Kirsten Austad, MD, MPH, and Jonathan Staloff, MD, MSc, Selected as 2025 NAM Puffer/ABFM Fellows

The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) has selected Kirsten Austad and Jonathan Staloff as the 2025 James C. Puffer, MD/American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) Fellows.

Kirsten Austad, MD, MPH

Dr. Kirsten Austad is a family medicine hospitalist and implementation science researcher. She is an assistant professor of family medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center. She also serves as the co-director of the Evans Center for Implementation & Improvement Sciences (CIIS) at Boston University.

Dr. Austad’s research focuses on advancing theory and methods within implementation science and on improving delivery of evidence-based practices to populations in the safety net setting with an emphasis on those with non-English language preference. Her work addresses a range of topics, including hospital discharge and chronic disease management, and leverages novel mixed methods. As co-director of the CIIS, Dr. Austad provides mentorship to early-career faculty in the implementation science fellowship, leads educational offerings on implementation science across the university, and provides consultation to researchers and practitioners seeking to apply implementation science methods in their work. She has received funding for her work from the National Institute of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and Boston Medical Center’s Health Equity Accelerator.

Jonathan Staloff, MD, MSc

Dr. Jonathan Staloff is a family physician, health services researcher, and acting assistant professor at the University of Washington (UW) Department of Family Medicine. There, he also serves as the medical director of Population Health Value Management, supporting value-based care initiatives across the UW Medicine enterprise. Dr. Staloff’s research focuses on primary care investment and telehealth in primary care. He is an affiliate investigator with the Primary Care Analytics Team at the Veterans Health Administration and practices primary care at Harborview Family Medicine Clinic, a hospital-based safety net teaching clinic.

Dr. Staloff has been actively engaged in primary care policy, having co-chaired the Washington state Advisory Committee on Primary Care and served on the American Academy of Family Physicians Commission on Federal and State Policy. He is a co-author of “Reshaping Health Systems: What Drives Health Care and How You Can Change It,” a foundational textbook providing health systems science education for students and trainees.

As NAM Fellows, Drs. Austad and Staloff will each receive a flexible research grant to further their careers. Named in honor of James C. Puffer, MD, president and chief executive officer emeritus of ABFM, the fellowship program enables talented, early-career health policy and science scholars in family medicine to participate in the work of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and further their careers as future leaders in the field. The NAM Fellows continue their main responsibilities while engaging part-time over a two-year period in the National Academies’ health and science policy work.

The National Academy of Medicine, established in 1970 as the Institute of Medicine, is an independent organization of eminent professionals from diverse fields including health and medicine; the natural, social, and behavioral sciences; and beyond.  It serves alongside the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering as an adviser to the nation and the international community. Through its domestic and global initiatives, the NAM works to address critical issues in health, medicine, and related policy and inspire positive action across sectors. The NAM collaborates closely with its peer academies and other divisions within the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

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