Our Team

Cindy Smalletz, MS, MA, OTR/L, BCB is the Program Director for Narrative Medicine CPA program and Associate Faculty in the Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics, as well as the Department of Rehabilitation and Regenerative Medicine at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center. In addition to an MS in Narrative Medicine and an MA in Instructional Design and Technology, she joined the Division with a career background in education and technology in both corporate and medical education and currently teaches and designs programming at the medical center, including the Virtual Group Sessions. Originally created for connection, stress-reduction, to remedy isolation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, these sessions are still ongoing today. She is also the creator, designer, and director of the first online Certificate Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University, envisioned as a way to globally connect practitioners to study narrative medicine. Working in narrative medicine led Cindy to complete an MS in Occupational Therapy with the goal to create new ways to join narrative medicine with clinical care, education, and advocacy. Cindy currently works in multiple settings, including a supervising students on clinical rotations in community and behavioral health settings, as well as a supervisor at the CHHMP community clinic in Harlem. 

Renée Russas, MM, is excited to be integrating her performance experience along the Eastern seacoast and her knack for administrative organization into her work here at Columbia Narrative Medicine. Known for enchanting audiences and critics alike with her "gorgeous voice" (Boston Art Review), Renée has sung with a variety of sacred and secular choirs around Boston including The Landmark Symphony Orchestra's One City Choir and in other such regional award winning ensembles. Renee has also had the privilege to travel for operatic debuts with the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival and the Intermezzo Foundation. Administratively, Renee has served as Company Manager to the Key West Symphony Young Artist Program and coordinated distribution for Academy Award nominated documentarian Frederick Wiseman's film La Danse. After her IRNE-nominated portrayal of Lily in The Longwood Players' The Secret Garden (2011) Renée served as their Development Director during Seasons 15 and 16. Prior to joining the Columbia Narrative Medicine team, Renee also served as Sr. Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) at MIT in Cambridge, MA and Office Manager to Reviewed.com, a division of USA Today Tech. Additionally, Renee serves on the Board of The Poor Mouth Theatre Company based in the Bronx. Renée holds a BA in Music and a BS in Theater from Murray State University; a Masters of Music Theater from Oklahoma City University and a Graduate Performance Diploma in Opera from the Longy School of Music of Bard College.

Maura Spiegel, PhD, is Senior Lecturer of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where she teaches courses on fiction and film, and is a founding Director of the Program in Narrative Medicine. She is the co-author of The Grim Reader: Writings on Death, Dying and Living On (Anchor/Doubleday), The Breast Book: An Intimate and Curious History (Workman), which was a Book-of-the-Month Club Quality Paperbacks selection. She co-edited the journal Literature and Medicine (Johns Hopkins University Press) with Rita Charon, MD, PhD, for seven years. She has written for The New York Times, and has published essays on the history of the emotions, Charles Dickens, diamonds in the movies, among many other topics. She is currently writing a book about the life and films of Sidney Lumet for St. Martin’s Press. View a list of Maura's publications.

Deepthiman Gowda, MD, MPH, MS, is Director of Clinical Practice of the Program in Narrative Medicine and is the first Assistant Dean for Medical Education at the newly founded Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine, where he is working to introduce Narrative Medicine into the curriculum. To date, Dr. Gowda’s efforts have focused on care to underserved communities, clinical skills education, interprofessional education, and narrative medicine. Dr. Gowda is a general internist, photographer, and researcher looking at the use of visual art in health care settings. He has also conducted research on the effects of introducing narrative medicine methods into primary care clinics in Manhattan on team function and is a former Macy Scholar. 

Dr. David Hellerstein is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia, a research psychiatrist at the NY State Psychiatric Institute, where he is director of the Depression Evaluation Service, and a practicing clinician. Hellerstein is author of books including Battles of Life and Death (essays), A Family of Doctors (memoir), and Heal Your Brain (nonfiction). His writing has appeared in the NY Times, Harper’s, Esquire, North American Review, and The Huffington Post, and has been awarded the Pushcart Prize best essay award.

Rita Charon is a general internist and literary scholar who originated the field of narrative medicine. She is Professor and Founding Chair of the Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics and Professor of Medicine at Columbia University. She completed the MD at Harvard in 1978 and the PhD in English at Columbia in 1999, concentrating on narratology and the works of Henry James. Her research focuses on the consequences of narrative medicine practice, narrative medicine pedagogy, and health care team effectiveness. At Columbia, she directs the Foundations of Clinical Practice faculty seminar, the Virginia Apgar Academy for Medical Educators, the Narrative and Social Medicine Scholarly Projects Concentration Track, the required and elective Narrative Medicine curriculum for the medical school, and Columbia Commons: Collaborating Across Professions, a medical-center-wide partnership devoted to health care team effectiveness.  She inaugurated and teaches in the Master of Science in Narrative Medicine graduate program at Columbia. She has lectured and served as Visiting Professor at many medical schools and universities in the US and abroad, teaching narrative medicine theory and practice. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio residency, and research funding from the NIH, the NEH, the American Board of Internal Medicine, the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, and several additional private foundations. She was chosen by the National Endowment for the Humanities to deliver the 2018 Jefferson Lecture, “the highest honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities.” Dr. Charon has published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine, Narrative, Henry James Review, Poetics Today, The Drama Review, Partial Answers, and Literature and Medicine. She is the author of Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness (Oxford University Press, 2006) and co-author of Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine (Oxford University Press, 2017). She is co-editor of Stories Matter: The Role of Narrative in Medical Ethics (Routledge, 2002) and Psychoanalysis and Narrative Medicine (SUNY Press, 2008). View a list of Rita's publications.

Joseph Eveld, MS, MFA, is a graduate of the Narrative Medicine program, as well as the creative writing MFA at Boston University, where he was a Robert Pinksy Fellow and taught fiction at the Boston Arts Academy. His poetry has been featured in the Intercollegiate Poetry Festival in Boston and published in the Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine. His short story “If Your Uncle Says Something Crazy” was a finalist for Glimmer Train Magazine’s Short Story Award for New Writers. He has taught as Faculty Associate for the MS in Narrative Medicine program and currently teaches Writing Creatively for the Narrative Medicine Certificate of Professional Achievement. He is also working on his first novel.

Jane Bogart, EdD is the Director of the Center for Student Wellness at CUIMC and an Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences in the Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Bogart also taught at Teachers College, Columbia University, from which she earned both Masters and Doctoral degrees in Health and Behavior Studies. She has appeared as a "Sexpert" on MTV’s The First National Sex Quiz and you can find her "Howcast" videos about Understanding STIs on YouTube. Her first book, Sexploration: The Ultimate Guide to Feeling Truly Great in Bed (link is external) (Penguin, 2006) was reviewed positively by both Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews.

Jonathan Amiel, MD is the Senior Associate Dean for Curricular Affairs at VP&S. He has a strong interest in medical education and humanism in medicine and he works closely with the AAMC and the Gold Humanism Honor Society. He is particularly delighted to teach part of the narrative medicine course in which he took part as a fourth-year VP&S student.

Maura Spiegel, PhD, is Senior Lecturer of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where she teaches courses on fiction and film, and is a founder and Associate Director of the Program in Narrative Medicine. She is the co-author of The Grim Reader: Writings on Death, Dying and Living On (Anchor/Doubleday), The Breast Book: An Intimate and Curious History (Workman), which was a Book-of-the-Month Club Quality Paperbacks selection. She co-edited the journal Literature and Medicine (Johns Hopkins University Press) with Rita Charon, MD, PhD, for seven years. She has written for The New York Times, and has published essays on the history of the emotions, Charles Dickens, diamonds in the movies, among many other topics. She is currently writing a book about the life and films of Sidney Lumet for St. Martin’s Press. View a list of Maura's publications.

Nicole Brittingham Furlonge, Professor and Director of the Klingenstein Center, Teachers College Columbia University earned her Ph.D. and BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania. She earned her M.A. from the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Teachers College, Dr. Furlonge served as Director of Teaching and Learning at the Holderness School, where she facilitated professional learning for faculty and developed LEARNS, a framework for formative professional learning. She has taught English and served as English Department Chair and Director of Diversity at several independent schools, including St. Andrew's School (Delaware), The Lawrenceville School, and Princeton Day School. Dr. Furlonge is the author of Race Sounds: The Art of Listening in African American Literature, published by the University of Iowa Press. Her book demonstrates listening as an interpretive and civic act that leads to deeper engagement with others. Dr. Furlonge has previously served on the boards of People and Stories/Gente y Cuentos and Village Charter School in Trenton, NJ. Currently, Dr. Furlonge’s research examines the intersections between listening, cognitive neuroscience, social justice, and school leadership. She lives in Yonkers, NY with her spouse and their three children.

David Leventhal has performed with the Mark Morris Dance Group (MMDG) from 1997-2011, appearing in principal roles in some of Mark Morris' most acclaimed works. He received a Bessie (New York Dance and Performance Award) for his performing career with Mark Morris. David is Program Director and one of the founding teachers of MMDG's Dance for PD® program, a collaboration with the Brooklyn Parkinson Group that offers weekly classes for people with Parkinson's at the Mark Morris Dance Center and fosters similar classes in more than 250 communities in 25 countries around the world, and presents regular training workshops for teachers interested in leading Dance for PD® classes. He received the 2016 World Parkinson Congress Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Parkinson's community and is the co-recipient of the Alan Bonander Humanitarian Award for his efforts to make the Dance for PD® program widely available.  He has written and lectured extensively about the program. ​David has co-produced three volumes of a successful At Home DVD series for the program and has been instrumental in initiating and designing innovative projects involving live streaming and Moving Through Glass, a dance-based Google Glass App for people with Parkinson's.

​

He serves on the boards of the Davis Phinney Foundation and the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center​'s Arts and Humanities Program.