2022 Election Results – Society for Pediatric Research

2022 Election: Officers & Council Results

President-elect

Cristina 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. 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.

Director of Membership-elect

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.

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. 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.

Council Position: Public Health/Biostatistician/Epidemiology

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 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. In terms of formal education, I am a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (undergraduate), Emory University School of Medicine (medical school) and the Vanderbilt MSCI Program. I completed training in pediatrics at the University of Colorado where I subsequently served as Chief Resident, and pediatric pulmonary medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

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. 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.

Council Position: Surgery/Pain/Anesthesiology/Pharmacology

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.