Our Team
Division Staff
Rita Charon, MD, PhD
- Chief, Division of Narrative Medicine
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).
Renée Russas, MM
- Administrative Manager
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.
Kristen Magnatta, MA
- Project Assistant
Kristen Magnatta is the Project Assistant for the Division of Narrative Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She recently completed her Master of Arts in Psychology in Education with an Area of Focus in Spirituality Mind Body (SMB) at Teachers College, Columbia University. Kristen also earned her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Columbia, where she served as a Research Assistant in the Columbia Couples Lab and volunteered as a Peer Mentor, supporting incoming students in their transition to university life.
Before joining the field of narrative medicine, Kristen worked in early childhood education for six years, teaching preschool and directing a summer day camp program in New Jersey. She is passionate about community engagement and has volunteered with a wide range of populations, spanning from kindergarten classrooms to veteran organizations.
Maura Spiegel, Ph.D.
- Co-Founder, Columbia Narrative Medicine; Course Director, Narrative Medicine Certificate; Lecturer, Narrative Medicine; Senior L
Maura Spiegel, a Founder and Co-Director of the CUIMC Division of Narrative Medicine, is Senior Lecturer of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where she teaches courses on fiction and film. Her book, Sidney Lumet: A Life, was published by St. Martin's Press in 2019. Professor Spiegel co-edited the journal Literature and Medicine (Johns Hopkins University Press) with Rita Charon, MD, Ph.D., for seven years. In addition, her book, The Breast Book: An Intimate and Curious History (Workman), was a Book-of-the-Month Club Quality Paperbacks selection. 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.
Catherine Rogers, MFA, MS
- Associate Advisor, division of Narrative Medicine; Lecturer, M.S. in Narrative Medicine
Catherine Rogers is a lecturer in the M.S. program and an Associate Director of the CUIMC Division of Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. She has facilitated Narrative Medicine seminars at Mt. Sinai, Brooklyn Lutheran, and Columbia Presbyterian hospitals and at Aristotle University Thessaloniki Schools of English and Medicine. A writer and performer, her plays have been seen at Dixon Place, Manhattan Theatre Source, Salvage Vanguard, and Cleveland Public Theatre. She was Fulbright Specialist and Senior Scholar in Greece (2013, 2009) and serves as a Fulbright peer reviewer. Her work is published in the Gettysburg Review, Voices Made Flesh: Performing Women’s Autobiography (University of Wisconsin), and Our Changing Journey to the End: Reshaping Death (Praeger). As an Assistant Professor in Humanities, she taught creative and expository writing at NYU. Rogers is a member of the Dramatists Guild.
Mario de la Cruz, MS
- Associate Advisor, division of Narrative Medicine; Lecturer, M.S. in Narrative Medicine
Mario de la Cruz is one of the Founding Editors of Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine. As an Associate Director for the Division of Narrative Medicine at Columbia University's Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics, de la Cruz is involved in the development of programmatic advancements and innovative teaching strategies for their Masters of Science in Narrative Medicine program. He lectures at Columbia University, CUNY School of Medicine and Sarah Lawrence College on illness and disability narratives, social justice in healthcare, narrative in population health and graphic medicine. His previous work includes the development and oversight of HIV/AIDS prevention programs and sexual health education programs for both healthcare institutions and non-profit organizations, with an emphasis on supporting under-resourced youth groups. Mario de la Cruz is also a contributing author to the book, The Uncharted Path from Clinic-Based to Community-Based Research, and an editor of the collection of LGBTQ+ writing, Fictions, Nonfictions, and Imaginings. His current work is focused on visual, oral and performance-based narratives as vehicles for empowering marginalized voices and identities to address health inequity and social injustice.
Nellie Harmann M.F.A.
- Faculty Affiliate, division of Narrative Medicine; Course Director, Narrative Medicine Certificate
Nellie Hermann, recipient of a 2016 NEA literature fellowship, is a co-author of Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine (Oxford University Press, 2017). Her first novel, The Cure for Grief (Scribner, 2008), received national acclaim and was chosen as a Target “Breakout” book. Her short fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, The Five Fingers Review, and Blunderbuss, and her nonfiction has appeared in an anthology about siblings, Freud’s Blind Spot (Free Press, 2010), The Paris Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and Academic Medicine. Her second novel, The Season of Migration, about the early life of Vincent van Gogh (FSG: 2015), was an Editors' Choice by The New York Times.
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