Salva Balbale, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Gastroenterology & Hepatology), Surgery, and Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. She serves as the Associate Director of Northwestern’s Quality Improvement, Research, & Education in Surgery (NQUIRES) center and Co-Director of the Community Health concentration in the Masters in Public Health program. She is also a Research Scientist in the Hines Veterans Affairs (VA) Center of Innovation for Complex Chronic Healthcare (CINCCH). Her primary research interests include identifying and implementing innovative approaches to make surgical care delivery safer, better coordinated, and more patient-centered for individuals with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and other chronic illnesses. She is the recipient of a 3-year career development award from the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation that aims to predict unsafe opioid use and design a user-centered screening tool to enhance opioid safety among young adults with IBD who undergo surgery.