Stephen M. Downs, MD, MS Director

Dr. Downs is the Director of the Children’s Health Services Research Program at the Indiana University School of Medicine and the Associate Director for Decision Sciences at the Regenstrief Institute for Health Care. His research interests include computer-based decision effectiveness analysis and their application to guideline development and computer based decision support.

He received his MD and Master's Degree in Medical Informatics from Stanford University. He completed an internship and residency in Pediatrics at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill and stayed at UNC to complete a health services research fellowship in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program.

Dr. Downs was on faculty in the Division of Community Pediatrics at UNC for 10 years where he held joint appointments in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the School of Public Health. He was the Director of the Duke-UNC Training Program in Medical Informatics, and served as a technical consultant for the American Academy of Pediatrics in the development of evidence-based practice parameters.

Aaron E. Carroll, MD, MS Associate Director

Dr. Aaron E. Carroll is the Associate Director for Children’s Health Services Research, the Vice Chair for Health Policy and Outcomes Research and the Director, Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research. He received his MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1998.

He completed an internship and residency in Pediatrics at the University of Washington in Seattle and stayed at the University of Washington to complete a health services research fellowship in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program. During that time he received his master’s degree in Health Services.

Dr. Carroll's current research interests include the use of information technology in pediatric health care, decision analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis, and health policy and professionalism.

Cathy Luthman, CCRP Section Administrator

Cathy Luthman is the Executive Director of PResNet, a pediatric practice based research network and serves as Administrator for the section of Children’s Health Services Research (CHSR) in the Department of Pediatrics. Cathy has been with IUPUI for more than 25 years and has served CHSR since 2002 when she was the program manager for the Anne E. Dyson Community Pediatrics Training Initiative, managing various projects and serving as a liaison connecting pediatric residents with our community partners.

During her 20 years of project management work, Cathy’s experience includes project management in adolescent medicine and the department of sociology where responsibilities included project development, implementation and evaluation.