
Board Members (From 2024 to 2026)

Prof. Kirsten McCaffery
President
Location: Australia
Kirsten McCaffery is a Professor of Behavioural Science and holds a Principal Research Fellowship at the Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney. She has developed and evaluated patient decision aids across a range of clinical areas and has a special interest in supporting shared decision making in populations with lower health literacy and among those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged.

Prof. Anik Giguère
Vice-President
Location: Canada
Anik Giguère is a Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine at Laval University in Québec city. She studies the design and implementation of decision aids and educational programs to enable older adults to make health decisions based on evidence and on their experiences and values.

Prof. Paulina Bravo
Secretary
Location: Chile
Paulina Bravo is an Associate Professor and the Director of Research and Doctoral Studies at the School of Nursing at the Pontificia Universidad Católica, in Santiago, Chile. She leads the Health Participation Research group at her school. Her research focuses on the development and implementation of patient decision aids and patient-centered care interventions.

Dr Fülöp Scheibler
Treasurer
Location: Germany
Fülöp Scheibler is senior associate at the National Competency Centre for Shared Decision Making at the University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel, Germany. He is also Co-founder and Partner of the SHARE TO CARE. Patient Centered Care GmbH. Since 2018 he was involved in the development of >80 evidence based online patient decision aids for the project “Making SDM A Reality” in Kiel. His research interest is focusing on large scale implementation of SDM, evidence based medicine and health services research.
Declaration of Interest

Dr Marla Clayman
Board Member
Location: United States
Dr. Clayman is a dedicated health services and health communication researcher, specializing in patient engagement and healthcare decision-making. She is a Research Health Scientist at the US Veterans Health Administration and an Associate Professor at the UMass Chan Medical School. She works to create and sustain environments that help patients and families receive and use information that meets their emotional and cognitive needs. She has been a Fulbright Scholar in Norway and held numerous professional leadership positions.
Declaration of Interest

Dr Alejandra Martínez
Board Member: ECR Represetative
Location: United States
Alejandra Martínez is a research scientist at Dartmouth College. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC). Her doctoral thesis aimed to understand healthcare in the interaction between pregnant migrant women and health professionals in Chile’s public health system. Her main research interests are health disparities and migration, power dynamics, patient-centered care, and shared decision-making.
Declaration of Interest

Dr Natalie Joseph-Williams
Board Member
Location: United Kingdom
Natalie is a Reader in Improving Patient Care at Cardiff University's School of Medicine, and Associate Director of the Health and Care Research Wales Evidence Centre. Natalie has over seventeen years experience of researching, teaching, and implementing shared decision making, working closely with policy makers, healthcare organisations, clinical teams, and patients across the UK to embed this approach into routine clinical care.
Declaration of Interest
ECR Committee

Dr. Alejandra Martínez
Committee Chair
Location: United States
Alejandra Martínez is a research scientist at Dartmouth College. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC). Her doctoral thesis aimed to understand healthcare in the interaction between pregnant migrant women and health professionals in Chile’s public health system. Her main research interests are health disparities and migration, power dynamics, patient-centered care, and shared decision-making.

Dr. Eman Abukmail
Location: Australia

Weiwei Lu
Location: Hong Kong

Simone Kienlin
Location: Norway
Simone serves as a Special Advisor for Shared Decision Making at the South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority. She is also a PhD candidate at the E-Health, Integrative Care, and Innovation Center at the University Hospital of North Norway. Simone leads a strategic project at the Regional Health Authority aimed at enhancing the uptake of SDM through a comprehensive, multi-faceted implementation strategy. Additionally, in her role overseeing both regional and national SDM initiatives, Simone is spearheading the development and implementation of a modularized meta-curriculum titled "Ready for SDM," designed to effectively train healthcare professionals in SDM. Her research focuses on SDM training, measurement, and decision support such as patient decision aids, decision coaching and evidence-based health information.

Dr. Alex Waddell
Location: Australia
Dr Alex Waddell is a Research Fellow with Action Lab in the Department of Human Centred Computing. Alex's research utilises behavioural science, policy and programs to achieve health outcomes in the public sphere. Her research explores what helps and hinders the health system to support clinicians and patients to share decisions, through behaviour change and implementation science. Alex hopes her research can add to the field of shared decision making by utilising multiple parts of the healthcare system to support clinicians and patients through behaviour change. She specialises in evidence synthesis and qualitative research methods.

Reed Bratches
Location: USA
Reed Bratches is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is interested in the decision-making needs and decisional choices of family caregivers of persons with dementia, with a special focus on developing tools to support medication management and adherence while reducing administration errors.

Andrea Duarte-Diaz
Location: Spain
Andrea is a PhD candidate in Psychology. She currently works as a research technician at the Canary Islands Health Research Institute Foundation (FIISC) and the Evaluation Unit of the Canary Islands Health Service (SESCS), where she actively contributes as a member of the Person-Centered Group. Passionate about advancing mental health, health literacy, patient empowerment, and shared decision-making, Andrea has led and collaborated on various regional, national, and international projects in these fields. Her work within a Health Technology Assessment (HTA) agency also emphasizes evidence-based practice and the use of evidence synthesis to inform health policy and decision-making.
- Outreach to attract members of underrepresented groups
- Encouraging our members to approach people of underrepresented groups and encourage them to apply to become members.


- The ISDM Society is an international non-for-profit scientific association.
- The society’s legal statute document is available for all here
- ISDM Society basic COI statement:
- To prevent any conflicts of interest we neither seek nor accept funding from pharmaceutical companies or commercial organisations/enterprises with competing interests in the health decisions of patients or the public.
- Enterprises with competing interests may include for-profit companies/organisations which sell or promote products including, but not limited to: healthcare services, medications, devices or insurance policies.
- ISDM Society board member declaration of interests and process for decision making:
- All Board Members are required to complete personal declaration of interest statements and to disclose all relationships with commercial organisations.
- A Board Member :
- declares the nature and extent of any interest, direct or indirect, which he or she has in a proposed transaction or arrangement with the Society or in any transaction or arrangement entered into by the Society which has not previously been declared; and
- absents himself or herself from any discussions of the Board Member in which it is possible that a conflict of interest will arise between his or her duty to act solely in the interests of the Society and any personal interest (including but not limited to any financial interest).