Our Team

Annie is an Assistant Professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, a practicing physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a writer and storyteller. She is also a patient, diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2001.

In response to the disconnection she experienced in healthcare, both as a patient and a provider - motivated by her belief in the power of stories - she started recording patient narratives in 2010. Integrating her personal experiences with the research supporting the health benefits of narrative, she founded Health Story Collaborative (HSC) in 2013.

HSC is dedicated to helping individuals navigating health challenges find meaning and ultimately heal, through storytelling. She is excited by interdisciplinary, cross-institutional collaborations that break through resistance to change.

She is widely published in the press and is author of The Healing Power of Storytelling: Using Personal Narrative to Navigate Illness, Trauma, and Loss (2022). 

If you are interested in having Dr. Brewster come speak at an event, please contact us at info@healthstorycollaborative.org.

Jonathan Adler is a clinical psychologist and a professor at Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Massachusetts. He is the incoming Editor in Chief of Personality and Social Psychology Review and served as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Personality and Collabra: Psychology. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical and Personality Psychology from Northwestern University.

Jon’s research focuses on the relationships between identity development in adulthood and mental health. Specifically, he’s interested in the way we make sense of the challenging experiences in our lives and the way that meaning-making impacts our sense of self and our psychological well-being. In this work, Jon uses personal narratives as a tool for studying meaning-making and identity development, typically using a mixed-methods approach. He has special interest in the experience of illness and healing as an example of these processes.

Jon’s research has been covered by the New York Times, National Public Radio, Scientific American, Huffington Post, and Elle Magazine, among other media outlets. At the Health Story Collaborative, Jon works to ground our programs in the scientific research on narrative and mental health and works with Annie to develop and run the Healing Story Sessions program. Read more about Jon here: https://www.jonathan-adler.com/

Delphine Liston is a public health professional and program manager with a Master of Public Health from Boston University and extensive experience in non-profit management.  She has planned and managed health programs for vulnerable populations around the world including as Program Director for a reproductive health organization in Guatemala, where she expanded the organization’s reach to new geographic areas and developed strategic partnerships to improve organizational sustainability.  She has also worked for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health where she led a Statewide Advisory Committee to end childhood lead poisoning. 

Over the course of her career, Delphine has focused on working to improve the health of others in various contexts and with diverse populations. She believes in the tremendous healing power of storytelling and is excited to bring her passion for helping others to Health Story Collaborative.

Jennifer's passion for narrative medicine stems from her own experience writing and sharing about her journey with chronic illness. For over a decade, she has written a weekly column for the Global Lyme Alliance, which has received mention in The New Yorker, CQ Researcher, and cbs.com. Her work has also been featured in Aeon's Psyche, The Boston Globe, Cognoscenti, Harvard Health Blog, and other local and national publications. She has spoken about chronic illness on numerous broadcasts, podcasts, and webinars, and her story has appeared in anthologies, articles, and other books. Her memoir One Tick Stopped the Clock is forthcoming from Legacy Book Press in September 2024. Jennifer created and runs the Writing to Heal program at Grub Street Creative Writing Center, and has taught Writing to Heal at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She loves helping people peel back the layers of their own stories, deepening their understanding of their experiences. She believes that sharing stories helps foster empathy for ourselves and each other. 

Michael will forever be a part of the HSC team, even though he left this earth on February 10th, 2020 after a 4+ year "adventure with brain cancer." We will miss his physical presence but his spirit continues to guide our work. 

When Michael found out he had glioblastoma, brain cancer, in 2015, he stumbled into storytelling about what it was like to go through the roller coaster of cancer treatments and symptoms. This developed into a passion for the ways listening to and telling stories can support healing. When friends at CaringBridge introduced Michael to Health Story Collaborative, he enthusiastically began facilitating Healing Story Sessions with patients, providers, and families in Minnesota, where he lived. Experiencing the healing power of stories for himself and others led him to the strong desire that everyone with a serious illness and their care providers, both professional and personal, have support to tell and listen to stories in ways that are healing, connected, and empowering. Michael worked with Health Story Collaborative to make this a reality. 

Before his brain cancer diagnosis, Michael spent 15 years doing consulting with nonprofit and government groups as they sought to improve and grow programs that built healthy and just communities. He applied that experience in nonprofit management in support of Health Story Collaborative's mission to harness the healing power of stories. 

You can see more of his health story in this video of a Healing Story Session with Michael and his oncologist.