2025 Year In Review

Dear Friends,

Farewell, 2025. We are proud of what was accomplished at the Shah Family Foundation this past year and energized by the momentum carrying us into 2026. Together with our grantees, partners, and collaborators, we engaged in work that was both meaningful and delivered results. We move forward inspired by the platform we have built—and by what is now possible.

The Center for Comprehensive Healing

Earlier this year, Mass General Brigham and the Shah Foundation launched the Center for Comprehensive Healing (CCH). The center’s purpose is to advance western medicine’s understanding and adoption of both ancient and innovative treatment modalities that support whole-person healing. Its work focuses on expanding options for those living with chronic pain and other poorly understood conditions, while supporting patients and providers who wish to thoughtfully integrate complementary care into conventional medical practice. 

The Center for Comprehensive Healing is directed by Dr. Eden Evins, with research led by Dr. Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli. This ambitious work is advancing through four core areas of focus:

Research

Led by Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli, Ph.D., the CCH research team is developing a multimodal assay—a set of measures that signal healing across multiple biological and experiential domains. The team is currently engaged in research across a broad spectrum of healing modalities, using biometric measures to explore the roles of the brain, heart, mitochondria, microbiome, hormones, and neurotransmitters, and other key contributors to healing. Through collaborations across institutions and disciplines, this work aims to translate emerging insights into tools that are meaningful and usable in clinical settings.

Education and Professional Convenings

There is much that we know already about healing and how treating the whole person (instead of simply one part) can have a dramatic effect on health and wellness. Many treatment modalities—including ancient healing traditions; nutrition and exercise; yoga and mindfulness; and innovative treatments like light and sound therapies—are largely absent from medical school training. Yet patients are deeply curious about a variety of healing modalities and collectively spend tens of billions of dollars each year out of pocket to access them. This chasm sometimes results in less-than-productive medical visits, where patients are afraid to share what they are trying and doctors feel unequipped to have meaningful conversations.

The CCH is working to close this gap by offering CME-accredited conferences and seminars that help healthcare providers engage with the research supporting these modalities, while also experiencing them firsthand as part of their education. In this spirit, we are pleased to announce the launch of the Comprehensive Healing Conference, to be held on October 5–6, 2026. Registration is now open, and we warmly invite your participation.

In addition, the CCH has awarded its first cohort of Healing Education Grants, responding to strong interest across the Mass General Brigham network from clinicians and professionals eager to expand their training and practice. These grants support professional education in healing modalities that foster both personal growth and clinical innovation. Awards ranged from $500 to $20,000 and were granted to individuals and teams across institutions and departments within MGB.

  • Reiki Resilience: On-Shift Energy Healing for Nurse Wellbeing

  • Somatic Experiencing Training for Use in MGB Trauma Crisis Settings

  • La Comida Como Medicina: A Healing-Centered Culinary & Lifestyle Medicine Training Series

  • Rewilding Summit at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health for Implementation at McLean's Ketamine Clinic

  • Sound Healing to Support Emotional Processing in Clinical Care

  • Medicine of Sound Healing and Somatic Breathwork at Kripalu Institute

  • Autonomic Rehabilitation for POTS Through HRV Biofeedback Training

  • BCIA-Accredited Biofeedback Training Program to Complement Active NIH K23

  • Somatic Therapy Training for Trauma-Informed, Healing-Centered Care

  • EMDR Training for Ten Bilingual Clinicians in the MGH Hispanic Psychiatry Clinic

  • EMDR Therapy Training to Expand Trauma-Informed Therapy Access

  • Trauma-Sensitive Yoga Foundational Training at Kripalu

  • Neurologic Music Therapy Training for a Virtual Aphasia Rehabilitation Group

  • KAP Training for Trauma-Informed Depression Care

  • RISE Training for MGB ELEVATE Faculty

  • Integration of Reiki Training for Nurses across MGB

  • Reiki Level I Certification Training

  • 300-Hour AcuMed Medical Acupuncture Training Course

  • Dharma Moon Full 100-Hour Advanced Meditation Teacher Training

  • 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training Program at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health

  • Yoga & Mindfulness for Children Training for Clinicians

Community Outreach

Have you been to a CCH pop-up event yet? If you have, you have entered the Maxwell & Eleanor Blum Patient and Family Learning Center at MGH’s main campus and been quickly enveloped by a beautiful sound bath, followed by acupressure and reiki treatments that nudge your body, mind, and soul toward healing. These pop-ups are part of the CCH’s community outreach program and are offered in partnership with the Small Steps Healing Project, a remarkable student-run program that brings free healing services to individuals who could not otherwise afford them. 

The pop-ups at MGB are free to all who enter—doctors, nurses, staff, caregivers, and patients alike sit side by side in these healing events—and have also been extended to the City of Chelsea, Massachusetts.

For those seeking whole-person care within the MGB network, the CCH also launched the Comprehensive Healing Directory, which highlights integrative and complementary healing providers across Mass General Brigham. Practitioners who are not yet listed are encouraged to reach out.

Media and Communications

To further advance awareness and dialogue around whole-person healing, the CCH will host monthly live convenings beginning in January 2026. The CCH Speaker Series will be held in person at the Shah Family Foundation, with recordings made available online. We hope those in the Boston area will join us in person, and that the broader community will engage through our website and YouTube channel. We invite you to view our slate of speakers and register now.

Your Brain on Social Media

We created Your Brain on Social Media (YBOSM) a few years ago, prompted by a compounding cry for help from school districts, caregivers, and teachers across the country who were—and remain—deeply concerned about the impact of social media on our youth. Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation is a good starting point on this if you are interested in the topic and are not aware of the details of the crisis, as is www.YourBrainOnSocialMedia.org, which supports caregivers and teachers who are searching for information and support. 2025 saw a brilliant collaboration with Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell and her team to launch a toolkit for schools, designed to help guide them in creating policies, building community norms, and becoming literate on the topics of social media and technology in our schools and in our lives. We have received a great amount of positive feedback on the toolkit, and if you are an educator or administrator using the toolkit, we would love to hear from you.

The Felix School

We are very proud to be incubating one of the most innovative public school models in the country: the Felix School. Launching in September 2026, Felix will be the first public high school with a location on a college campus. It will also be the first hybrid, competency-based statewide public high school. In collaboration with exceptional partners, including Arizona State University, Levitt Labs at the University of Chicago, and Sal Khan, Felix strives to design a high school that is truly individualized for every student. In years ahead, the Felix School will expand across the Commonwealth. 

We are proud to support the Salem Public Schools in expanding their personalized learning model for every middle school student. Following a pilot that showed notable growth for participating students, Salem expanded the personalized learning model for every middle school student in literacy and math. They created a new schedule that has personalized learning blocks, where teachers act as coaches alongside curriculum delivered via state-of-the-art technology, including AI. The model creates a new approach to student engagement, and the early results are encouraging. 

Personalized Learning in Salem Public Schools' Middle Grades

In 2024, we partnered with a visionary group of women to incubate the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail. A dedicated SFF team worked with the board and consultants to shape and launch this inspiring non-profit, which documents the histories of influential women in Boston and creates trails that residents and visitors can explore to learn about the city’s remarkable heritage of female scientists, creators, and leaders. 

In 2025, BWHT made its first hire: Dr. Alexandria Russell, who joined as Executive Director.

Key projects to follow include:

If you’re interested in supporting this work, you can do so by making a donation or becoming a member.

Boston Women's Heritage Trail

Last Night at School Committee

Ross and Jill continue to host their hyperlocal podcast on Boston Public Schools, watching and reporting on every School Committee meeting. In partnership with WBUR, we provide summaries that highlight topics that would otherwise go uncovered and push for more transparency in BPS. 

The years ahead will be challenging, with declining enrollment, budget constrictions, and student performance that has yet to rebound to pre-pandemic levels. Stay tuned!

The Boston Achilles Chapter is larger than ever, with more athletes and guides joining our weekly Tuesday and Saturday runs and walks. Their athletes have run in multiple races, including the New York City Marathon, Chicago Marathon, Boston Marathon, and BAA Half Marathon, in addition to numerous 5Ks and 10Ks. Next up: building a triathlon team!

Achilles International Boston

Sociedad Latina

We are proud to support Sociedad Latina and their impactful work with Boston’s youth and families. They partnered with us on our social media project with the AG’s office and championed the toolkit with Boston After School & Beyond. Their advocacy continues in partnership with Tufts, Boston Public Schools, and many other organizations.

Each year, in partnership with East Boston High School, SFF awards a $5,000 college scholarship honoring Michael Contampasis, whose decades of service to Boston Public Schools have left a lasting legacy—from his early career at East Boston High School to his leadership as Headmaster of Boston Latin School and Acting Superintendent of BPS.

We are deeply grateful for his extraordinary contributions and proud to continue this tradition in his honor.

East Boston High School Scholarship in Honor of Michael Contampasis

We are excited for the year ahead and grateful to be in this work with all of you. We wish you a very happy and healthy new year, filled with love and joy!

Warmly,
Jill, Niraj, Ross & the Shah Foundation team