SPR Welcomes New Members in 2022

Akchurin, Oleh

Oleh Akchurin, M.D., Ph.D. is a pediatric nephrologist with clinical and research interests in pediatric chronic kidney disease. Specifically, Dr. Akchurin focuses on the role of iron metabolism alterations in hematologic and non-hematologic manifestations and complications of chronic kidney disease in children, including effects of iron in kidney fibrosis. In his research, Dr. Akchurin utilizes animal models, human samples, and patient cohorts.

Aldoss, Osamah

His main research focus is intravascular interventions for patients with congenital heart disease. This includes the development of innovative interventional techniques and devices to improve outcomes in congenital heart disease. He has numerous publications related to novel approaches in congenital heart disease catheter-based interventions.

Alexander, Thomas

Dr. Alexander is combining cancer genomic sequencing with early phase clinical trials to improve outcomes in childhood leukemia. He is serves as co-investigator for several multi-institutional early phase clinical trials. In the lab, Dr. Alexander is exploring the biology of minimal residual disease in leukemia and developing of a novel sequencing platform for cancer diagnostics in low and middle income counties.

Ali, Noorjahan

Summary not available.

Ananth, Prasanna

Prasanna Ananth, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine and a palliative care researcher. Dr. Ananth’s NIH-funded research seeks to evaluate and enhance end-of-life care quality for children with cancer. She is the Principal Investigator of the Pediatric Advanced Cancer Experience (PACE) Laboratory [https://medicine.yale.edu/lab/pace/].

Anderson, Brett

Dr. Anderson is a pediatric cardiologist and NIH-funded health services researcher at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.  She is Director of Outcomes and Quality for the Pediatric Heart Center.  Her research focuses on the linkage and integration of large datasets and the application of econometric modeling to identify modifiable drivers of outcomes, value, and health inequities for children with congenital heart disease.

Antoon, James

Dr. Antoon is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics (Division of Hospital Medicine) at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is a physician scientist and health services researcher with a program focused on pharmacoepidemiology and medication safety in the pediatric population.

Ardura, Monica

Dr. Ardura is a pediatric infectious diseases (ID) physician at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University. Her clinical and research interests focus on the epidemiology and management of infections in immunocompromised children; she is the site PI in multi-institutional studies evaluating ID diagnostics and best practice prevention strategies, including optimizing vaccines in this population

Auerbach, Marc

Marc’s work focuses on the use of innovative techniques and technologies, such as simulation, to measure and improve the quality of pediatric emergency care. His overarching goal is to ensure that all children, no matter where they live, go to school or travel, receive the highest quality emergency medical care.

Babal, Jessica

Jess Babal, MD is a general pediatrician in Madison, Wisconsin. Her academic work examines healthcare culture and systems as contributors to workplace well-being and distress. She aims to advance the medical humanities in the educational and professional setting (eg. narrative medicine, reflective and creative writing, the creative arts, history and philosophy). Her publications have examined the impact of a storytelling event on resident wellness; factors that contribute to well-being for several populations, including pediatricians, pediatric residents, and student pharmacists; and gender bias in the teaching and learning environment. Along with her colleagues, she has has edited a forthcoming textbook, “Understanding and Cultivating Well-being for Pediatricians in the Digital Age.”

Badheka, Aditya

Dr. Badheka’s primary research interest to examine, analyze and evaluate outcomes data for various critical diseases including uncommon cardiac conditions. He also closely collaborate with the BioMechanics Of Soft Tissues (BioMOST) lab at University of Iowa Biomedical Engineering that uses principles in biomechanics, biomaterials, and medical image processing to study diseases of the cardiovascular systems and devices.

Bailey, Kelly

Dr. Bailey is a physician scientist in the Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at the UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Her clinical and research speciality is the adolescent primary bone tumor Ewing sarcoma. Dr. Bailey’s works focuses on the intersection of DNA damage and immunoregulatory pathways in this cancer. The overarching goal of her work is to determine new treatment approaches for patients with relapsed Ewing sarcoma.

Balevic, Stephen

Dr. Stephen Balevic is a Pediatric and Adult Rheumatologist at Duke University and a clinical researcher at the Duke Clinical Research Institute. His research interests are in optimizing pediatric therapeutics through novel clinical trial designs, and precision dosing through population pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic modeling. He currently serves as investigator or co-investigator for several pediatric clinical trials.

Bandyopadhyay, Anuja

Dr. Anuja Bandyopadhyay is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine. She is a board certified pediatric pulmonologist and sleep physician with a strong interest in clinical research on pediatric sleep disordered breathing. Her notable work includes studying neurodevelopmental outcomes of infant sleep apnea and myofunctional therapy in children with sleep disordered breathing.

Barhight, Matthew

Matthew Barhight, MD, MS is a pediatric critical care physician scientist. His research is in Critical Care Nephrology with a focus on acute kidney injury and fluid overload. He has published several highly regarded manuscripts evaluating hyperchloremia, maintenance fluids, and the use of balanced fluids in the context of acute kidney injury and critically ill children.

Barnes-Davis, Maria

Dr. Barnes-Davis uses neuroimaging to investigate brain development and to identify markers of resiliency in preterm children. She has discovered that children born preterm–but without brain injury or neurological impairment–have significantly altered brain connectivity. Her research following the largest cohort of extremely preterm children with magnetoencephalography provided the first multimodal study of preterm language networks.

Bednarski, Jeffrey

Dr. Bednarski is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He then completed residency in pediatrics at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and fellowship in hematology/oncology at Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Bednarski specializes in stem cell transplant for children with blood disorders and immune deficiencies. He is conducting clinical trials to improve bone marrow transplant for patients with immune deficiency and to bring new immune therapies to treatment of children with relapsed leukemia. Dr. Bednarski’s laboratory research focuses on understanding the mechanisms underlying development and function of the immune system. His research explores basic biology of the signals important for normal immune cell development and investigates how these signals are corrupted in immune deficiency and in the generation of leukemia and lymphoma.

Benninger, Kristen

Kristen Benninger, MD, MSc, is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Attending Neonatologist and PI in the Center for Perinatal Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Her research interests include investigating the impact of in-utero opioid exposure on the developing brain and improving neurodevelopmental outcomes of children with in-utero opioid exposure and other neural insults.

Bhatt, Parth

I am board certified pediatrician working at United Hospital Center, WVU Medicine. I completed my undergrad studies in India and then pursued Master of Public Health with concentration in Epidemiology from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and then completed my pediatric residency training at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Amarillo. My research is focused on epidemiology and outcomes in children.

Blau, Jonathan

Dr. Blau is Director of Neonatology and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Staten island University Hospital – Northwell Health. His main academic interest lies in antimicrobial stewardship. His most recent two publications on the topic have led to the creation of antibiotic stewardship protocols for the Northwell Health system’s annual 40,000 births. He is currently researching the safety of limiting neonatal sepsis evaluations to 36 hours.

Boyle, Tehnaz

Dr. Boyle is a pediatric emergency physician and federally funded health services researcher at Boston Medical Center. Her research focuses on developing and testing telehealth system innovations for emergency settings using stakeholder-led design, medical simulation and clinical trials. Dr. Boyle advises the Massachusetts EMS for Children Program, the Region 1 Disaster Health Response System, and the National Emergency Telecritical Care Network.

Brown, Callie

Dr. Brown is a general pediatrician and an assistant professor in Pediatrics and Epidemiology and Prevention at Wake Forest School of Medicine. Her research focuses on obesity prevention and treatment in early childhood, specifically how early childhood feeding behaviors, parent concerns about their child’s growth, and social determinants of health such as food insecurity are associated with parent feeding practices and children’s obesity risk.

Callahan, Ryan

Ryan Callahan, MD is as an interventional pediatric cardiologist in the department of cardiology at the Boston Children’s Hospital as well as an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School.  His research interests include pulmonary vein stenosis, coronary artery disease and anomalies in pediatric and young adult patients and fetal cardiac interventions in fetuses with congenital heart disease.

Carpenter, Jessica

Summary not available.

Caruso Brown, Amy

Amy Caruso Brown, MD, MS, HEC-C, FAAP is currently the Interim Chair of Bioethics and Humanities and an Associate Professor of Bioethics and Humanities and of Pediatrics at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY. She is also a board-certified pediatric hematologist/oncologist and clinical ethics consultant. Dr. Caruso Brown graduated from the University of Virginia with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2002, where she was an Echols Scholar and a member of the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society and a Peer Health Educator. She then spent time traveling and studying at the University of Copenhagen, before enrolling at the Emory University School of Medicine in 2003. While at Emory, she served on the President’s Commission on the Status of Women.

Caverly, Lindsay

Summary not available.

Chegondi, Madhuradhar

Dr. Chegondi, currently working as clinical associate professor at University of Iowa with an appointment in the Department of Pediatrics and as PCCM physician. His research interests are sepsis, extracorporeal therapies, and blood products. Currently, working to assess platelet transfusion effect on ECMO oxygenator function and assessing platelet mass index prognostic performance in sepsis. He also  collaborated with many other studies.

Chou, Danny

Danny Chou is currently an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics Endocrinology at Stanford University. His research aims to develop novel insulin therapeutics with a focus on type 1 diabetes.

Cifra, Christina

Dr. Cifra is a health services researcher in the field of diagnostic excellence in critical care. She completed pediatric critical care fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and received formal quality improvement training at the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. She completed her MS degree in Translational Biomedicine at the University of Iowa. Dr. Cifra has published seminal studies on diagnostic error in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and has proposed a unified research agenda for diagnostic excellence in critical medicine. She is currently studying diagnostic error epidemiology and the role of diagnostic uncertainty in the assessment of critically ill children on PICU admission and is conducting ethnographic work in the PICU to delineate the role of referral communication in the PICU diagnostic process. She is also leading innovative work on standardizing referral communication for inter-facility transfers to the PICU and improving feedback to PICU-referring clinicians.

Cil, Onur

Dr. Cil is a pediatric nephrologist. Cil Lab’s research focus is drug discovery and repurposing for renal, gastrointestinal and cardiovascular diseases. Ultimate goal of his research is advancing discoveries to clinical trials and establishing better and safer treatments. Dr. Cil’s research focus is membrane proteins including calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR), SLC26A3 (DRA), SLC26A4 (Pendrin), SLC26A6 (PAT1), CFTR, TMEM16A and urea transporters.

Coburn, Shayna

Shayna Coburn, PhD is a licensed psychologist specializing in self-management of chronic illness in children and their families, particularly for conditions requiring special diets. She is the Director of Psychosocial Services in the Celiac Disease Program at Children’s National Hospital and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She currently has a Career Development Award from NIDDK to refine and test a group intervention designed to improve self-management and quality of life in teens with celiac disease.

Cortez, Josef

Dr. Josef Cortez is Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Florida College of Medicine – Jacksonville. His research has focused on biomarker discovery and neonatal-perinatal exposures including antenatal and postnatal corticosteroids, and the fetal inflammatory response on neonatal outcomes and morbidities. He has collaborated on various quality improvement research in reducing sepsis, decreasing antibiotic usage, and increasing use of mothers’ own milk in neonates with neonatal abstinence syndrome.

Cuna, Alain

Dr. Alain Cuna is a physician-scientist whose research interest is in necrotizing enterocolitis – a devastating inflammatory bowel disease that affects preterm infants. His current research focuses on how host genetics and intestinal bacterial communities interact with each other to modulate inflammation in the developing neonatal gut.

Dang Do, An

An Ngoc Dang Do, MD PhD conducts research at the National Institutes of Health.  Her primary research interest involves understanding the variable expression of disease phenotypes and the role of cellular stress in the underlying pathophysiology.  She collaborates with study participants, family support organizations, academic and industry investigators to build a research program that translates findings between the bedside and the laboratory.

De Keyser, Heather

Dr. De Keyser has always had an interest in improving the lives of children with asthma.  To that end, she has conducted research in multiple areas, with the overall goal of predicting and preventing asthma exacerbations.  She has utilized large databases to evaluate predictors of asthma exacerbations.  Additionally, she has used novel technology to evaluate medication use patterns in children with asthma.

Donnelly, Katie

Dr. Donnelly’s goal is to develop interventions for use in the ED to prevent injury in vulnerable populations. Her research interest is understanding and preventing pediatric firearm injuries. She is a pediatric emergency medicine physician, a public health researcher and an injury prevention advocate. She is also a member of SAFER (Safer through Advocacy, Firearm Education and Research) and FACTS (Firearm Safety in Children and Adolescents).

Dylag, Andrew

Dr. Andrew Dylag is a clinical neonatologist and physician-scientist interested in how oxygen exposure at birth leads to abnormal lung development and life-long morbidity after the neonatal intensive care unit hospitalization. His laboratory focuses on how hyperoxia increases immune cell recruitment to the lung.

Elliott, Amy

Dr. Elliott is the Chief Clinical Research Officer for the Avera Research Institute and a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, University of South Dakota School of Medicine. Dr. Elliott’s research is on the effects of prenatal exposures, particularly alcohol and nicotine, on development.  Dr. Elliott has been the Principal Investigator of numerous NIH-funded multi-site longitudinal projects focused on maternal and child health, as well as American Indian health initiatives.

Feltman, Dalia

Interest in practice variability at the borders of viability prompted Dr. Feltman to assemble the Investigating Neonatal Decisions for Extremely Early Deliveries (INDEED) study group which retrospectively reviews maternal, fetal, and care-center factors in delivery room decisions for newborns less than 25 weeks gestation.  Originally comprise of 6 centers, INDEED now includes perinatal physicians and trainees at 16 U.S. training centers.

Findley, Tina

A primary area of interest for Dr. Findley is in translational research of congenital heart defects with a focus on genetic and environmental factors resulting in cardiac maldevelopment.  Additionally, she is interested in identifying genomic risk factors for poorer postsurgical outcomes that can eventually become therapeutic targets to improve survival and outcomes in children with congenital heart defects.

Fisher, Wayne

Wayne Fisher is the Henry Rutgers Endowed Professor of Pediatrics in the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and a core faculty member of the Brain Health Institute. He is also the inaugural director of the Rutgers University Center for Autism Research, Education, and Service (RUCARES), a board-certified behavior analyst at the doctoral level (BCBA-D), and a licensed psychologist. He was previously a tenured professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Kennedy Krieger Institute, where he built clinical-research programs in autism and developmental disabilities with international reputations for excellence. Fisher’s methodologically sophisticated research has focused on several intersecting lines, including mathematical models of behavior, preference assessment, choice responding, and the assessment and treatment of autism and severe behavior disorders.

Flores, Anthony

Dr. Flores is a tenured Associate Professor and Chief of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Pediatrics at McGovern Medical School in Houston, TX.  Dr. Flores’ research focuses on the genomic epidemiology and virulence mechanisms of pathogenic streptococci (group A and B streptococci) and is funded by grant awards from the NIH/NIAID.  Dr. Flores has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles and several book chapters.

Flores, Saul

Saul Flores, MD, is a Cardiac Intensivist and Cardiologist an Associate Professor of Pediatrics with Tenure on the Clinician-Educator track at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Flores cares for pediatric and adult patients with congenital and acquired heart disease requiring critical care at Texas Children’s Hospital. Dr. Flores completed his training in cardiology, critical care, and critical heart care at Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Dr. Flores’ research portfolio includes translational research, data process/analytics and ultrasound applications. Dr. Flores was recently named co-chair of the ultrasound: Pediatric and Neonatal Committee for the Society of Critical Care Medicine. Dr. Flores is also an active educator and is part of the Baylor College of Medicine-Faculty College, a program developed to foster educational leaders. Dr. Flores has received an educational grant from Texas Children’s Hospital to develop an educational platform that uses gamification principles to accelerate learning to master early pediatric cardiology learners.

Forbes Satter, Lisa

Lisa R. Forbes Satter, MD’s primary clinical and research focuses on immune deficiency and immune dysregulation as well as novel gene discovery in immunodeficiency with >50 peer reviewed publications.  She is committed to contributing to world class science and clinical care by furthering novel discoveries, educating peers, and the public to help advance and shape guiding principles of excellence.

Foster, Carolyn

Dr. Foster is a committed health services researcher who develops care advancements for children with medical complexity (CMC) and their families, with a focus on in-home care. She has researched the 1) barriers providers face caring for CMC, 2) factors affecting CMC hospital-to-home transitions, 3) quality measures and Medicaid policy of home health care, 4) family caregiving impact and supports, and 5) use of remote patient monitoring at home.

Frey, Sean

Dr. Frey is a general pediatrician who is interested in identifying barriers and patient-centered approaches to self-management among children with asthma and other chronic illnesses. Dr. Frey’s research includes the first study to associate caregiver inability to identify asthma medications with poor adherence and control. He has also examined outpatient asthma education and the transition of responsibility for medication use.

Gandhi, Chintan

Chintan Gandhi, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at the Penn State College of Medicine. Dr. Gandhi’s primary research focus is to understand the role of surfactant protein genetic variants on various pulmonary diseases. He studies host pathogen interactions, innate immune responses to bacterial and viral infections, with a particular focus on respiratory syncytial virus infection.

Gillick, Bernadette

Dr. Bernadette Gillick is a Neuroscientist and Pediatric Physical Therapist, and Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison within the School of Medicine and Public Health. Dr. Gillick is Director of the Waisman Center Pediatric Neuromodulation Laboratory overseeing neuromodulation and neuroimaging research across the lifespan from infancy to adulthood. Dr. Gillick’s research focuses on understanding recovery and development after early brain injury and the development of cerebral palsy. Her goal is to identify biomarkers of recovery and create novel treatments to improve outcomes during infancy and for a lifetime. Dr. Gillick has extensive National Institutes of Health funding, including multiple R01 awards investigating infant stroke and neurorecovery.

Glomb, Nicolaus

Nicolaus W. Glomb is a pediatric emergency medicine physician with a research focus on prehospital care, behavioral health, and global health. Dr. Glomb serves as an Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Scientific Advisor for the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN). Dr. Glomb’s projects include educational research and a focus on improving the care of pediatric patient utilizing prehospital systems.

Gloyn, Anna

Dr. Anna Gloyn is a human geneticist with research interests in the genetics of pancreatic islet cell dysfunction in diabetes and related disorders in children & adults.  Dr Gloyn is a member of multiple international consortia focused on translating genetic discoveries into molecular mechanisms and therapeutic insights.  Anna’s expertise is in functional genomics and using genetics to leverage mechanisms for pancreatic islet cell dysfunction.

Glykys, Joseph

Dr. Glykys research focuses on how the inhibitory system works at the cellular level and the relationship between neuronal edema, seizures, and altered chloride homeostasis during pathological conditions. Dr. Glykys received his Medical Degree from the Universidad de Carabobo, Valencia, Venezuela, followed by a Ph.D. at UCLA, and post-doctoral studies and child neurology residency at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Gogcu, Semsa

Semsa Gogcu, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Wake Forest University, Winston Salem, NC. She is board certified in pediatrics and neonatology with expertise in the follow up of premature infants and neonatal neurology. Her research interests are centered around short and long term physical and neurodevelopmental outcomes of extremely premature babies. She also serves as the Treasurer for Eastern Society for Pediatric Research.

Greer, Brian

Brian D. Greer directs the Severe Behavior Program within the Rutgers University Center for Autism Research, Education, and Services. He is an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics and a core member of the Brain Health Institute. He received a Bachelor of Science in psychology from the University of Florida, a Master of Arts in applied behavioral science and a Ph.D. in behavioral psychology, both from the University of Kansas. He later completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. He is a current associate editor for Behavioral Development and the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and has served as a guest associate editor for the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, Perspectives on Behavior Science, and Learning and Motivation.

Gupta, Olga

Throughout her career Dr. Gupta has used her clinical encounters to formulate patient-oriented research questions.  As a result of her research during fellowship training, 18F-DOPA PET scanning is now considered the standard of care in diagnosing infants with congenital hyperinsulinism.  More recently, Dr. Gupta has conducted several studies investigating the psychosocial aspects of diabetes in the toddler and adolescent populations.

Halabi, Carmen

Carmen’s interest in vascular biology began during graduate school and solidified during her fellowship training when she examined the cardiovascular consequences of different classes of anti-hypertensives in a mouse model of elastin insufficiency. In her own lab, Carmen focuses on understanding differences between large and small arteries in the context of vascular development and disease, particularly aneurysms and hypertension.

Hamdy, Rana

Dr. Rana Hamdy is a pediatric infectious diseases physician at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dr. Hamdy obtained her medical degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and completed her pediatrics residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital and her pediatric infectious diseases fellowship training at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Her research training includes a Masters in Public Health Degree from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Masters of Science in Clinical Epidemiology degree from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Hamdy serves as Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at Children’s National, as the Stewardship Advisor to the Antibiotic Resistant Action Center of the George Washington Milken School of Public Health, and as the Chair of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society’s Committee on Antimicrobial Stewardship. Dr. Hamdy’s research focuses on the clinical epidemiology and optimal diagnosis and treatment of various pediatric infections with the ultimate goal of improving the way that antibiotics are prescribed. Dr. Hamdy also studies implementation strategies promoting antimicrobial stewardship in the inpatient and outpatient settings including the urgent care and telemedicine settings.

Hanudel, Mark

Dr. Hanudel is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the UCLA Division of Pediatric Nephrology. He conducts basic science and translational research investigating the interrelated comorbidities of chronic kidney disease, including anemia, iron dysregulation, and mineral and bone disease. Specifically, he studies the physiologic and pathologic relationships among fibroblast growth factor 23, phosphate metabolism, iron status, and erythropoiesis.

Hashmi, Syed

Syed Hashmi MD, MPH, PhD is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth. He is the Director, Bioinformatics Core and Vice Chair for Diversity & Inclusion in the Department of Pediatrics. His research focuses on congenital and early childhood conditions. He is involved in the design, analysis and promotion of a wide variety of clinical, genetic and epidemiologic research, especially in underserved populations.

Haward, Marlyse

Dr. Marlyse Haward is a neonatologist and bioethicist affiliated with Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Children’s Hospital at Montefiore. Her research combines bioethics, behavioral decision research and communication strategies to inform decision making under conditions of uncertainty and guide antenatal counselling practices for infants born extremely premature. She advocates for personalized communication strategies to support parents.

Held, Patrice

Summary not available.

Herington, Jennifer

Her laboratory is focused on tocolytic drug discovery for the prevention of preterm labor. She has established a drug discovery strategy to identify novel small-molecules that therapeutically inhibit contractions with greater uterine-selectivity and therapeutic index than current tocolytics. She is actively exploring drug synergy and repurposing FDA-approved drugs for novel tocoytic use.

Hieftje, Kimberly

Kimberly Hieftje, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the play4REAL XR Lab at Yale, which focuses on the development and evaluation of theory and evidence-informed video game interventions using extended reality (virtual reality and augmented reality) and game technology to improve the lives of youth.

Hofmann, Inga

Summary not available.

Horani, Amjad

Dr. Horani is a Pediatric Pulmonologist at Washington University in St. Louis, and the director of the PCD and rare lung disease center. His work focuses on understanding the genetic basis of lung disease and define the genetic and molecular factors important for airway epithelial cell development, with special interest in motile cilia and primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD), a rare condition that affects the function of motile cilia.

Iyer, Narayan

Dr Iyer is a neonatologist at the Fetal and Neonatal Institute, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California. Dr Iyer has research interest in neonatal lung physiology, bronchopulmonary dysplasia and the long-term outcomes of neonatal lung injury. Dr Iyer is also an expert in evidence synthesis and clinical practice guideline development and is the Co-Chair of American Thoracic Society’s Evidence Synthesis Methodology Working Group. Dr. Iyer’s research is focused on the development of biomarkers using tools that can assess pulmonary structure and function.  In his current study he aims to measure the effort of breathing during different modes of pre-extubation spontaneous breathing trials (SBT) and describe the prevalence of respiratory muscle weakness using integrated esophageal manometry and respiratory inductance plethysmography (RIP). He is also studying the use of forced oscillometry in assessing pulmonary function in newborn infants. As a methodologist trained in the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach, Dr Iyer has assisted in the development of several international guidelines on adult and pediatric lung diseases.

Jacob, Seethal

Dr. Seethal Jacob is a Pediatric Hematologist and Health Services Researcher with a specific interest in developing and evaluating interventions to improve access and quality of subspecialty care for children with sickle cell disease (SCD).  She was recently awarded a K23 from the NHLBI for her project entitled “Telemedicine for Pediatric Sickle Cell Care in Medically Underserved Communities.”

Jan, Sophia

Dr. Jan is the Division Chief of Pediatrics at Cohen Children’s Medical Center of Northwell Health. Her research includes policies and care models for children with special healthcare needs transitioning to adult-centered care. She is the PI of several federally and foundation funded research projects focusing on the delivery of healthcare and long-term care services for children and adults with chronic conditions originating in childhood.

Kaciroti, Niko

My methodological research interest is on using Bayesian methods for analyzing longitudinal data from randomized clinical trials with dropouts. My applied research is related to: the effect of iron deficiency on brain, behavior and development; modeling the predictors and effective interventions on childhood obesity; the integration of biological, environmental, and behavior levels of analysis on child development using multilevel multivariate.

Kakkilaya, Venkat

Dr. Kakkilaya’s  primary area of research is non invasive respiratory support in preterm infants. He spearheaded QI projects to avoid mechanical ventilation at birth with effective face mask ventilation and in the NICU with CPAP and less invasive surfactant administration (LISA).  He conducted a RCT comparing two methods of stopping CPAP. Currently, he is leading a study evaluating use of LISA in the delivery room in extremely preterm infants.

Kalish, Brian

Dr. Brian Kalish is a Clinician-Scientist and Staff Neonatologist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. He is an Assistant Professor of Paediatrics and Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto, as well as the Director of Research in Neonatology. The mission of the Kalish Lab is to understand how pregnancy and early life experience shape neurodevelopment and plasticity.

Karnati, Sreenivas

Dr Sreenivas Karnati is a staff Neonatologist at Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital and is a clinical assistant professor of Pediatrics at Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. Dr Karnati’s research areas include growth and neuro developmental outcomes of high risk infants. Dr Karnati is currently involved in a study of preterm infant gut microbiome and growth outcomes. Dr Karnati was recently awarded an intra mural grant to study the long term neuro developmental effects of music in infants treated for neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS).

Kaye, Erica

Erica C. Kaye, MD, MPH, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Oncology and Director of the Research Division of Quality of Life and Palliative Care at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Her research centers on developing and testing clinical interventions to improve prognostic communication and integration of pediatric palliative care within cancer care. Dr. Kaye received her Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Yale, her Medical Degree from Harvard, and her Master’s in Public Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a focus on qualitative and mixed methodology training. She completed her pediatrics residency at Boston Children’s Hospital, followed by two subspecialty fellowships in pediatric hematology-oncology and hospice and palliative medicine at St. Jude. She currently practices clinically as a pediatric palliative oncologist on faculty at St. Jude.

Kimonis, Virginia

Dr. Kimonis is currently a clinician Scientist and tenured professor in the Division of Genetics and Genomic Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, UC Irvine, and Children’s Hospital, Orange County. Dr. Kimonis received her medical degree from Southampton Medical School, United Kingdom and trained in pediatrics and general practice in the UK before moving to the US.  She completed a residency in pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston and fellowship training in Clinical and Biochemical Genetics at the National Institutes of Health, Johns Hopkins and Washington D.C. Children’s Hospital. She is board certified in Pediatrics, Clinical and Biochemical Genetics. She previously served as the Chief of Genetics at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine.  She worked at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School before joining UC Irvine in 2006 as the Chief of the Division of Genetic Medicine and Genomic Medicine until 2012.

Kogon, Amy

Amy Kogon MD MPH is an Assistant Professor in Pediatric Nephrology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Her research focuses on improving the lives of children and adolescents living with pediatric CKD by focusing on understanding the psychosocial and cognitive impacts of CKD as well as the cardiometabolic morbidity of CKD.

Kortz, Teresa

Dr. Teresa Kortz, MD, MS, PhDc, is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics in the Division of Critical Care Medicine and Affiliate Faculty of the Institute of Global Health Sciences (GHS) at the University of California, San Francisco. She has a master’s degree in GHS and a PhD in Clinical Research in progress. She is an NIH-funded researcher who studies pediatric sepsis etiology, prognostic biomarkers, and clinical outcomes in East Africa.

Kraft, Stephanie

Stephanie Kraft, JD, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine and the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics at Seattle Children’s Research Institute. She is a lawyer and bioethicist with a scholarly emphasis on improving participants’ and families’ experiences in clinical research. Her research aims to remove barriers to research participation and to build a trustworthy and respectful research enterprise.

Kratimenos, Panagiotis

Dr. Kratimenos is a neonatologist and neuroscientist, who studies mechanisms of brain injury in the neonate with the goal of preventing its sequelae later in life. His interest lies in identifying therapies to prevent or improve neurodevelopmental disabilities of sick newborns caused by prematurity and perinatal insults.

Kroshus, Emily

Summary not available.

Kunz, Sarah

Sarah Kunz, MD, MPH is a neonatologist and health services researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA, and is an Instructor in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on neonatal regionalization, with a goal of improving care and outcomes for infants by better understanding and optimizing their systems of care so that they are either born in the right setting or appropriately and seamlessly transferred to receive risk-appropriate care. By developing new approaches to quantify neonatal regionalization utilizing network analysis in addition to traditional epidemiologic approaches, her work will better define the context of care for sick infants and ultimately improve these systems in order to improve clinical and care equity outcomes.

Kuo, Christin

Dr. Christin Kuo is an Assistant Professor at Stanford University. She specializes in developmental lung disorders as well as interstitial lung diseases. Her research focuses on the development and function of specialized and sparsely-distributed airway epithelial cells called pulmonary neuroendocrine cells (PNECs). Her lab is studying the cellular basis of human lung neuroendocrine pathologies and identifying diverse signals of individual cells and their targets to understand their physiologic functions.

Lamers, Luke

Summary not available.

Lancaster, Blake

Dr. Lancaster’s scholarly contributions revolve around improving access to evidence-based behavioral health services in the pediatric primary care setting through his Integrated Behavioral Health program.  This research includes investigation into how to best train psychologists and physicians on the most efficient methods to deliver evidence-based behavioral health protocols within the context of the primary care setting.

Landis, Benjamin

Dr. Ben Landis is a pediatric cardiologist at Indiana University School of Medicine with a special interest in cardiovascular genetics. His primary areas of research are aortopathy and congenital heart disease. Currently, his research seeks to understand the causes and genetic modifiers of thoracic aortic aneurysm. Clinically, he is the medical director of the Multidisciplinary Aortopathy Clinic at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis.

Legare, Janet

Dr. Janet Legare is a pediatrician in the divisions of Genetics and Development at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. She heads both the Midwest Regional Bone Dysplasia Clinic and the Neuromotor Developmental Clinic. In both clinics she treats patients with genetic diagnoses as a whole person, integrating all body systems into the care she provides. Dr. Legare’s research primarily focuses on skeletal dysplasia, but she also has research projects in neonatal follow up care and the early diagnosis of cerebral palsy. Her clinical research mostly looks at treatments and interventions in different skeletal dysplasia diagnoses. She is also involved in clinical trials for new treatments for achondroplasia.

Lighter, Jennifer

Dr Lighter is a Pediatric Infectious Diseases specialist and Hospital Epidemiologist. She is actively engaged in the clinical care of children with infections, research on the transmission of infectious diseases in healthcare and community settings and teaching to other care providers. Dr. Lighter’s primary areas of research include outbreaks of  MRSA, measles and Covid and she focuses on Quality Improvement within NYU Langone Health.

Liu, Yuying

Dr. Yuying Liu’s research interests focus on the impact of probiotics in neonatal GI-related diseases and autoimmune disorders; the mechanism of probiotics in regulating immunity, modulating gut microbiota and microbial-associated metabolites; the effects of probiotics in gut-brain axis; and the effect of human breast milk factors on the function of probiotics.

Maddux, Aline

Dr. Maddux is a Pediatric Intensivist at the University of Colorado, Children’s Hospital Colorado. Her research program focuses on long term outcomes after critical illness and injury. Her career goals are to identify, develop, and refine the tools employed to effectively measure longterm outcomes in order to test innovative interventions to mitigate post-discharge sequelae for this vulnerable population and their families.

Makker, Kartikeya

Kartikeya Makker, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Neonatology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He is the Medical Director of the NICU at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. Dr. Makker also co-chairs the divisional QI team and is a co-chair webinar educational committee of the Council of Quality improvement and Patient Safety of AAP. Dr. Makker’s clinical research focus is on the developmental origins of health and disease. With his mentor’s team at the Center on the Early Life Origins of Disease at Bloomberg School of Public Health he is conducting clinical and molecular epidemiological research to explore the effect of prematurity on development of metabolic syndrome in early childhood.

Manworren, Renee

Manworren seeks to culturally transform our sensitivity to children’s pain: to better prevent, assess, & treat children’s pain, especially predictable pain & nonverbal children. Her research focus is acute, post-operative & procedural pain; risk factors for challenging to control pain, including genetic & epigenetic differences in pain sensitivity & analgesic metabolism; transition from acute to chronic pain; and predictors of opioid misuse.

Marcil, Lucy

Dr. Marcil researches financial interventions to build racial and health equity for children. She co-founded StreetCred, which embeds underutilized economic services in pediatrics. It has returned $9 million in tax refunds to > 4000 families. Her research found these services to be acceptable and feasible. She has also undertaken qualitative studies to understand women’s perspectives on the effect of financial strain on them and their children.

Marks, Brynn

Dr. Marks’ research has focused on promoting equal access to diabetes technologies among people of all races, ethnicities, and socioeconomic statuses while also developing innovative app-based  educational curricula designed to improve knowledge and alter behaviors surrounding these devices in order to improve the lives and clinical outcomes of all people living with diabetes.

McBride, Mary

Dr. Mary McBride is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Education at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Clinically, she is a pediatric cardiac intensivist. Academically, her area of focus is medical education using simulation to study teaching effectiveness and assessment in the areas of cardiac critical care, medical training and resuscitation.

McGraw, Matthew

Dr. McGraw is an Assistant Professor and Pediatric Pulmonologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center.  Clinically, he cares for children with all forms of pediatric lung diseases, including cystic fibrosis, asthma, and childhood interstitial lung disease (chILD). The primary focus of his basic science lab is to better understand the mechanisms of bronchiolitis obliterans (BO), a rare lung disease currently with no treatment.

McHenry, Megan

Megan S. McHenry, MD, MS, FAAP is a pediatrician and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Ryan White Center for Pediatric Infectious Disease and Global Health at Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr. McHenry’s research focuses on early childhood development in children living in resource-limited settings.  Her research is based within the Academic Model for Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH) Research Network in Kenya.

Menon, Shina

Dr Shina Menon, MD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital. She is also the Medical Director for the Acute Renal Therapies program, and the Associate Medical Director for the Apheresis program. She received her medical degree from Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi and completed a residency in pediatrics at Lok Nayak Hospital. After residency, she worked as a clinical researcher in Pediatric Nephrology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. Following this, she completed her Pediatric Nephrology fellowship and Pediatric residency at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan, Detroit. She then completed a 4th year fellowship in Acute Care Nephrology and Dialysis at the Center for Acute Care Nephrology (CACN) at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Her research focuses on Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) and Critical Care Nephrology. She is interested in the use of biomarkers and clinical decision support systems for early identification of AKI. She also does research on long term outcomes after AKI.

Mercer-Rosa, Laura

Laura Mercer-Rosa is a clinician-scientist with training in pediatric cardiology, echocardiography and clinical epidemiology. She conducts patient-oriented clinical research with a focus on outcomes in children with congenital heart defects, in particular those with tetralogy of Fallot. Dr. Mercer-Rosa also investigates determinants of right ventricular function in congenital heart defects and in systemic pediatric illnesses.

Mydam, Janardhan

My research interests include racial disparities and birth outcomes with a special focus on “Black Latinas”. My main work findings were published in the Matern Child Health J. I am a reviewer for the PAS, APHA, and J Perinatal. I’m also interested in PDA-related research in VLBW babies; racial differences in COVID-19 infection, among pregnant women and newborns. I’m also site lead of multi-center clinical trial PREMOD2.

Neel, Mary Lauren

Mary Lauren Neel is a physician-scientist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. The goal of her work is to promote best possible neurodevelopmental outcomes for former preterm, and other high-risk, infants by leveraging parenting style and parent/child interactions to improve child neurodevelopment. Current projects include early identification of at-risk parent/infant dyads and mechanistic and multimodal studies of parent/infant interactions.

Ogden, Kristen

Kristen M. Ogden, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She uses molecular virology approaches to understand how rotavirus and reovirus acquire genetic diversity and how this diversity impacts virus and host populations. A long-term goal of this work is to make discoveries that enable rational engineering of improved vaccines and therapeutics.

Oishi, Kimihiko

Dr. Oishi is an ABP and ABMGG-certified physician-scientist. During his early career, he identified the disease-causing genes and disease mechanisms of thiamin-responsive megaloblastic anemia syndrome and Noonan syndrome. Currently, Dr. Oishi focuses on clinical and basic studies in inborn error of metabolism and genetic syndromes with special interests in the mechanism of disease and development of new therapies.

Parker, Margaret

Dr. Parker is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Director of Newborn Research at Boston Medical Center (BMC), Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Parker is a neonatal health services researcher and holds several federal and foundation grants in the area of social disparities in preterm birth outcomes; she has a particular interest in safe sleep and breastfeeding.  Dr. Parker is also an expert in multi-site implementation science and is the Co-Chair of the Neonatal Quality Improvement Collaborative of Massachusetts and an Improvement Advisor from the Institute of Healthcare Improvement. She has led multi-site NICU quality improvements focused on breastfeeding and family engagement. Dr. Parker applies a health equity lens to her local and multi-site quality improvement projects.

Pasca, Anca

Dr. Pasca is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics/Neonatology at Stanford University. Her research focuses on identification of neuroprotective strategies for neonatal brain injury of environmental (e.g. hypoxia) and genetic causes.  For this, she uses region-specific organoids derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells, a platform she has pioneered during her training.

Patni, Nivedita

Dr. Patni is Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Her research is focused on genetic dyslipidemias and lipodystrophy syndromes in children. She is studying genetic basis of hypertriglyceridemia in children. Her pilot study of Orlistat in patients with type 1 hyperlipoproteinemia showed promising results; and she is awaiting funding to start a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial for these patients.

Paulsen, Megan

Dr. Paulsen is a physician-scientist in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Her primary research interest is investigating programming effects of perinatal stress on long-term hypothalamic mediated metabolic outcomes.  She aims to discover novel therapies that prevent, or reverse stress mediated functional changes in hypothalamic development thereby improving neurometabolic health over the life course.

Peacock-Chambers, Elizabeth

Summary not available.

Pfister, Katie

Katie’s research interests began during her neonatal-perinatal fellowship at the University of Minnesota where she focused on using event-related potentials (ERP) to assess early brain development and its relation to growth in preterm infants.  Now faculty at the U of MN, she continues using ERP to study brain development in at-risk groups including infants with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy and those with congenital heart disease.

Pierce, Richard

Richard Pierce grew up in the midwest and completed medical school in Illinois and pediatric residency at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center before coming to Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital for pediatric critical care fellowship and remined as faculty. He provides care to critically ill children and directs several translational research projects focused on the mechanisms by which endothelial cells regulate blood vessel permeability.

Purevjav, Enkhsaikhan

Dr. Purevjav is a physician-scientist and her research focus involves cardiomyopathy and heart failure. She is a former recipient of SPR Basic Research Fellow Award. Currently, she is the PI on currently funded R01 grant on discovering modifier genes in cardiomyopathy. Dr. Purevjav has been highly successful to date, with multiple national and international presentations and 32 peer-reviewed manuscripts published in high-impact journals.

Quinonez, Shane

Dr. Quinonez has focused his career on establishing medical genetics as an important area of global health. This involves ongoing medical genetics capacity building projects in Ethiopia, Ghana and Nepal and has utilized a mobile health application, the MiGene Family History App, which he designed and had developed for this work. His efforts have spanned multiple disciplines, areas of medicine and geographical locations throughout the world.

Raffatellu, Manuela

Dr. Manuela Raffatellu is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego. The main goal of Dr. Raffatellu’s research is to understand the complex interplay between gut pathogens, mucosal immunity, and the gut microbiota, with the long-term goal of discovering therapeutic targets for controlling infection.

Rahhal, Riad

Dr Rahhal joined the University of Iowa as a faculty member in 2007. As a junior faculty, he obtained a masters degree in clinical investigation. He has maintained active involvement in clinical research including prospective and retrospective cohort studies and systematic reviews with focus on the field of pediatric endoscopy and pediatric intestinal failure including optimal maintenance of central venous access and infection prevention.

Richter, Robert

Dr. Richter is a board-certified pediatric intensivist whose translational research focuses on mechanisms driving pathophysiologic endothelial cell signaling through glycocalyx injury. The goal of this cutting edge science is to discover novel treatment strategies to ameliorate or reverse endothelial dysfunction that will ultimately lead to improved organ function and clinical outcomes during systemic diseases like sepsis and polytrauma.

Robbins, Mary

Dr. Robbins is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern and the Ann & Robert H Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Her research focuses on cellular communication in lung development and the pathologic changes that result in Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia (BPD). Her primary research project is on the role of the miR-17-92 cluster in normal lung development and how it may influence the structural and functional deficits found in BPD.

Rosenberg, Rebecca

As pediatric hospitalist and complex care pediatrician working with diverse communities, Dr.Rosenberg focuses on translational research of family centered challenges across the care continuum.  She has led or participated in studies of: pediatric postoperative pain and care transitions; epidemiology and quality improvement of healthcare acquired conditions, and multidisciplinary qualitative community-based research on epidemic MRSA (submitted).

Ross, Mindy

My current research uses patient-entered information along with electronic health record (EHR) data to assist with clinical decision support for a more comprehensive and personalized asthma management plan. I would like to improve upon decision support approaches and continue working to find efficient ways for families to partner with their healthcare providers to enhance their child’s asthma management.

Sajti, Eniko

Enikő Sajti is an associate professor at UC San Diego and a board-certified pediatrician and neonatologist at Rady Children’s Hospital. She received her training at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, UC San Francisco and Harvard Medical School/Boston Children’s Hospital. Her research focuses on the relative contribution of various subtypes of innate immune cells to premature birth related lung disease and impaired neurodevelopmental outcome.

Samiee-Zafarghandy, Samira

Samira Samiee-Zafarghandy, MD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology, and a Pediatric Clinical Pharmacologist. Samira’s research goal is advancement of quality and quantity of neonatal pharmacology data, with a focus on optimal drug dosing in sick neonates hospitalized in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Samira has been awarded operational funding to support her Program of Research for Optimal NEOnatal DRUG Therapy (PRO-NeoDrug) and she supervises undergraduate and graduate trainees on their clinical pharmacology project through McMaster Neonatal Pharmacology Working Group.

Samuel, Joyce

Joyce Samuel is committed to improving the health of children by promoting the integration of evidence-based approaches within usual practice. Her work in adapting the use of n-of-1 trials in children with hypertension holds the potential to fill in important gaps in evidence where traditional large trials are not feasible.  N-of-1 trials allow personalized yet data-driven decisions when choosing antihypertensive medications in children.

Sanderson, Keia

Dr. Sanderson is an assistant professor pediatric nephrologist at the University of North Carolina. She is dedicated to reducing pediatric kidney disease morbidity and mortality via research on early recognition of kidney disease in children. She has published research on neonatal dialysis outcomes, neonatal kidney injury after nephrotoxic medications and necrotizing enterocolitis, and adolescent kidney outcomes after extremely preterm birth.

Schiff, Davida

Dr. Schiff is a board-certified pediatrician and addiction medicine physician and health services researcher, committed to improving care for young families impacted by substance use disorder. Dr. Schiff the medical director of the MGH HOPE Clinic, a multidisciplinary clinic that provides co-located care for women with substance use disorder, their partners, and their children from conception of pregnancy, through the first two years of life.

Schwartz, Jason

Dr. Schwartz is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.  His research focus is to understand the molecular mechanisms and pathogenesis underlying pediatric myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), specifically those syndromes caused by germline mutations in SAMD9 and SAMD9L. His approach is through genomic and functional investigations in an induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) model system of pediatric MDS.

Shah, Malika

Dr. Malika Shah is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. She is the Medical Director of the Northwestern Newborn Nursery where over 11,000 infants are born annually and also follows NICU graduates in the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital Early Childhood Neurodevelopmental Follow-Up Clinic. Dr. Shah’s academic focus includes medical education, quality improvement, and policy development. Her research focus includes evaluating the effects of newborn and NICU policies and practices on longer term outcomes, most recently in infants exposed to perinatal SARS-CoV-2.

Shah, Shivang

Shivang Shah, MD, DPhil is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Columbia University. His research focuses on host genetic susceptibility and lung immunopathology in severe malaria, including the role of parasite innate immune mediators and co-infection with bacterial/viral pneumonia in promoting inflammatory lung injury.

Sharathkumar, Anjali

Summary not available.

Siddaiah, Roopa

Dr. Siddaiah is a physician-scientist trained in Pediatric Pulmonology. She is appointed as Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Penn State Health College of Medicine. Her translational research pertains to the study of noninvasive, predictive markers of pulmonary hypertension and BPD in preterm infants. She currently directs the Multidisciplinary BPD program to improve clinical outcome in infants with severe BPD.

Sisk, Bryan

Bryan A. Sisk, MD, MSCI is an assistant professor in pediatric hematology and oncology and an assistant professor in general medical sciences at Washington University School of Medicine. He also serves as the Director of Research for the Bioethics Research Center at Washington University. Sisk completed his MD at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University, and completed his subsequent clinical training at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University. Dr. Sisk’s research focuses on identifying, measuring, and intervening upon communication functions in pediatric oncology and rare diseases. He is especially interested in examining the effect of novel technologies on the child-parent-clinician relationship when children have serious illnesses.

Skar, Gwenn

Gwenn Skar, M.D. has an active basic science laboratory focusing on better understanding cerebrospinal fluid shunt infections so that we might design improved prevention and treatment strategies for these infections. Her laboratory has two main areas of investigation: studying the role of complement on the immune responses following CSF shunt infection infections and discovering novel biomarkers for the diagnosis of these infections.

Smitherman, Andrew

Andrew Smitherman, MD MSc is an Assistant Professor of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology and medical director of the UNC Lineberger Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Cancer Program in Chapel Hill, NC. His research focuses on using clinical and molecular biomarkers to understand the phenomenon of accelerated aging in survivors of childhood, adolescent, and young adult cancers, identifying survivors at high risk of poor health outcomes.

Spector, Nancy

Dr. Nancy Spector, MD, is a Professor of Pediatrics and serves in dual roles at the Drexel University College of Medicine (DUCOM): as Executive Director of the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine® (ELAM) program, a part-time year long, national leadership fellowship program for women in academic medicine, dentistry, public health, and pharmacy, and as Vice Dean for Faculty. Known for her leadership abilities and her facilitation skills, Dr. Spector is sought after as a speaker and a visiting professor. Her contributions to academic medicine are in leadership skills development, professional development, gender equity, mentoring and sponsorship, and curriculum development and implementation. She is a member of PROWD (Promoting and Respecting Our Women Doctors). In addition to her roles at DUCOM, she has been the educational leader of the I-PASS Handoff Study Group and serves as the Chair of the I-PASS Executive Council and is a co-founder of the I-PASS Safety Institute.

Stalvey, Michael

Dr. Michael Stalvey is a clinical and translational investigator in endocrine disorders in cystic fibrosis (CF). Particularly, contributions of CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) during growth and bone metabolism.  A second aim is CFTR on glucose regulation and islet function.  His clinical research investigates therapeutic CFTR correction in children and adults on glucose metabolism, bone health, body composition and linear growth.

Stark, Ryan

Ryan Stark is a pediatric intensivist whose work has stretched from biochemistry, cell culture and animal models to database analysis and clinical observational studies. His translational pursuits are related to his long-term goal which is to understand the mechanisms of acute vascular dysfunction and find modalities that allow for identification and future treatment, particularly within the fields of pediatric sepsis and systemic inflammation.

Starr, Michelle

Dr. Michelle Starr is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics with joint appointments in Pediatric Nephrology and Pediatric & Adolescent Comparative Effectiveness Research. Dr. Starr’s clinical and research interests lie in improving the kidney-related outcomes of children born prematurely, with a particular focus on acute kidney injury. Dr. Starr’s work also focuses on social determinants of health in children with kidney disease.

Steed, Ashley

Ashley Steed is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine. Her graduate work elucidated the role of interferon gamma in suppression of viral reactivation. Her postdoctoral work demonstrated that specific bacteria and associated metabolites enhance innate immunity and protect from influenza. Currently, Dr. Steed’s research studies the role of the microbiota in the establishment and maintenance of immunity.

Sullivan, Brynne

Dr. Brynne Sullivan is a Neonatologist at the University of Virginia. She completed her medical school, residency, and fellowship at UVA. A Virginian for life, she was born in Richmond, VA and completed her undergraduate degree at Washington and Lee University. Her research interests focus on predictive monitoring for sepsis in premature infants. Her research is currently funded by an NICHD K23. She is the mom of 2 boys and wife of an ER Doctor.

Surana, Neil

Dr. Surana is an infectious disease trained physician-scientist whose research integrates gnotobiotic murine models, immunology, and microbiology to understand how the microbiome impacts human health. He has developed a novel discovery platform for identifying specific immunomodulatory commensal bacteria that protect against disease, and he is now working to define the bacterial and immunological determinants for disease protection.

Syed, Sana

Sana Syed, MD, MSCR, MSDS, is a practicing pediatric gastroenterologist and hepatologist who cares for children with a variety of conditions, including celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, poor weight gain, and various liver conditions. Dr. Syed’s research interests center around applying computational and molecular approaches to better understand gastrointestinal structure and function to diagnose luminal inflammatory enteropathy subtypes and predict future complications. Through this work, the Syed Lab aims to drive innovations into personalized diagnostic and treatment modalities for pediatric patients suffering from chronic gastrointestinal disease by identifying better biomarkers of disease and novel drug targets.

Tiozzo, Caterina

Dr. Tiozzo, MD PhD is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at New York University. Her research  is focusing on the use of amniotic lung progenitor cells for the study of lung development and for the prevention of Bronchopulmonary dysplasia. She has extensive publications on lung development and regeneration after  injury . She is also investigating  the role of the exosomes/microRNAs in the pathogenesis of maternal-fetal disease.

Trainor, Jennifer

Dr. Trainor is a pediatric emergency physician with educational research expertise in acute care simulation-based instruction and assessment. Clinical areas of investigation include evidence-based management of DKA and anaphylaxis in children. She was a site primary investigator in the PECARN FLUID trial, which investigated the effects of intravenous fluid administration and sodium chloride content on neurologic outcomes in children with DKA.

Travis, Katherine E.

Dr. Katherine Travis is an Assistant Professor at Stanford University. She is a developmental cognitive neuroscientist with expertise in language development, pediatric neuroimaging, and clinical intervention.  The overarching goals of her research are to understand the neural bases of language abilities in children, and to apply this knowledge to develop therapies for improving developmental outcomes in children at-risk for language delays.

Tschudy, Megan

Megan M. Tschudy, MD, MPH is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Lead Faculty for the Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Data Management Core (BEAD) at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Vaidya, Ruben

Dr. Vaidya is a neonatologist and physician scientist at University of Massachusetts Medical School-Baystate. He completed his neonatology training from University of Miami/ Jackson Memorial Hospital. His research interest focuses on improving long term respiratory outcomes in preterm infants, and his current research project focuses on evaluating the feasibility of providing volume targeted ventilation in the delivery room in preterm infants.

Vitiello, Peter

Dr. Vitiello’s research mission is to make innovative discoveries through collaboration, creativity and rigor. His lab applies molecular approaches to understand how oxidative perturbations influence tissue development, homeostasis and disease pathogenesis. The Vitiello lab studies redox-dependent molecular mechanisms of oxidative diseases including bronchopulmonary dysplasia, retinopathy of prematurity, and Friedreich’s ataxia.

Votava-Smith, Jodie

Jodie Votava-Smith, MD is a pediatric and fetal cardiologist at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), where she is Associate Director of the Fetal Cardiology Program, and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine at USC.  She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University and obtained a Doctor of Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, after which she completed a residency in Pediatrics at UCLA, a fellowship in Pediatric Cardiology at Columbia University, and an advanced fellowship in Fetal Cardiology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.  Dr. Votava-Smith’s research investigates cerebral blood flow, brain imaging, and neurodevelopmental outcomes in fetuses, infants, and children with congenital heart disease.  The goal of her research work is to understand the origins of abnormal brain development and brain injury seen in patients with congenital heart disease, in order to optimize their clinical care and neurodevelopmental potential.

Walley, Susan

In September 2021, Dr. Susan Walley will assume the position of Division Chief of Hospital Medicine at Children’s National Hospital. Dr. Walley is a national expert in the prevention of youth tobacco use and tobacco smoke exposure. Her research interests include development of effective healthcare and school-based interventions to decrease youth tobacco use and using QI methodology to improve care for common inpatient diagnoses.

Walter, Jennifer

Dr. Walter is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.   Dr. Walter earned her MD and PhD in Philosophy before doing training as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar. Dr. Walter’s work focuses on the physician-patient relationship. She develops interventions to train interprofessional teams in collaboration and communication to improve outcomes for patients and families.

Webb, Bryn

Dr. Bryn Webb is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and the Division of Genetics & Metabolism at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.  She is a board-certified pediatrician, clinical geneticist, and clinical molecular geneticist. Dr. Webb’s lab focuses on better understanding the genetics and pathophysiology of rare, Mendelian disorders.  She has a particular interest in undiagnosed rare disease, Moebius syndrome and related facial weakness conditions, and mitochondrial disorders.  Prior research accomplishments have included identifying the genetic etiology for various disorders such as Hereditary Congenital Facial Paresis, type 3 (HOXB1), Combined oxidative phosphorylation deficiency, type 25 (MARS2), and ataxia, intention tremor, and hypotonia syndrome, childhood-onset (POU4F1). Dr. Webb has developed mouse models of MARS2 deficiency and hereditary congenital facial paresis, which she uses to elucidate the altered transcriptome and molecular networks involved in these disorders.  More recently, Dr. Webb has developed iPS models for studying POU4F1 as well as disorders of mitochondrial aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases.

Wechsler, Joshua

Dr. Wechsler is board certified pediatric gastroenterologist and Assistant Professor at Lurie Children’s Hospital. He is a dedicated, passionate physician-scientist focused on the care of children with Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Diseases. His goal is to improve quality of life and treatment outcomes through research focused on the role of mast cell activation in mucosal barrier dysfunction and biomarkers of dietary triggers of inflammation.

Wisk, Lauren

Lauren Wisk, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine & Health Services Research. Prior to joining the faculty at UCLA, she was an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and a Research Associate in the Division of Adolescent/Young Adult Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. A health services researcher and methodologist, her overarching program of research focuses on understanding health and health services use among children, adolescents, young adults, and their families, particularly those with chronic medical conditions. Her work integrates a biopsychosocial model, social determinants of health model, and life course framework to investigate independent and interactive effects of biological, psychological, and social factors on health across the life course. Dr. Wisk received a BS from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and she completed her post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital. Her research is supported by grants from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), Academic Pediatric Association, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars Program.

Wong, Charlene

Charlene Wong is an associate professor of pediatrics and public policy at Duke University and the Executive Director of North Carolina Integrated Care for Kids (NC InCK), an innovative model serving Medicaid-insured children in central North Carolina. At the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), she serves as the Assistant Secretary for Children and Families.

Wood, Sarah

Dr. Sarah Wood is a Physician Scientist at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, and the Division of Adolescent Medicine and PolicyLab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She began her career in health care as a teen street outreach worker, and built upon these experiences in her current research career, focusing on improving sexual  health outcomes and eliminating sexual health disparities in youth.

Wood, Thomas

Dr. Tommy Wood is a Research Assistant Professor and Director for Preclinical Research in the University of Washington Division of Neonatology. The goal of Dr. Wood’s research is to develop clinically-relevant animal models of premature, hypoxic-ischemic term, and pediatric traumatic brain injuries, and to use these models to investigate promising neurotherapeutics and develop strategies to maximize brain health and function across the lifespan.

Yaeger, Jeffrey

Jeffrey Yaeger, MD, MPH is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Public Health Sciences at the University of Rochester. His research focuses on the intersection of child health equity and clinical decision-making. He uses mixed methods and advanced analytic techniques, such as geospatial analysis, machine learning, and natural language processing, to understand why inequities occur and develop interventions to mitigate and eliminate them.

Yap, Vivien

Dr. Vivien Yap is a clinician, educator and researcher whose primary research interests are in the outcomes of term and preterm newborns at risk of brain injury, as well as in the improvement of outcomes of preterm infants with retinopathy of prematurity in low resource settings. In addition, Dr. Yap is the Fellowship Director for the Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Fellowship at NYP-Weill Cornell Medicine.

Yeatman, Jason D.

The overarching goal of Dr. Yeatman’s research program is to understand the interplay between brain development, education experience, and learning outcomes, specifically reading abilities. By combining quantitative neuroimaging methods with tightly controlled educational interventions the lab strives to understand how a child’s unique pattern of brain maturation predisposes them to succeed or struggle in a specific education program.

Yildirim, Inci

Dr. Inci Yildirim focuses on epidemiology of vaccine-preventable diseases and vaccine induced immune response, particularly for pneumococcal, influenza and SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. She is a transplant infectious diseases physician. She has played an active role in COVID19 efforts including 20-0003 mRNA vaccine trials. She leads COVID-19 disease and vaccine induced immune response studies in collaboration with other researchers at her institution.