Advisory Board

David C. Brooks, M.D., is a Senior Surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and an Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. He received an AB from Harvard College before serving on active duty in the United States Navy for 3 years. He received his M.D. degree from Brown University Medical School in 1976. His surgical training was completed entirely at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He spent 1 year studying post-traumatic and surgical metabolism in the laboratory of Dr. Douglas Wilmore.

Dr. Brooks joined the active staff of "the Brigham" in 1983. He has served as Director of the Harvard Center for Minimally Invasive Surgery, a research Center funded first by US Surgical Corporation and then by Tyco. In 2004, he began an Advanced Minimally Invasive Surgery Fellowship at the Brigham where he is currently Director of Minimally Invasive Surgery. From 1989-2018, he was Surgical Director of the BWH Operating Rooms. He is on the Admissions Committee and the Promotions and Review Board of Harvard Medical School and is a former President of the Boston Surgical Society. Dr. Brooks has worked on the front lines of clinical medical treatment of seriously ill and injured patients for decades.

Daniel C. Burnes, M.D., is a graduate of Harvard College, Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He has practiced medicine for over three decades with Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates in Boston and for over ten years he served as a member of its Board of Directors, Chairman of its Finance Committee and a member of its Governance Committee. He also served on the Board of Directors of Atrius Health Care for over four years and was the interim C.E.O. of Harvard Vanguard and the transitional C.E.O. of Atrius Health Care during the merger of those two medical entities. Dr. Burnes is intimately familiar with the management of a large and diverse staff of heroic healthcare providers from diligent and dedicated orderlies to heroic and selfless nurses to renowned and highly skilled physicians.

Alexander Caskey, PhD., of Snohomish, Washington, is an entrepreneur and a former software engineer and architect, with specialization in natural language processing and speech recognition (Microsoft Research, Cisco, Wildfire). He also has had an academic career (specializing in linguistics and Romance Languages), teaching and conducting research at the University of Chicago, Boston University, Universidade Federal do Ceará [Brazil]. A former Fulbright Scholar and National Science Foundation Grantee, he holds a BA from Williams College, and a Ph.D from the University of Wisconsin. While his current research focuses on the psychology of aging, he has devoted himself to volunteering throughout his career, a practice which began in rural Mexico, continued in the Peace Corps in Brazil, and follows with various social causes in the present day.

Vincent Librandi is Chief Operating Officer and Administrator of the Jewish Healthcare Center in Worcester, Massachusetts. The Jewish Healthcare Center ("JHC") is a 261 bed nursing home and rehabilitation hospital that services 2,500 nursing clients per year without regard to religious denomination. The heroic staff members of JHC were the very first grateful recipients of supplemental protective gear from HeroGuards volunteers. Mr. Librandi oversees all operations at the Healthcare Center, and at the Eisenberg Assisted Living Residence, JHC Hospice, Homecare, Private Care and Life-Care Management. Prior to joining the JHC in 2004, Mr. LIbrandi was the Administrator at the Overlook Masonic Nursing Home in Charlton, Massachusetts, and previously was employed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a Healthcare Facility Specialist in the Department of Public Health, Division of Health Care Quality. Mr. Librandi is a 1983 graduate of Assumption College and received his Master’s Degree in 1990 from Boston College. Mr. Librandi is highly experienced in working with and managing the heroic providers of nursing care to those in need.