CIOR Faculty
P. Ravi Kiran, MBBS, MS, Msc, FRCS, FACS, Director
Dr. Kiran brings a wealth of expertise in outcomes studies, having directed the research section of the Department of Surgery at Cleveland Clinic from 2007 to 2013. He looks forward to integrating patient care, research, and quality metrics and to streamlining research workflow relative to databases and infrastructure at CIOR and the Department of Surgery.
Dr. Kiran also serves as Chief of the Division of Colorectal Surgery while overseeing CIOR. He is also Professor of Surgery in Epidemiology at Mailman School of Public Health.
Paul Kurlansky, MD, Associate Director
Paul A. Kurlansky, MD is the former Director of Research at the Florida Heart Research Institute in Miami, Florida. In 2003, he joined the Columbia HeartSource team as the Director of Research, Recruitment and Continuous Quality Improvement, where he was instrumental in guiding every HeartSource affiliate site that has a surgical program. In early 2014 he relocated to New Yorkto accept a dual faculty position at CIOR and as Professor of Clinical Surgery.
Dr. Kurlansky received his baccalaureate degree (cum laude) from Harvard University and his medical degree from Tufts University Medical School. He completed his post-graduate training at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center inNew York. Dr. Kurlansky is boarded in Surgery, Thoracic surgery and with the American Board of Quality Assurance and Utilization Review. He publishes extensively on cardiac surgery and quality outcomes and is an invited speaker at numerous international forums.
Chunhui Wang, MD, MPH, Senior Statistician/Assistant Professor
Dr. Chunhui Wang received her MD from Peking University Medical Center in China. She went on to pursue graduate training in public health at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she earned her MPH and advanced to PhD candidacy in Epidemiology. Dr. Wang’s has more than 15 years of experience in epidemiologic study design and statistical analysis. Earlier in her career, her work centered on infectious diseases and public health research, during which she developed extensive expertise in managing and analyzing patient data, laboratory data, survey data, and large population-based studies.
Dr. Wang joined the Center for Innovation and Outcomes Research in 2023 as an Assistant Professor of Surgery and senior statistician. In this role, she collaborates closely with students, fellows, and faculty across the departments of Surgery, Medicine, and Urology. Her work supports a wide range of clinical and outcomes research projects, where her statistical expertise has been essential to analyzing complex datasets, identifying meaningful trends, and generating evidence that informs surgical practice and enhances patient care.
She has authored numerous publications in leading journals and international conferences, with contributions spanning basic science, natural history studies, and prevention and intervention research related to HIV, HPV infection, and cervical cancer. Her recent work focuses on patient outcomes following surgical procedures, evaluations of clinical devices, and the impact of evolving clinical guidelines.
Darina Kirilina, MS, Data Analyst, Biostatistician
Ms. Kirilina received her Master of Science degree in Epidemiology from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and holds undergraduate and Masters degrees in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Russia’s leading university (Lomonosov Moscow State University).
Her work at the Center for Innovation and Outcomes Research (CIOR) focuses on clinical outcomes research using large administrative and clinical datasets, with particular emphasis on cardiovascular surgery outcomes. She has extensive experience in statistical programming with R and SAS, including survival analysis, competing risk models, propensity score methods, and causal inference. Her research interests include health outcomes, health disparities, and advanced quantitative methods in clinical research.
Ms. Kirilina collaborates closely with surgeons and clinical investigators across the Department of Surgery and is involved in study design, data management, statistical analysis, and manuscript preparation.