2022 Election Candidates – Society for Pediatric Research

Ballots were emailed to SPR Active members on January 5. If you did not receive the email communication which came from info@societyforpediatricresearch.org via SurveyMonkey, please check your junk and spam folders. If still not found, please contact the SPR Office. Deadline for voting is February 14.

President-elect Candidates

Cristina Maria Alvira, MD

Cristina Alvira, MD, an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University, leads an NIH-funded research program elucidating the mechanisms that promote postnatal lung development and regeneration. Devoted to physician-scientist development, Dr. Alvira also directs the Stanford Pediatrics Bridge to K Program, an innovative program designed to launch the careers of Early-Stage Investigators. An active member of SPR since 2011, Dr. Alvira served as Council Member, Chair of the Young Investigator Coaching Program, and currently serves as a Cohort Leader for the Grant Writing 101 Program. As a Hispanic woman competing in basic research, Dr. Alvira believes in the unique power of physician-scientists, and the impact of inspiring trainees to pursue discovery at every career stage and from every background. As President-Elect, Dr. Alvira would prioritize efforts to enhance the physician-scientist pipeline by implementing initiatives to inspire and support trainees interested in discovery, and broadly promote diversity within pediatric academic medicine.

Lina Chalak, MD

Dr Chalak is a professor of Pediatrics and medical director of the neonatal neurology program at UT Southwestern. An SPR member since 2005, Dr Chalak served as lead for education & scientific programs on the executive council and lead for the PAS program content committee the PAS Content committees, where she worked to expand diversity and breadth of child-health research through programming at the annual meeting. She also serves as a mentor on the APS-SPR physician Cohort Journey, a co-chair of the Newborn Brain Society and as a Chartered NIH Study section reviewer for K Clinician Scientist Training NST 1 and on the Editorial Board of Pediatric research and Early human Development. If elected she would like to use her experience as a mentor and as a mid-career emigrant who successfully transitioned from a KL2 (2008-2011) to K23 (2012-2015) to R01 and UO1 awards in order to help guide the development of new physician scientists in the pipeline. By actively seeking talented pediatric-scientists for participation in the SPR and by providing input in the generation of upcoming scientific programs, she hopes to promote the participation and enhance the global impact of the society.

Director of Membership-elect

Catherine Forster, MD MS FAAP

Catherine Forster is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh and a Pediatric Hospitalist at UPMC Children’s Hospital Pittsburgh. Dr. Forster first became involved with SPR as the President of the Junior Section in 2016. Since that time, she served on the Mentoring Committee and the SPR Perspectives Committee, and was elected as an SPR member in 2019. Dr. Forster is currently the lead of the SPR Perspectives Committee where she is focused on creating opportunities for mentorship and publication through the SPR Perspectives articles in Pediatric Research. As membership director, Dr. Forster will be committed to efforts to broaden representation within SPR, including personal and ethnic identity, medical subspecialty, and research methodology, to more accurately reflect the diversity within the field pediatric research.

Roberta Keller, MD

Roberta Keller MD is UCSF Professor of Pediatrics and Vice Chair of Clinical-Translational Research. Her research focus is pulmonary and pulmonary vascular outcomes of developmental lung disease. As an SPR member (2007), she served on Council (2017-20), and the Member Engagement and Communications committees. She also served on Western SPR Council (2012-15) and as President (2017-18). On SPR Council, Dr. Keller led the SPR PAS Working Group and served on the PAS Program Committee (2018-21). In these roles, she engaged in abstract review/sessioning and Scholarly Session/Workshop programming. She leads a UCSF Pediatrics program for faculty holding career development grants, to support success in the challenging K-to-R transition. She is deeply committed to mentorship and sponsorship of junior investigators/trainees. She believes a vibrant SPR provides the scaffold for development of diverse pediatric investigators and engaged membership establishes them in our research community. As Membership Director, she will further these inclusive goals.

Council Position: Infectious Diseases

Asuncion Mejias, MD PhD MsCS

Asuncion Mejias, MD, PhD, MsCS, is Principal Investigator at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute and attending physician in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Nationwide Children Hospital in Columbus, OH. She is also Associate Professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Dr. Mejías’ research focuses on airway and respiratory viral diseases, especially those pertaining to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection, and now COVID-19. An SPR member since 2010, Dr. Mejias previously served in the SPR Young Investigator Coaching Program Selection Committee, and now in the SPR Fellows Clinical Research Awards Selection Committee. She has also chaired and co-chaired different ID related topic symposiums over the years and was recognized by SPR in 2018 for her extraordinary services at developing a new pilot workshop initiative. Passionate about mentoring the next generation of clinician-scientists, Dr. Mejias would prioritize the development of activities that invigorate the pipeline of pediatric researchers, including expanding opportunities and visibility of the new generations of pediatric researchers.

Sing Sing Way, MD PhD

Sing Sing Way MD PhD, is Director of the March of Dimes Ohio Collaborative on Preterm Birth Research, Director of the Center for Inflammation and Tolerance at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, as well as well as a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. An SPR member since 2009, Dr. Way as has widely promoted the need for basic discovery research in improving the health of infants and children, and the importance of physician-scientists to bring the most relevant clinical problems from bedside to bench. This includes elected memberships and active participation in the societies focused on the recognition and career development of physician-scientists including the American Society for Clinical Investigation and Association of American Physicians. Dr. Way would prioritize the development of activities that invigorate trainees to identify and tackle critical gaps in scientific knowledge with the most meaningful impact on the health of children, followed by the identification of mentors and academic environments to fill these knowledge gaps.

Council Position: Psychology/Psychiatry

Ann M. Davis, PhD MPH ABPP

Ann received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Western Michigan University and completed her research fellowship at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and began on faculty at the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) in the Department of Pediatrics in 2001. Ann currently serves as the Ralph L. Smith Professor of Pediatrics, the Vice Chair for Research, and the Director of the Center for Children’s Healthy Lifestyles & Nutrition, a joint center between KUMC and Children’s Mercy Hospital. She is a board certified practicing clinician, a member of the Society for Pediatric Research, a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and The Obesity Society and recently completed a three-year Presidential term with the Society of Pediatric Psychology, Division 54 of the American Psychological Association. She and her team have received numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health and is active in the ECHO IDeA States Pediatric Clinical Trials Network, where she has worked with pediatric colleagues to bring state-of-the art clinical trials to rural and underserved children. If elected, Ann would like to work to increase transdisciplinary research and educational efforts, enhance psychological resources for SPR members and their teams, and increase diversity in all aspects of our work.

Ariel A. Williamson, PhD DBSM

Ariel A. Williamson, PhD, DBSM, is a clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Williamson’s research focuses on pediatric sleep health disparities. Much of this work involves evaluating interventions that equitably promote sleep health in partnership with primary care and community organizations. Dr. Williamson was excited to join SPR in 2020, especially given the growing recognition that psychological wellbeing is critical for overall child health. Dr. Williamson’s multi-disciplinary work spans psychology and pediatrics. As the Psychology/Psychiatry SPR Council Representative, Dr. Williamson would bring a perspective that integrates these two disciplines, which would be particularly informative for child health research and advocacy. Dr. Williamson would also advocate for activities promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion within SPR as well as with regard to the behavioral health research that SPR members conduct.

Council Position: Public Health/Biostatistician/Epidemiology

Michael Monuteaux, ScD

Michael Monuteaux, ScD, is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and the Assistant Director of the Biostatistics and Research Design Center at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he oversees a hospital-wide research methodology education program for faculty, fellows, and staff and provides research mentorship to clinical trainees. An SPR member since 2012, Dr. Monuteaux previously served as a Workshop and Abstract reviewer for the annual meeting (2014-2016), as well as a member of the Fellows Clinical Research Awards Selection Committee (2015-2018). Dr. Monuteaux has also delivered two platform presentations (on appendicitis in children in the emergency department), two workshops (on biostatistical methods in clinical research), an invited science presentation (on the epidemiology of firearm violence in children) and several posters at annual meetings. Dr. Monuteaux would strive to develop and cultivate topics and sessions for PAS Meetings that provide valued educational content in research methods and biostatistics.

Teresia O’Connor, MD MPH

Teresia O’Connor is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center and Academic General Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine. She is a fellowship trained clinician researcher focused on public health and behavioral research. The over-arching themes of her research is to identify strategies to best prevent childhood obesity, better understand how fathers and mothers influence their children’s obesity-related behaviors and using technology to improve the measurement of behaviors. Her research is supported by funding from NIH, USDA, and local foundations. She has been a SPR member since 2016. Dr. O’Connor values working on diverse teams of investigators that bring different perspectives to research projects. She would prioritize team science approaches to research efforts and promoting diversity and inclusion within pediatric research.

Council Position: Pulmonology

Eric D. Austin, MD MSc

I am the Director of the Vanderbilt Pediatric Pulmonary Hypertension Program as well as Director of the Vanderbilt Master of Science in Clinical Investigation (MSCI) Training Program, with a long-standing focus on the development and acceleration of developing scholars in academia. My current rank is Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (2017) where I have been an attending pulmonologist at Vanderbilt’s Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital since 2008. A NIH-funded physician-scientist, my research group pursues laboratory-based and patient-oriented translational research studies with a particular interest in subjects with and without known preexisting disease risks. We specialize in the design and maintenance of research cohorts and clinical trials in concert with genomic and other basic studies. Beyond Vanderbilt, my extramural leadership and advocacy work includes multiple service positions with the Pediatric Pulmonary Hypertension Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Pulmonary Hypertension Association, and TBX4Life.

I am a proud SPR Member since 2010, and APS member since 2020. I am particularly excited to currently serve as a Group Co-Leader for the highly successful APS SPR Journeys Program, focused on supporting our developing scholars. Consideration for a position to serve SPR is a true honor, which I do not take lightly. I am passionate about the career development of physician-scientists and scientists, with a particular interest in those individuals in the pediatric space. As leader of the Vanderbilt Master of Science in Clinical Investigation (MSCI) Training Program, I have a robust background in programmatic development focused on career development. If elected to serve SPR, my primary focus will be on career development of our early and mid-career members, as well as enhancing the pipeline for the next generation of pediatric-focused researchers. This will include a particular focus on cultivating the growth of those who have been traditionally underrepresented in medicine, an area in which we are working hard in my contributions to career development here at Vanderbilt.

Erick Forno, MD MPH

Erick Forno, MD, MPH, is Director of the Asthma Center at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, and Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Clinical & Translational Science at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. As an NIH-funded physician-scientist, Dr. Forno’s overarching research interests are the epidemiology and genomics of childhood asthma, as well as the effects of obesity and metabolic dysregulation on asthma severity and overall lung health. He is also funded by the NSF to develop a novel approach to map airway patency and monitor lung function.

An SPR member since 2013, Dr. Forno is passionate about collaborative research and mentoring the next generation of pediatric clinician investigators. He is Associate Director of the T32 training grant in Pediatric Pulmonology at the University of Pittsburgh, as well faculty in the Pitt/CMU Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP). Other service and leadership positions in which he has participated include the Scientific Advisory Committee of the American Thoracic Society (ATS), the sub-board on Pediatric Pulmonology of the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP), the executive committees for the ATS Pediatrics Assembly and the Section on Genetics and Genomics, and the Severe Pediatric Asthma Consortium.

Dr. Forno is also actively involved in improving diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the pediatric workforce, both in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh and as co-chair of DEI working group of the ATS Pediatrics Assembly.

As member of the SPR Council, Dr. Forno will work to foster active mentorship and collaborative research in pediatrics; and will advocate for and prioritize initiatives that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion among SPR membership, the pediatric physician-scientist workforce, and the populations represented in pediatric research.

Council Position: Surgery/Pain/Anesthesiology/Pharmacology

Nobuyuki Ishibashi, MD

Dr. Ishibashi is Foglia-Hills Professor of Pediatric Cardiac Research at Children’s National Hospital and Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Pharmacology and Physiology at GWU. Previously Dr. Ishibashi completed clinical training in pediatric cardiac surgery at the Heart Institute of Japan. His research activities focus on studying how congenital heart disease (CHD) and cardiac surgery affect the rapidly developing brain. The goal of the Ishibashi laboratory is to develop new approaches that will reduce neurodevelopmental impairment in CHD. Results from his translational program have led to development of a Phase 1 trial at Children’s National, of which he is one of PIs. Dr. Ishibashi is a SPR member since 2018. By serving on the SPR Council position, he would like to accelerate development of a multi-disciplinary network of diverse researchers to elucidate the underlying etiologies, and ultimately improve disturbed development in children who need to undergo major surgery early in life.

Tamorah Lewis, MD PhD

Tamorah Lewis MD, PhD is an Associate Professor at University if Missouri, Kansas City SOM Department of Pediatrics, Neonatology and Pediatric Clinical Pharmacology. February 1, 2022 Dr Lewis starts as Division Chief of Pediatric Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario. Dr Lewis joined SPR in 2019 and serves on the SPR Diversity Committee, including organizing a PAS invited science session on Anti-Racism in Pediatrics for the 2020 meeting. Dr Lewis is a fierce advocate for Health Justice, both in insuring children and neonates have access to adequately researched therapeutics, and that children and providers of all backgrounds have equitable experiences in medicine. On the SPR Council, she looks forward to advancing efforts to increase academic pediatricians with training in and interest in clinical pharmacology. In addition, using the influence of SPR to advance the diversity of pediatric physician scientists is a top priority.