summer of 2011 as a summer associate at Lewis Johs Avallone Aviles, a medical malpractice and general liability law firm in Melville, New York. He is currently a staff member for the Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal.
Yi Ri, M.D., Ph.D., CFA
Yi received his B.S. in Chemistry from Brooklyn College, and his M.D. and Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. He was the recipient of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Predoctoral Fellowship, which awarded him a five-year grant for his joint M.D./Ph.D. studies. While a student at Albert Einstein, Yi was a member of the editorial staff of Einstein Quarterly Journal of Biology and Medicine and an elected member of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Faculty-Student Senate. He has several publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Yi has worked as a scientific advisor at the law firm of Kaye Scholer for almost a year, where he served as a consultant to attorneys on matters related to medicine and science in the areas of intellectual property, medical malpractice, and product liability. He has also worked as a financial analyst for several years in the hedge fund industry and is a CFA charterholder.
In the summer of 2011, Yi was an intern at the General Law Division, Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he drafted internal legal memos and conducted legal research on federal cases pertaining to procurement contracts, medical malpractice tort claims and employment discrimination claims. Yi hopes to pursue a career in health care fraud and medical malpractice.
Reema Sultan
Reema graduated from Stony Brook University in 2011, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Health Science, with a concentration in Public Health. For her senior research proposal, Reema focused on health care literacy, as she believes the quality of care can be improved if funding is designated for patient education on health care and insurance options and treatment.
Reema has volunteered as an emergency medical technician and worked as a physical therapy aide, two experiences which have given her insight from both the patient and provider perspectives. Reema has interned with the Honorable Toni Bean, a judge in the Suffolk County District Court. The internship gave her the opportunity to observe trials ranging from criminal to medical malpractice. This experience sparked her interest in the evaluating the cost of medical malpractice litigation and the impact it has on the patient-provider relationship.
