Our Team

Co- Director: David W. Callaway, MD, MPA

Dr. David Callaway is a Board Certified Emergency Medicine physician working at Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston. Dr. Callaway performed a basic surgery internship at the Naval Hospital in San Diego and served three years as an expeditionary physician supporting the United States Marine Corps before completing training in Emergency Medicine at the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency, BIDMC.  While serving as Chief Resident, Dr. Callaway helped found The Operational Medicine Institute (OMI) at Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians.  

Dr. Callaway has extensive overseas experience.  He is a former Zuckerman Fellow at the Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School of Government and current Harvard Humanitarian Initiative faculty member.  He has published extensively on disaster response, disaster diplomacy, trauma care and prehospital trauma management.  He was recently selected as a Truman Security Fellow and is recognized as an expert in reconstruction and stabilization, briefing Congressional staff on the development of the Civilian Response Corps (CRC).

Dr. David Callaway currently serves as The OMI Co- Director, responsible for strategic alignment and core mission planning of the Institute.

Co- Director: Amado Alejandro Báez, MD, MSc, MPH

Dr. Amado Alejandro Báez completed his residency in Emergency Medicine at the Mayo Clinic and a Fellowship in Trauma Critical Care at Harvard University/Brigham and Women's Hospital, holding masters degrees in Public Health andHealth Care Management and Policy. Board Certified in Emergency Medicine and a Fellow of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine Dr. Baez has lectured in over a dozen countries and authored more than 70 publications and abstracts in
the fields of tactical/operational, trauma and critical care.

Dr. Báez has over 15 years experience in the planning, training and support of protective medicine, working with numerous local, federal and international agencies supporting and developing operational capacity. As an agent and officer with the Dominican National Department of Investigations (DNI) Dr Baez's work primarily focused on dignitary protection services and special event security, graduating from multiple tactical, antiterrorism and security training programs. His deployments include multiple international presidential summits, security for the 2003 Pan-American Games as well as the 2004 and 2008 Dominican Presidential Inaugurations.

As one of the founders of the Operational Medicine Institute Dr. Báez has been instrumental in the Institute's growth and strategic planning.  He currently serves as the Institute's Co-Director.

Associate Director: Ali Raja, MD, MBA

Dr. Raja is an Attending physician and Associate Director for Trauma at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, faculty at the Harvard Medical School, and an officer United States Air Force.  As a USAF Critical Care Air Transport Team (CCATT) commander, Dr. Raja is responsible for leading a rapidly deployable multi-specialty unit tasked with the treatment of critically wounded American military personnel both in the field and during both intra and intertheater transport across a variety of rotary and fixed wing platforms.

Dr. Raja served as the Assistant Medical Director for both Delhi and Blue Ash Township EMS, responsible for the development and provision of longitudinal training plans for both services.  He has given many regional and national lectures on tactical and operational medicine, medical threat assessment and bioterrorism, and field triage.

In his role as Associate Director of OMI, Dr. Raja provides operationial support to various agencies and organizes a number of research initiatives designed to utilize the medicine expertise of OMI in efforts to develop and evaluate novel approaches to the provision of medical care in austere environments.

Senior Advisor: Gregory R. Ciottone, MD, FACEP

Dr. Ciottone is one of the original founders of OMI and continues to serve as a senior advisor.

Dr. Ciottone is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, where he serves as the Chair of the Disaster Medicine Section. Dr. Ciottone works clinically in the Emergency Department at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and serves as the the Director of the Division of Disaster Medicine for the hospital.

Dr. Ciottone served as Commander of the federal Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) Massachusetts-2, a Level-1 response team of the National Disaster Medical System, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  Through his role as Commander of the DMAT Massachusetts-2, Dr. Ciottone led this Level-1 federal disaster response team on numerous deployments. The most notable was the World Trade Center response on September 11, 2001, where his was one of the first federal disaster teams into Ground Zero. Dr. Ciottone won an Official Citation from the Massachusetts Senate for his work at Ground Zero. Today, he remains an integral part of the American counter-terrorism disaster preparedness program and has served as a Disaster Management Fellowship Director for the International Atomic Energy Agency and as the Medical Director for the Tactical EMS Training Program for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA Academy) in Quantico Virginia. He is a consultant to the federal project “ER-One” in Washington D.C. creating the disaster-ready hospital of the future.

Since 1993 Dr. Ciottone has taught throughout Europe and the former Soviet Union where he played a key role in the development of 22 Disaster and Emergency Medicine training centers, sponsored by the American International Health Alliance (AIHA) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

In 2001, Dr. Ciottone became an Implementing Partner of the United Nations Disaster Management Training Program. Through this role Dr. Ciottone became an Editor for the UN training module “Disaster Management for Terrorist Events.” Currently in production, this manual will be used by the United Nations to train personnel worldwide on the preparedness for and response to terrorist attacks.  In 2004, Dr. Ciottone was one of only two Americans appointed to the faculty of the prestigious European Master in Disaster Medicine.

Dr. Ciottone is the Editor-in-Chief of the textbook “Disaster Medicine”, published by Elsevier/Mosby in 2006.

Senior Advisor: Eric K. Noji, MD, MPH, FACEP

Dr. Noji had a distinguished career at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta that spanned nearly 20 years.  His last CDC assignment was serving as Senior Policy Advisor for Emergency & Humanitarian Assistance to the Director in Washington, D.C.  Since 2002, he has been responsible for working with Congress, the White House and other Executive Branch agencies on issues related to emergency health preparedness and national security.  In this position, he has been detailed as a consultant for Chemical and Biological Medical Readiness to both the Pentagon's Chemical & Biological Defense Program and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.  In 2003, Dr. Noji served as Deputy Medical Director of the US Government's Humanitarian Assistance Mission for Operation Iraqi Freedom responsible for the rapid determination of the medical and health needs of the Iraqi civilian population and recognition and treatment of potential biological, chemical, radiological and blast injuries. 

Dr. Noji also served as the Associate Director for Bio-Emergency Preparedness and Response for the National Center for Infectious Diseases at CDC in Atlanta, Georgia.  Following the attacks on the World Trade Center and during the anthrax crises in 2001, Dr. Noji was assigned to the White House Office of Homeland Security in the Executive Office of the President as an expert in the treatment of biological, chemical, nuclear and blast terrorism as well as Special Assistant to the US Surgeon General for Homeland Security and Disaster Medicine

From 1996-2000 Dr. Noji worked with the World Health Organization's Department of Emergency & Humanitarian Action in Geneva, Switzerland where he served as Director of Global Health Intelligence for Emergencies responsible for assessing the medical needs of and monitoring the health of refugees and other forcibly displaced populations around the world. 

Dr. Noji is the author or co-author of over 200 scientific articles and publications on disaster medicine, field applications of epidemiology in mass emergencies, clinical toxicology and the medical response to terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, refugee crises, famine and complex humanitarian emergencies including the most widely used educational textbook on these topics, The Public Health Consequences of Disasters and the recently published clinical textbook, Disaster Medicine.

Dr. Noji serves as a Senior Fellow for Health and National Security at the Center for Health Transformation in Washington DC.

Senior Advisor: Jon Burstein, MD, MPH

Jon Burstein is the Medical Director of the Emergency Preparedness and Response Program at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the Massachusetts State EMS Medical Director.  He is also an emergency physician with faculty appointments at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, and a faculty member of the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston.  He also serves as the Associate Director for Science and Technology of the Harvard Center for Public Health Preparedness.

Dr. Burstein is a member of the Editorial Board for Disaster Medicine for Annals of Emergency Medicine.  He is the co-editor of Disaster Medicine, a major textbook in the field, first published in 2002 (2nd edition, 2007); and an editor of the text Medical Response to Terrorism.

He has been involved in EMS and disaster medicine since 1984, and has been active as an EMS physician since 1992.  In addition, he has worked with various government agencies, including the Veterans' Administration, Coast Guard, Dept. of Defense, Dept. of Justice, and the Centers for Disease Control, consulting on disaster and terrorism preparedness and response issues.  Since 1997 he has been involved in planning and response for incidents involving weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons).  He is also an Emergency Medicine Medical Officer for the joint NDMS/State Dept. International Medical-Surgical Response Team IMSuRT-1, and for Disaster Medical Assistance Team MA-1.

Senior Advisor: Barry E. Wante

Barry Wante is the Director of Emergency Management at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) in Boston, MA. He is responsible for all emergency preparedness and management programs at BWH- supporting Faulkner Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. 

Prior to joining BWH in 2007, Mr. Wante was the Branch Chief of Homeland Security and Regional Services for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA).  He oversaw the regional emergency management and homeland security programs for the agency. Barry was also a member of committees and work groups that prepared for the Democratic National Convention (DNC) hosted by the City of Boston in July of 2004.

Barry Wante served with the City of Keene (NH) Police Department for twenty-three years, retiring as the Police Chief in late 2002.  He served in many operational assignments during his law enforcement career, including a member of the department's tactical team as a negotiator.  Wante's other assignments included overseeing dignitary protective details during New Hampshire presidential primaries and special services operations.

Most recently, Mr. Wante has participated with the United States Central Command in a cooperative defense program in emergency management with several Arabian Gulf states. He has also delivered presentations and train-the-trainer programs on the Incident Command System (ICS) in several states, Europe, the Caribbean and South America.  He instructs in topics involving special events contingency planning, instructor development and terrorism awareness for responders. 

Along with a designation of Certified Emergency Manager (CEM) conferred by the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM), Barry has a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from St. Anselm College and a master's in business administration from Plymouth State College.