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Laura Allen, MA, MS, RN

Community and Public Health Nursing

Laura Allen oversees the Community and Public Health Environmental Initiative (CPHEI), a collaborative effort with the Maryland Family Network that provides health and environmental oversight for children from birth through age 5 and their families who are served by Baltimore City Early Head Start (EHS) and Head Start (HS) centers. Each semester, more than 25 students from the School of Nursing’s (SON) Bachelor of Science in Nursing, RN-to-BSN, entry Master of Science in Nursing, and Community/Public Health Nursing master’s specialty programs participate in CPHEI under her guidance. Allen also leads CPHEI’s growth, including overseeing the facilitation of health screenings and well-child exams for children in EHS and HS centers by SON advanced practice nursing students and clinical faculty. She is a governor-appointed board member of Maryland's Children's Environmental Health and Protection Advisory Council.

Chaz Arnett, JD

Criminal Procedure

Race and Technology

Education

Professor Arnett teaches in the areas of criminal procedure, race and technology, juvenile law, and education law, and his research interests lie at the intersection of race, surveillance, and technology. His scholarship examines the ways in which surveillance measures are used within the criminal justice system, in corrections and policing, and the impact these practices have on historically marginalized groups and vulnerable populations. His research agenda is aimed at highlighting how law and policy pave the way for new technologies, through their design and implementation, to reproduce and entrench legacies of state-sponsored racialized surveillance. Before joining the faculty, Professor Arnett was an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and a trial attorney with public defender’s offices in Baltimore and New Orleans. As a recipient of the Satter Human Rights Fellowship, he also has worked with the International Center for Transitional Justice on issues of constitutional development in Zimbabwe and on asylum cases for Zimbabwe refugees in South Africa.

Richard P. Barth, PhD, MSW

Social Work Education

Adoption

Foster Care

The author of 12 books and more than 200 scholarly articles, Dr. Barth is recognized as a leading expert on several social topics including social work education, adoption, foster care, and child welfare. Dr. Barth, who is the former dean of the School of Social Work and past president of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, speaks across the globe on important social work topics and ways social work helps improve communities and the human condition.

Susan L. Bindon, DNP, RN, NPD-BC, CNE, CNE-cl, FAAN

Developing Nurse Educators

Dr. Bindon has special interest and expertise in teaching, learning, and developing nurse educators in academic and practice settings. She has an ability to translate complex concepts and convey them in a meaningful and accessible way. She leads a statewide grant to prepare new and novice clinical nursing faculty — an urgent need as the nursing faculty shortage intensifies. She directs the School of Nursing Institute for Educators and its graduate teaching certificate program and mentors other faculty in her role as associate dean. She is immediate past-president of the Association for Nursing Professional Development and served as editor of the Journal for Nurses in Professional Development. She is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and was awarded the University System of Maryland Board of Regents award for teaching excellence. She maintains a faculty practice as an education consultant in the University of Maryland Medical Center’s Office of Clinical Practice and Professional Development.

Maureen M. Black, PhD

Global child development

Nutrition and child development

Health disparities

Dr. Black is a pediatric psychologist who has made significant contributions to the intersection of child development and nutrition. Dr. Black’s training is in developmental science and pediatric psychology. She is a licensed psychologist, chaired the Division of Growth and Nutrition in the Department of Pediatrics from 2003-2021, and directed an interdisciplinary Growth and Nutrition Practice for children with growth and /or feeding problems for 25 years. She spearheaded advances in child development by co-authoring three series of papers on early child development, published in The Lancet (2007, 2011, and 2017), including leading the first paper of the 2017 Lancet series, Advancing Early Childhood Development: from Science to Scale. That paper provided the scientific basis for the Nurturing Care Framework, which has been adopted by the World Health Assembly (2018) and advanced globally by WHO, UNICEF, and the World Bank Group. In recent work, she demonstrated that the principles of Nurturing Care apply from pre-conception through adolescence. Dr. Black has been instrumental in the development of the Global Scales for Early Development (GSED), a WHO-led, population-based scale to evaluate children’s development globally.

Andrew Blair-Stanek, JD

Tax

Professor Blair-Stanek is an expert in tax law whose research addresses multinational corporations’ transfers of intellectual property (e.g., patents) to avoid U.S. tax. Separately, he also has considered how to “crisis-proof” tax law against financial crises. Before joining the faculty at the Francis King Carey School of Law, he practiced tax law at McDermott, Will & Emery, LLP in Washington, D.C., where his practice included bankruptcy taxation, intellectual property transactions, and international tax planning. He also worked as a software design engineer for Microsoft Corp. and is the inventor of U.S. patents 7,617,204 and 7,580,951.

Nicole Brandt, PharmD, MBA, BCPP, CGP, FASCP

Geriatrics

Since joining the School of Pharmacy, Dr. Brandt has expanded available geriatric training opportunities, including the geriatrics/palliative care pathway, ASHP-accredited geriatrics residency, and two-year post-PharmD fellowship. She was named the 2019 recipient of the American Geriatrics Society’s (AGS) Dennis W. Jahnigen Memorial Award for her leadership in geriatrics education. She has worked on interdisciplinary teams across numerous practice settings and leads initiatives to integrate sustainable pharmacist-directed services to help older adults with multiple co-morbidities at the MedStar Center for Successful Aging. Dr. Brandt is active in promoting optimal care for older adults through her educational, clinical, and health care policy work. She co-led an initiative that led to the University of Maryland, Baltimore and University of Maryland, Baltimore County being the first universities in Maryland to receive Age-Friendly University distinction. She has directed projects focused on Medicare Part D Medication Therapy Management programs, high risk medications, and medication stewardship. She is an author of the 2012, 2015, and 2018-2019 the AGS Beer’s Criteria and past president and board chair of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists. She co-chaired a task force convened by the Lamy Center with assistance from the US Deprescribing Research Network to develop an Implementation Guide for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rebecca M. Brotman, PhD, MPH

Infectious Diseases Epidemiology

Vaginal Microbiome

Dr. Brotman is an infectious diseases epidemiologist who has developed a research career in various aspects of the human microbiome with an emphasis on urogenital health. Her research has ranged between the role of the vaginal microbiome in the genitourinary syndrome of menopause, susceptibility to sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and the behavioral and biological factors associated with the development of bacterial vaginosis (BV).

Wendy Camelo Castillo, MD, MSc, PhD

Health Disparities

Pharmacoepidemiology

Comparative Effectiveness and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research

Dr. Camelo Castillo is an assistant professor in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research, where she has been a faculty member since 2017. Dr. Camelo Castillo trained as a physician at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, where she also obtained an MSc degree in physiology. Her PhD training in epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill focused on pharmacoepidemiology, after which she joined the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research at the School of Pharmacy as a postdoctoral fellow in patient centered outcomes and comparative effectiveness research. Her research integrates methods in pharmacoepidemiology and patient preferences to develop evidence for populations in whom best practices of care are limited, such as women, youth, and minority communities. Her goal is to inform and improve clinical and policy decision making by providing evidence of benefits or harm of interventions used in real world settings in these populations. She brings an innovative approach into this work by integrating the patient perspective into pharmacoepidemiology and health services research. Her research agenda focuses on improving methods to assess effectiveness of treatments in the context of multimorbidity, and development and implementation of patient-centered methods to address health disparities in minority communities.

Patricia Campbell, LLM, JD, MA

Intellectual Property

Patents

Trademarks

Professor Campbell joined the Francis King Carey School of Law faculty in 2007 after spending several years in private practice with law firms and corporations. Before her faculty appointment, she was associate general counsel at Kajeet, Inc., a telecommunications company in Bethesda, Md. She teaches courses on patent law and trademarks and unfair competition at Maryland Carey Law. Professor Campbell teaches at the Intellectual Property Clinic and the Maryland Intellectual Property Legal Resource Center, both located at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP). In addition to her law faculty appointment, she is an associate professor at the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute, located within the A. James Clark School of Engineering at UMCP.

Neijma Celestine-Donnor, JD, MSW

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

As the School of Social Work’s first assistant dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion, Neijma Celestine-Donnor will help lead the school's diversity and anti-oppression efforts and guide the achievement of a new standard for inclusive excellence. As a member of the dean’s executive leadership team, Celestine-Donnor has a strategic position responsible for promoting and enabling an inclusive environment for faculty, students, and staff while championing organizational change. Grounded in pursuing social justice for minority populations and supporting equity in higher education, Celestine-Donnor is an experienced leader focused on providing strategic oversight for protocols, services, and policies related to campus climate. She uses her clinical and conflict resolution skills to provide individual and systemic trauma-informed outreach, advocacy, and support for all. Her extensive experience developing, facilitating, and assessing professional development workshops, training, and programming designed to enhance the intercultural competency of students, faculty, and staff will be a tremendous benefit to the school. Celestine-Donnor comes to the school from the University of Maryland, College Park, where she served as director of campus climate support and engagement in the Division of Diversity and Inclusion. She is a 2009 graduate of the School of Social Work’s MSW program and previously served as a clinical training instructor and adjunct faculty member at the school. In addition, Celestine-Donnor is studying for a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Baltimore.

Man-Kyo Chung, DMD, PhD

Pain and Neuroscience

Pain

Dr. Chung received his DMD and PhD degrees from Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea. After completing postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins University, he joined the School of Dentistry in 2008. Since then, he has studied the neurobiological mechanisms of craniofacial muscle and neuropathic pain focused on the roles of trigeminal nociceptive afferents. Dr. Chung is an expert in the electrophysiological, biophysical, and genetic analysis of nociceptors and nociceptive ion channels including transient receptor potential vanilloid 1, a receptor for capsaicin. He studies the molecular mechanisms of how the capsaicin receptor produces and alleviates craniofacial pain. Dr. Chung also is interested in how pain-sensing nerves modulate the remodeling of bone surrounding teeth. His research has been supported by federal, state, and industry entities. In particular, the innovation and merit of his projects was recognized by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), and Dr. Chung received an NIDCR Award for Sustaining Outstanding Achievement in Research. Through his role as co-director of the Center to Advance Chronic Pain Research, he works to promote multidisciplinary research and education about chronic pain.

Kimberly Claeys, PharmD

Infectious Diseases

Antimicrobial Stewardship

Dr. Claeys completed her PharmD at Wayne State University Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Detroit, Michigan. She then completed her Pharmacy Practice Residency at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy and University of Illinois at Chicago Hospital and Health Sciences System. After residency, she completed a two-year Infectious Diseases Pharmacotherapy and Health Outcomes Fellowship at the Anti-Infective Research Laboratory at Wayne State University. She is currently completing a PhD in Epidemiology with a focus on Health-Care Associated Infections and Diagnostic Stewardship at University of Maryland School of Medicine. Her research interests include: infectious diseases epidemiology; antimicrobial and diagnostic stewardship, translation research involving rapid diagnostic testing; optimization of pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics of antibacterial agents; and development of predictive/prognostic models and decision analysis to improve antimicrobial stewardship and patient outcomes.

Luana Colloca, MD, PhD, MS

Pain Research

Pain Modulation

Over the last few decades, Dr. Colloca has conducted studies on the behavioral, neural, and pharmacological mechanisms of pain modulation related to placebo and nocebo effects. Her lab has also developed an interest in virtual reality as a non-pharmacological approach to relieve pain and other symptoms. She has published in top-ranked international journals including Biological Psychiatry, Pain, Nature Neuroscience, JAMA, Lancet Neurology, Science and NEJM. As a result, Dr. Colloca has developed an international reputation as a leading scientist in advancing knowledge of the neurobiological mechanisms of descending pain modulation and placebo and nocebo effects with an integrative approach that includes psychopharmacological, neurobiological, and behavioral approaches.

Heather Congdon, PharmD, BCPS, CDE

Interprofessional Education

Ambulatory Care

Dr. Congdon received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Pittsburgh. She completed a pharmacy practice residency with emphasis in community care from the University of Maryland. Her teaching focuses on interprofessional education, diabetes, and the abilities lab series. She has a clinical practice at Mercy Health Clinic, providing care for underserved, uninsured patients on multiple medications and with various chronic conditions. Dr. Congdon’s research interests relate to her practice at Mercy Health Clinic. She has evaluated the impact of pharmacist-provided medication therapy management (MTM) on clinical outcomes, such as hemoglobin A1C, blood pressure, and cholesterol. Furthermore, her team has demonstrated the importance of interprofessional, coordinated care on clinical outcomes for patients with poorly controlled diabetes.

Yvette Conyers, DNP, MS, RN, FNP-C, CTN-B, CFCN, CFCS, CNE

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Social Determinants of Health and Health Equity

Dr. Conyers is the associate dean for equity, diversity, and inclusion and an assistant professor, teaching excellence tenure track, at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. In this role, Conyers serves as the primary advisor to UMSON’s dean, senior academic leadership team, senior administrative team, and Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Council on operational and strategic goals related to equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Catherine Cooke, PharmD, BCPS, PAHM

Outpatient Medication Management of Chronic Diseases

Geriatrics

Health Technology

Dr. Cooke is a board-certified pharmacist with experience in the clinical, business, and research arenas of different health care settings. She has provided direct patient care in ambulatory care environments for patients with chronic medically managed diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and other prevalent conditions found in primary care populations. She has also provided medication therapy management, completing comprehensive medication reviews (CMR) for eligible Medicare beneficiaries. In addition to direct patient care, she has published research on primary non-adherence and continues to study ways to improve patient-centered outcomes. Her work with the School’s Peter Lamy Center on Drug Therapy and Aging focuses on the quality of medication-related care for older adults. In collaboration with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), we were able to refine the Standardized Format (i.e., summary document that a patient receives after a CMR), and evaluate it in real-world settings after it was mandated for use in January 2013. Additional quality initiatives at the Lamy Center include the integration of medication-related information within healthcare practices through the use of health information technology standards and systems and assisting with the development and implementation of metrics to improve medication-use for older adults.

Andrew Coop, PhD

Drug Design

Dr. Coop received his PhD from the University of Bristol (England) in the area of chemistry of drugs of abuse, followed by a Fogarty postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He has been a School of Pharmacy faculty member since 1999, serving as a department chair from 2007 to 2015. His NIH-funded research focuses on the design and synthesis of new opioid analgesics with reduced tolerance and the development of novel antidepressants. He has developed the compound UMB 425 preclinically as an opioid analgesic with attenuated tolerance development. He has published 130 manuscripts and was the recipient of the 2003 Joseph Cochin Young Investigator Award from the College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD). In 2014, he was named a fellow of CPDD and presented CPDD’s President’s Lecture. In 2014, he received the inaugural Dr. James E. Wynn Memorial Award from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy’s Chemistry Section.

Steven J. Czinn, MD

Child Health

Infant Health

Pediatric Vaccinations

I have been the Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Maryland for the last 17 years. In addition to a very robust Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiative, my Department has developed creative programs to provide our local community with access to medical care. Examples include two mobile units providing free asthma care to children at their public schools of Baltimore, and the second provides counseling, testing and treatment for STI’s and HIV for teenage population. We also provide healthcare and immunizations in a newly created community Center in Baltimore. To address the mental health crisis in children, I am a member of the Mayor’s “Trauma informed Taskforce” and we have also just completed an expansion of an adolescent inpatient treatment center for adolescents. The progress we are making in Baltimore with creative programming may stimulate similar efforts on a national scale.

Sarah Dababnah, PhD, MPH, MSW

Autism

Developmental Disabilities

Parenting

Sarah Dababnah, PhD, MPH, MSW is an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore School of Social Work (United States), a Faculty Affiliate at Yonsei University School of Social Welfare (South Korea), and a recent US Fulbright Scholar at the American University in Cairo (Egypt). She specializes in practice, policy and research related to the health and well-being of families of individuals with intellectual and developmental differences. Dr. Dababnah’s research focuses on family-centered, community-engaged and culturally relevant strategies to address racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in autism services. Dr. Dababnah received specialized training in early childhood and disability practice, research, and policy at the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities (Chapel Hill, NC), the Kennedy Krieger Institute (Baltimore, MD), the Columbia University National Center for Children in Poverty (New York, NY), and the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health (Washington, DC). She earned advanced degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Johns Hopkins University.

Richard Dalby, PhD

Translational Therapeutics

Dr. Dalby received his BPharm from the University of Nottingham and his PhD from the University of Kentucky. In addition to serving as a professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences (PSC), he is a fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) and a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. His research interests include the formulation and evaluation of pressurized metered dose inhaler, dry powder, nebulizer, and nasal spray products; the development and evaluation of existing and proposed test methods for inhalation products; laboratory testing and patient evaluation of novel pulmonary and nasal delivery devices; and the design of patient education aids. He has more than 25 years experience as an independent consultant working with both national and international companies, and has served as an expert witness and advisor for pharmaceutical companies engaged in intellectual property and other disputes associated with inhaled and nasal medications and devices.

Peter Danchin, JSD

International & Transnational Law

Human Rights

Comparative Constitutional Law

Professor Danchin’s teaching and scholarship focus on international law, human rights, transnational law, and comparative constitutional law with a focus on theories of religious freedom. Before joining the law school faculty, he was director of the human rights program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a law clerk to Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. In recent years, he has been the Senior Research Fellow in Law at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, N.J., where he co-led an inquiry on law and religious freedom, and a visiting law professor at the University of Cape Town. He publishes widely on critical and comparative approaches to the right to religious freedom in legal, political, and moral thought.

Amy L. Daniels, PhD, RN, CHSE-A

Simulation-Based Education in Health Care

Psychological Safety in Simulation

Simulation Program Leadership and Management

Dr. Daniels serves as the director of the Debra L. Spunt Clinical Simulation Labs, a Society for Simulation in Healthcare-Accredited site for Teaching and Learning. As an assistant professor, she provides simulation-based education in all clinical programs. Dr. Daniels has been a faculty member in the School of Nursing since 2012. In her role as simulation director, she is involved in curriculum integration, faculty development in simulation, debriefing, and psychological safety. Dr. Daniels is involved in simulation professional organizations and engaged in research around psychological safety. She has experience with simulation program growth and development as well as collaboration and consultation with external programs in both administrative and curricular areas. She has published in the areas of debriefing and psychological safety as well as integrating simulation-based education into curriculum.

Daniel J. Deredge, PhD

Chemical and Biological Discovery

Dr. Deredge received his PhD in biochemistry from Louisiana State University, studying DNA binding properties of bacterial DNA polymerases. His postdoctoral training was in structural mass spectrometry at Case Western Reserve University, applying Hydrogen-Deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS) to HIV reverse transcriptase. At the School of Pharmacy, Dr. Deredge expanded the application of HDX-MS and other structural MS methods to a multitude of systems, including viral RNA polymerases, bacterial heme uptake protein or neurotransmitter sodium symporter, and integrating it with computational methods.

Sandeep Devabhakthuni, PharmD, BCCP

Cardiology

Critical Care

Dr. Sandeep Devabhakthuni received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy. He then completed a pharmacy practice residency at the University of Maryland Medical Center. He returned to Pittsburgh to complete a specialty residency in cardiology and critical care at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He is a board certified pharmacotherapy specialist with a clinical practice on the inpatient cardiology and medical intensive care services at the University of Maryland Medical Center. His current research interests involve evaluation of appropriate use of cardiovascular medications and sedation in mechanically ventilated patients.

Crystal DeVance-Wilson, PhD, MBA, PHCNS-BC

Nursing Workforce

Community/Public Health

Black Men's Health

Dr. DeVance-Wilson is a board-certified public health clinical nurse specialist with 30 years of experience working in acute and community settings with diverse populations. She is an assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing, where she teaches in the graduate and undergraduate programs. Dr. DeVance-Wilson is the vice chair of the University of Maryland School of Nursing at the Universities at Shady Grove and also serves as the director of the Maryland Nursing Workforce Center, through which she and her team work to address issues affecting Maryland nurses, nursing students, schools of nursing, and health care organizations. Dr. DeVance-Wilson has also held leadership positions in several community organizations and is currently the immediate past chair of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Commission on Health.

Vineet Dhar, BDS, MDS, PhD

Pediatric Dentistry

Early Childhood Caries, Nutrition

Equity in Access to Dentistry for Children

Dr. Dhar is a board-certified pediatric dentist who serves on the councils on Scientific Affairs and Post-Doctoral Education at the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) and the Council of Scientific Affairs of the American Dental Association (ADA). He also serves on the ADA guideline panels on restorative care and caries prevention and has served on the pit and fissure sealants panel. He is on the AAPD guideline panel on vital pulp therapies in primary and immature permanent teeth and behavior guidance and has served on the AAPD panel to produce clinical practice guidelines on non-vital pulp and vital pulp therapies in primary teeth. He received the 2018 ADA Evidence Based Dentistry Mid-Career Faculty Award and the 2017 AAPD Jerome B. Miller/Crest-Oral-B/For The Kids Award. He also co-authored manuscripts that received the AAPD Paul Taylor Award in 2016, 2017, and 2020. Dr. Dhar has been involved in multiple research projects and has directed thesis work for master's degree candidates as an advisor or co-advisor.

Bethany DiPaula, PharmD, BCPP

Mental Health

Substance Abuse

Dr. Bethany DiPaula received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree and completed a psychiatric pharmacy specialty residency at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. Her research and teaching focus involves psychiatry and substance abuse. She serves as director of the University of Maryland Psychiatric Pharmacy Residency Program and is a board certified psychiatric pharmacist with inpatient and outpatient psychiatric and substance abuse practices. In addition, she has worked as the Director of Pharmacy at two Maryland State Psychiatric hospitals. Dr. DiPaula has presented and published research related to psychiatry, substance abuse, and academics. She is specifically interested in comorbidity of psychiatry and substance abuse.

Kelly Doran, PhD, RN, FAAN

Nurse-Led Interventions to Improve Social Needs and Health Disparities

Worksite Wellness

Cardiovascular Health

Dr. Doran runs the health suite at the UMB Community Engagement Center (CEC), which has been serving West Baltimore residents for two years. Dr. Doran and other School of Nursing faculty serve as clinical instructors and preceptors to graduate and undergraduate nursing students who are joined by medical, social work, and pharmacy students in the CEC’s health suite. Students gain community-based experience and opportunities to interact with neighbors outside the hospital. Dr. Doran’s expertise is in interprofessional education and nurse-run clinics to improve social determinants of health and health outcomes with underserved populations. Her research focuses on worksite wellness programs with health care workers to reduce work stress/burnout, health promotion interventions to improve cardiovascular health, and interventions to improve health outcomes.

Susan G. Dorsey, PhD, RN, FAAN

Chronic Pain

Pain Research

Genetics of Pain

Dr. Dorsey is a principal investigator for multiple NIH-funded R01 and R21 grants related to the development and persistence of chronic pain. Her group studies the molecular, cellular, and genetic factors associated with this and identifies biomarkers of the transition from acute to chronic pain in rodent and large animal models and in human participants. More people suffer from chronic pain than cancer, heart disease, and diabetes combined. Although people who suffer from chronic pain cost the United States more than $600 billion annually, there are few effective treatments that can reduce or eliminate chronic pain without significantly disrupting a person’s quality of life. Dr. Dorsey’s team seeks to solve this problem.

Peter Doshi, PhD

Credible Evidence Synthesis

Drug Safety and Regulation

Evidence-Based Medicine

Peter Doshi, PhD, is an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and senior editor at The BMJ. His research focuses on the drug approval process, how the risks and benefits of medical products are communicated, and improving the credibility and accuracy of evidence synthesis and biomedical publications. Dr. Doshi campaigns for greater transparency of clinical trial data and has received wide recognition for his work. In 2013, the New York Times reported on his work to increase public access to clinical study reports. The same year he was also chosen for The Wired “Smart List.” In 2015, he received a New Investigator Award from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. Dr. Doshi has presented on the topic of clinical trial data sharing to the Institute of Medicine in 2013 and 2014, and served on advisory panels to the European Medicines Agency regarding its policy on proactive publication of clinical trial data. Much of Dr. Doshi’s research has examined the science and politics of influenza policy. His most cited publication is a Cochrane systematic review of neuraminidase inhibitors for influenza. This review—the first Cochrane review to be based exclusively on clinical study reports and other regulatory documents—challenged previous understandings of the drugs’ effectiveness, raised new questions about their safety, and led to governmental inquiries in the United Kingdom. It is cited as a milestone in the James Lind Library, which chronicles the evolution of fair tests and research synthesis. Dr. Doshi leads the RIAT Support Center. The Restoring Invisible and Abandoned Trials (RIAT) initiative enables researchers everywhere to address two long-standing problems in the biomedical literature: non-publication and misreporting of trials. The RIAT Support Center aims to accelerate the correction of the scientific record of clinical trials by making publications more accurate and more complete, addressing these problems of publication bias and reporting bias. Dr. Doshi earned an AB in anthropology from Brown University, an AM in East Asian Studies from Harvard University and PhD in history, anthropology, and science, technology and society from MIT. During his PhD, he was an intern at the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, a research student at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, and studied as visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo Center for Biomedical Ethics and Law. Dr. Doshi completed a fellowship in comparative effectiveness research at Johns Hopkins University before joining the faculty at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.

Susan dosReis, BSPharm, PhD

Pediatric Mental Health

Pharmacoepidemiology

Dr. dosReis is professor and co-vice chair for research in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. She received a bachelor of science in pharmacy from the University of Rhode Island School of Pharmacy and a doctorate in pharmacoepidemiology from the University of Maryland Graduate School. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in child mental health services from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She was previously on faculty at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Dr. dosReis works closely with the state Mental Hygiene Administration on policies and programs that impact child mental health services. She is a core faculty of the Maryland Child Mental Health Advisory group within the Center for Child Mental Health Innovations at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. In this role, she advises the state on child psychopharmacologic treatment of youth in the public mental health system with a specific focus on psychotropic medication use among youth in the child welfare system. Through several federally-funded research grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Dr. dosReis has developed a profile of research on psychotropic medication use among children and adolescents, examining disparities in psychotropic use by age, race, and foster care involvement, characterizing psychotropic treatment by combined use with psychotherapy for ADHD, and use of multiple psychotropic medications, and assessing longitudinal patterns in antipsychotic treatment for adults with schizophrenia. She developed two surveys - the ASK-ME survey, which assesses parental perceptions of stimulant treatment for their child’s ADHD, and a survey to assess pediatricians’ identification and screening of autism spectrum disorders in young children. Using qualitative research methods, she has investigated parental perspectives of their child’s ADHD and developed a conceptual model of how parents approach mental health care for their children.

Alison Duffy, PharmD, BCOP

Medical Oncology

Dr. Alison Duffy graduated from the University of Rhode Island School of Pharmacy and completed her PGY1 Pharmacy Practice Residency and PGY2 Hematology/Oncology Pharmacy Residency at University of Cincinnati (UC) Health in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is a Hematology/Oncology Clinical Pharmacy Specialist and Associate Professor at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy/University of Maryland Medical Center. She is PGY2 Oncology Pharmacy Practice Residency Director and is a board certified oncology pharmacist with a practice site at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center within inpatient and outpatient oncology. Dr. Duffy has interest in clinical outcomes and practice based research specifically related to patients with cancer, interprofessional education, patient safety, and educational methods and outcomes.

Allison Dunn, PharmD, MS

Clinical Pharmacology

Applications of Pharmacometrics in Clinical Practice and Clinical Development

Allision Dunn received a Doctor of Pharmacy degree and a MS in Pharmacometrics degree from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. She holds a BS in bioengineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research interests are precision medicine, pharmacometrics, and the utilization of real-world data for treatment optimization. Dr. Dunn's current project include evaluation of the indotecan-neutropenia relationship in patients with solid tumors using population pharmacokinetic modeling and Bayesian regressions and quantifying the effect of hepatic impairment on the pharmacokinetic disposition of belinostat and its five metabolites using population pharmacokinetic modeling.

Natalie D. Eddington, PhD, FAAPS, FCP

Entrepreneurism

Medical Cannabis Education

Regulatory Affairs

Dr. Eddington became dean of the School of Pharmacy (SOP) in August 2007. An alumna of the school, she was formerly chair of its Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Dr. Eddington graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from Howard University. She later earned her PhD from SOP and, after working as assistant director of new drug development at Pfizer Inc., joined the faculty in 1991. She was appointed director of SOP’s Pharmacokinetics/Biopharmaceutics Laboratory in 1999 and became chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2003. As chair, she guided the launch of the Bio- and Nano-Technology Center, which brings together scientists to find new and better ways of providing pharmaceutical treatment. It was SOP’s first organized research center. Dr. Eddington is a nationally known expert in drug delivery and pharmacokinetics, the movement of drugs in the body. Her research focuses on cancer therapy and treatments for disorders of the central nervous system. Her work has been supported by funding from the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the pharmaceutical industry. In 2014, she was named executive director of University Regional Partnerships at UMB, a position she assumes while maintaining her leadership of SOP. In this role, Dr. Eddington assists UMB’s senior leadership, working collaboratively with the deans on issues related to the expansion of the University’s academic and research programs in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. In 2017, she was appointed co-decanal lead of the Center for Addiction Research, Education, and Service (CARES), UMB’s interprofessional effort to address the adverse impact of addiction on individuals, families, communities, and society. Under Dr. Eddington’s leadership, SOP has established a number of centers and programs including the Center for Innovative Pharmacy Solutions; the Patients, Pharmacists, Partnerships (P3) Program; the Patient-centered Involvement in Evaluating the effectiveness of Treatment (PATIENTS) Program; the Bio- and Nano-Technology Center; the Center for Translational Medicine; the Mass Spectrometry Center; and the FDA-supported Maryland Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation, a collaborative agreement with the FDA to promote innovation in support of the development and evaluation of safe and effective products. She also has envisioned and launched a transformational pharmapreneurism initiative, which seeks to position the school’s world-class faculty, wonderful students, and exceptional staff to achieve their career aspirations and address our nation’s health care, research, policy, and societal needs.

Lori A. Edwards, DrPH, BSN, RN, CNS-PCH, BC, FAAN

Public Health and Public Health Nursing

Social Determinants of Health and Health Equity

Community Engagment and Community-Based Participatory Research

Dr. Edwards is the associate dean for the Master of Science in Nursing program at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. She is also an assistant professor in the Department of Family and Community Health. She is a leader of University-wide community engagement initiatives and has extensive experience working in local and global communities. Her research has focused on community-based participatory and engagement efforts focused on occupational health with immigrant workers. She teaches courses on health equity and social determinants of health, program planning, and leadership. She has served as the president of national organizations and boards of community agencies. Dr. Edwards earned her BSN from University of Maryland School of Nursing and her MPH and DrPH degrees from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is board certified as a clinical specialist in public health nursing.

Megan Ehret, PharmD, MS, BCPP

Psychiatric Psychopharmacology

Neurology

Substance Abuse

Dr. Ehret completed her BS and PharmD degrees at the University of Toledo. She then completed an ASHP-accredited residency in psychiatric pharmacotherapy at the Louis Stokes Veterans Affairs Medical Center, after which she completed a Psychopharmacology and Pharmacogenomics Fellowship at Nova Southeastern University. After training, she received her initial faculty appointment at the University of Connecticut and gained tenure there. While at the University of Connecticut, Dr. Ehret served as vice-chair of the Institutional Review Board, Director of Practices for the Center for Correctional Health Networks, and a faculty member for Project ECHO: Buprenorphine. Additionally, Dr. Ehret received her master's in Clinical and Translational Research from the University of Connecticut Health Center. Dr. Ehret is a board certified psychiatric pharmacist. She most recently practiced at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital as its behavioral health clinical pharmacy specialist. She has experience in treating the spectrum of mental illnesses and substance use disorders. Additionally, she is a past president of the College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacists (CPNP) and a senior editor on the Psychiatric Pharmacotherapy Review Course. Her research interests are precision medicine, including utilization of guideline based treatment and pharmacogenomics, utilization of long-acting injectables, psychotropic medication adherence, and the role of the psychiatric pharmacist on the treatment team

Robert K. Ernst, PhD

Bacterial and Fungal Pathogens

Sepsis

The Ernst laboratory been at the forefront of innovative research studying the molecular basis and adaptive significance of modifications to the structure of lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Its focus is on the elucidation of the molecular basis by which Gram-negative bacteria modify the lipid A component of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and how these alterations affect or circumvent normal host innate immune system responses. LPS is the major surface molecule and pathogenic factor of Gram-negative bacteria. Host immune detection of LPS is extremely sensitive -- such that bloodstream infections can cause a severe complication called endotoxic shock, a major clinical problem leading to about 200,000 deaths in the United States per year. The lab also developed a practical method, bacterial enzymatic combinatorial chemistry (BECC) that can be used to engineer functionally diverse lipid A molecules for use as vaccine adjuvant. This project is supported through a $6.2M NIH NIAID contract to bring one of our BECC molecules to pre-investigational drug status. The work is important given the urgent need for new and more effective vaccines against infectious diseases worldwide. Finally, the Ernst laboratory focuses on the development of new antimicrobials that enhance innate immunity or inhibit bacterial resistance and the establishment of a clinical diagnostic platform for the rapid identification of bacterial and fungal pathogens directly from complex biological fluids. Our diagnostic work led to the establishment in 2016 of Pataigin LLC, which is developing a low-cost, rapid identification platform (BACLIB) that can identify a wide range of bacteria and fungi directly from clinically relevant samples, including blood and urine. In total, since moving his lab from the University of Washington in 2008, he has received more than $20 million in research funding. This work has resulted in over 190 peer-reviewed manuscripts with 17,000 citations. In recognition of his work, Dr. Ernst was named UMB’s 2017 Founders Week Researcher of the Year, as well as UMB’s 2019 Founders Week Entrepreneur of the Year. He was the recipient 2017 UMB Researcher of the Year, 2018 Dr. Mark E. Shirtliff PhD Student Mentor Award (UMB Graduate Program) winner, and 2019 UMB Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2020, he was awarded the inaugural Dr. Paul and Mrs. Jean Corcoran Professorship, and, in 2021, he earned a University System of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Research, the highest honor presented by the board to exemplary faculty members. Additionally, in 2014, he won the Maryland-John Hopkins Alliance Ventures award for his lipid-based bacterial diagnostic platform and 2016 he again won the Maryland-John Hopkins Alliance Ventures award for his anti-sepsis therapeutic platform and Pataigin won the Maryland Department of Commerce Life at the same competition for their advancements in the development of a lipid-based microbial diagnostic platform.

Alan I. Faden, MD

Head Injury

Spinal Cord Injury

Neuroinflammation

Dr. Faden is a neurologist who is an internationally recognized leader in neurotrauma. As the director of the Center for Shock, Trauma and Anesthesiology Research for 10 years, Dr. Faden oversaw multidisciplinary research focusing on brain injuries, critical care, organ support, resuscitation, surgical outcomes, patient safety, and injury prevention. His present research focuses on the pathobiology and treatment of traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries, mechanisms of cell death, neuroinflammation, neuroimmunology, dementia and brain systemic interactions.

Carlos A. Faerron Guzman, MD, MSC

Health Equity

In addition to his Graduate School roles, Dr. Faerron Guzmán is the director of the Centro Interamericano para la Salud Global (CISG) in Costa Rica, the associate director of the Planetary Health Alliance at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Oral Health Policy and Epidemiology at Harvard University. Dr. Faerron Guzmán began his career as a primary care doctor in a rural area of Costa Rica, where he worked closely with migrant and Indigenous populations. His work seeks to redefine the meaning of leadership and global health through innovative educational approaches. Dr. Faerron Guzmán follows a framework of equity in health and human rights as guiding principles and firmly believes in progress in health through community empowerment, action/research, and participatory education. He earned his medical degree at the University of Costa Rica and his MSc degree in international health at Queen Mary University in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Additional studies include social justice at the International Institute for Health and Development in Scotland and social innovation for health from INCAE Business School in Costa Rica. He is a fellow of the Central American Healthcare Initiative.

Agnes Ann Feemster, PharmD, BCPS

Pharmacy Practice Management

Experiential Learning

Interprofessional Education

Dr. Agnes Ann Feemster is an associate professor in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and the medication safety officer for oncology with the Johns Hopkins Hospital. She received a bachelor’s degree in pre-professional health studies from Clemson University, a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from the Medical University of South Carolina, and a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of South Carolina. She completed a pharmacy practice residency at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta and is a board-certified pharmacotherapy specialist. She has more than 15 years of clinical, leadership, and management experience in health-system pharmacy practice at large teaching hospitals. Before joining the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, she served as interim director of pharmacy at the University of Maryland Medical Center and assistant director of clinical pharmacy, investigational drug, and central production services. She leads the School’s pharmacy practice management and health-system pharmacy course and coordinates the international training program for the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research. Dr. Feemster also manages a practice laboratory for first year pharmacy students. Dr. Feemster’s research interests include pharmacy practice management and leadership, medication safety, educational methods and outcomes, pharmacy informatics, global health, and interprofessional education.

Eleanor Fleming, DDS, PhD, MPH, FICD

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Dr. Eleanor Fleming, PhD, DDS, MPH, FICD, is a Diplomate of the American Board of Dental Public Health. She earned her dental degree from Meharry Medical College, completed her dental public health residency at Boston University, and earned her PhD from Vanderbilt University. She completed additional post-graduate training as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer where she investigated disease outbreaks and conducted studies to promote health equity. Over the course of her career, she has developed subject matter expertise on infectious and chronic disease epidemiology, and previously served as the dental epidemiologist overseeing the Oral Health Component of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. She has been the principal investigator on a number of studies and has informed public health surveillance at state, national, and international levels. She holds leadership positions in the American Association of Public Health Dentistry and the American Public Health Association, where she completed a term on the APHA Science Board; she was also actively involved in the National Dental Association serving on its Coronavirus Task Force. Dr. Fleming currently serves as ex-officio member of the UMB Diversity Advisory Council.

Shani Fleming, MSHS, MPH, PA-C

Language, Literacy, and Culture

Health Professional Workforce Diversity

Professor Fleming has devoted her career to promoting social justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion within the health care community. She serves as an associate professor in the Graduate School’s Physician Assistant (PA) Program and Intercultural Leadership Certificate Program. She also is an executive team member of the Physician Assistant Leadership and Learning Academy. She has significant clinical, academic, and leadership experience as a PA, practicing primarily in underserved communities and advocating for and coordinating curricula addressing social determinants of health, LGBTQ+ care, and cultural humility within PA education programs. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and earned master’s degrees in public health and health science from George Washington University. She is a diversity and inclusion leader within national and state organizations, reaching thousands of underrepresented racial and ethnic high school and college students and advocating for increased representation in the health professional workforce. She encourages, leads, and fights for inclusive and just environments for faculty, staff, and students. She is pursuing her PhD in language, literacy, and culture from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, completing a dissertation examining the impact of advancing academic credentials on health professional workforce diversity.

Steven Fletcher, PhD

Chemical and Biological Discovery

Dr. Fletcher conducted his second post-doctoral position at the University of Toronto, where he worked with Patrick T. Gunning primarily on the synthesis of small-molecule inhibitors of the oncogenic Stat3-Stat3 protein dimer complex. His first post-doctoral position was carried out in the labs of Andrew D. Hamilton at Yale University on the design and synthesis of farnesyltransferase (FTase) inhibitors as novel antimalarial and anticancer agents. Dr. Fletcher received his PhD in organic/medicinal chemistry at Imperial College London (UK) with Andrew. D Miller, where he was involved in the design and synthesis of temperature- and pH-triggerable lipids for incorporation into liposomes for non-viral gene therapy.

Diane Forbes-Berthoud, PhD, MA

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Diane Forbes Berthoud is the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) inaugural chief equity, diversity, and inclusion officer and vice president (CEDIO/VP). Reporting directly to UMB’s president, Forbes Berthoud leads and advances the University’s equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) strategy, implementation, and accountability. She brings over 25 years of experience working in higher education, nonprofit, and government with a proven record of success in organizational change management and development, strategic planning, and assessment. Before joining UMB, Forbes Berthoud was the Associate Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at the University of California, San Diego, where she led the management of the university’s first Diversity Strategic Plan and designed and oversaw high-impact university initiatives. She was previously an Associate Professor and Department Chair of Communication at Trinity University, a Visiting Professor at George Mason University, and a Senior Fellow at the University of Maryland, College Park in leadership and public policy. She has been awarded faculty fellowships in the areas of women’s leadership, community-based research, public policy, and curriculum design. While completing her doctoral work, Forbes Berthoud served as the lead consultant of an organizational effectiveness and diversity initiative in Montgomery County government impacting thousands of employees. Forbes Berthoud earned PhD and MA degrees in Organizational Communication and Social Psychology from Howard University, and a BA in Communication and a certificate in Spanish Translation and Interpretation from Barry University. She earned a management certificate from the University of California, a certificate in mediation from the National Center for Conflict Resolution, and is a graduate of the UC-Coro Systemwide Leadership Program.

Jodi J. Frey, PhD, LCSW-C, CEAP

workplace

behavioral health

suicide prevention

Dr. Jodi J. Frey, PhD, LCSW-C, CEAP is a full Professor with tenure at University of Maryland, School of Social Work. She serves as Associate Dean for Research and chairs the Social Work in the Workplace & Employee Assistance Sub-specialization. She is the Founder and Faculty Executive Director of the Behavioral Health and Well-Being Lab (BHWell Lab). For 10 years (until 2022), she chaired the Financial Social Work Initiative. Dr. Frey’s research focuses on adult and emerging adult behavioral health and well-being with an emphasis on suicide prevention, mental health, substance use and the workplace. She has published over 100 articles, books and book chapters, in addition to presenting research at international conferences and receiving numerous awards for her research and teaching. Dr. Frey co-chairs the Workplace Suicide Prevention and Postvention Committee where she is working to disseminate the National Guidelines for Workplace Suicide Prevention.

Matthew Frieman, PhD

Virology

Coronaviruses

Therapeutics

I am the Alicia and Yaya Professor of Viral Pathogen Research in The Department of Microbiology and Immunology in The University of Maryland School of Medicine. My laboratory focuses on the pathogenesis of Coronaviruses to better understand how they cause disease. For the past 17 years, I have studied the highly pathogenic SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2 via genetic, molecular, virological, immunological, and cell biological techniques. We focus on identifying viral proteins that control replication and host protein pathways as well as assessing those viral proteins and host proteins in animal model systems. In addition, we have investigated other human respiratory viruses including seasonal coronaviruses, rhinovirus, influenza virus and respiratory syncytial virus. We have used the combination of in vitro (air-liquid-interface, Lung Chip, human immortalized lung cells) and in vivo models (mouse models of SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV, Influenza virus) to identify host factors that affect multiple viruses and for the development and evaluation of therapeutics for these important respiratory viruses.

Reetta Gach, MS, MBA

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Reetta Gach is the acting program director at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. In this role, Reetta advances strategic planning and manages high-profile, ongoing campus-wide projects that the EDI Office launches. Her responsibilities also include program management and campus-wide assessment of equity, diversity, and inclusion outcomes. Gach has been with the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) since 2013. She has 26 years of operations management experience and has worked in the private, nonprofit, and public sectors. In addition to operations management, she has experience planning and managing events, projects, and programs. Prior to joining OEDI, she was a senior program specialist for the UMB Center for Interprofessional Education under the School of Nursing. Reetta earned a master’s degree in management with a specialization in project management in 2015 and an MBA in 2020, both from University of Maryland Global Campus, and a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Baltimore in 2012.

Elizabeth Galik, PhD, CRNP, FAAN, FAANP

Care of Individuals Living with Dementia

Dr. Galik is a nurse practitioner who specializes in improving care practices for older adults with dementia and their caregivers. Her externally funded research tests the impact of non-pharmacological interventions designed to optimize function and physical activity, improve mood, and manage behavioral symptoms among long-term care residents living with dementia. She also has expertise in the recruitment, retention, and measurement of cognitively impaired research participants, particularly involving the measurement of physical activity, using actigraphy. She has served as an expert advisor to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid’s national initiative to improve behavioral health and minimize the inappropriate use of antipsychotic medications among nursing home residents and hospitalized older adults with dementia.

David L. George, DDS, MBA, MS, FAGD

Business Ventures - Institutional Planning

Dr. George earned his Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from the Medical College of Virginia in 1988, a certificate in advanced general dentistry from the University of Maryland School of Dentistry in 1989, and a fellowship certificate from the Academy of General Dentistry in 2000. He also earned a Master of Business Administration with concentrations in finance and management consulting from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park in 2002, and a Master of Science in data analytics from University of Maryland University College in 2017.

Robyn Gilden, PhD, RN

Environmental Health

Climate Change

Dr. Gilden is an expert in pesticides and their health effects, including how seemingly safe household products can harm the immune, reproductive, and nervous systems. She is adept at translating scientific information into understandable language for health care providers and the public and in helping communities understand the health risks of contaminants in soil and water. Dr. Gilden is on the steering committee of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments and works to develop online resources that help nurses launch new studies in environmental health and create a network of nurse researchers, educators, and practitioners.

Joga Gobburu, PhD

Clinical Pharmacology and Translational Research

Pediatrics

Pharmacometrics

Dr. Gobburu is a world-renowned scientific leader in the area of quantitative disease models and their applications to decisions. He is best known for transforming the field of pharmacometrics into a decision-supporting science. His experience as a senior biomedical research scientist and director of pharmacometrics at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gives him unique insight into the technical, regulatory, and decision-making aspects in all phases of drug development. He obtained his BPharm and MSc in chemistry from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, his PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from North Dakota State University, and his MBA from Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Gobburu’s research interests include pediatrics, clinical pharmacology and translational research, comparative effectiveness, and pharmacometrics.

Erin Golembewski, PhD

Graduate Education

Dr. Golembewski oversees master’s and PhD students at the Graduate School. She also is the principal investigator for the collaborative AGEP-T: PROMISE AGEP (Association for Graduate Education and the Professoriate) Maryland Academy. She serves on several committees and organizations, including the Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools Executive Committee.

Leigh Goodmark, JD

Gender Violence

Leigh Goodmark (she/hers) is the Marjorie Cook Professor of Law and director of the Clinical Law Program at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, where she teaches the Gender, Prison, and Trauma Clinic. She is the author of Imperfect Victims: Criminalized Survivors and the Promise of Abolition Feminism (University of California Press 2023); Decriminalizing Domestic Violence: A Balanced Policy Approach to Intimate Partner Violence (University of California Press 2018) and A Troubled Marriage: Domestic Violence and the Legal System (New York University 2012), which was named a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of 2012. She is the co-editor of The Criminalization of Violence Against Women: Comparative Perspectives (Oxford 2023) and Comparative Perspectives on Gender Violence: Lessons from Efforts Worldwide (Oxford 2015). Professor Goodmark’s work on intimate partner violence has appeared in numerous journals, law reviews, and publications, including Violence Against Women, The New York Times, the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, the Harvard Journal on Gender and the Law, and the Yale Journal on Law and Feminism. From 2003 to 2014, Professor Goodmark was on the faculty at the University of Baltimore School of Law, where she served as director of clinical education and co-director of the Center on Applied Feminism. From 2000 to 2003, Professor Goodmark was the director of the Children and Domestic Violence Project at the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law. Before joining the Center on Children and the Law, Professor Goodmark represented clients in the District of Columbia in custody, visitation, child support, restraining order, and other civil matters. Professor Goodmark is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford Law School.

Mathangi Gopalakrishnan, MS, PhD

Pharmacometrics

Bayesian Applications in Drug Development

Innovative Clinical Trial Designs

Dr. Gopalakrishnan earned an MS and PhD in statistics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She holds a BPharmacy and a MPharm from Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, Rajasthan, India Her research focuses on pharmacometrics, precision therapeutics, predictive analytics, real world data, and drug development. She utilizes fundamental principles of clinical pharmacology (pharmacokinetics (PK)/pharmacodynamics (PD)), advanced statistical (frequentist and Bayesian) methods (modeling and simulation), and artificial intelligence (AI/ML) techniques to improve clinical and therapeutic outcomes for patients, especially vulnerable populations. Dr. Gopalakrishnan's lab has designed and conducted prospective, real-world clinical pharmacokinetic trials for anti-epileptics/anti-microbials in continuous renal replacement therapy patients with the goal to develop individualized antiepileptic regimens. She has worked on using real world data (electronic health records, prospective pragmatic clinical trials) in the areas of neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome, and anti-coagulants in pediatrics to inform optimal dosing. She is involved in design and analysis of pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic studies for nutritional supplements and low-calorie artificial sweeteners in pregnant and postpartum women to answer questions on optimal dosing of the nutritional supplements. Her additional areas of research include models for disease progression (e.g: schizophrenia, binge-eating disorders), AI/ML approaches to identify biomarker-endpoint relationship in medical countermeasure development, innovative quantitative methods for trial design/analysis, and predictive analytics in transfusion decision making. Her lab works collaboratively with academic medical institutions across the country.

Mark Graber, JD

Constitutional Law

Professor Graber held a faculty position in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, from 1993 to 2007 and taught at the University of Maryland School of Law as an adjunct professor beginning in the fall of 2002. In 2004, he was appointed Professor of Government and Law at Maryland Carey Law, a title he held until May 1, 2015, at which time he received an appointment as the Jacob A. France Professor of Constitutionalism. In 2016, he was named Regents Professor, one of only seven Regents Professors in the history of the University System of Maryland and the only Regents Professor on the UMB campus. He served as associate dean for research and faculty development from 2010 to 2013. He has also been one of the organizers of the annual Constitutional Law "Schmooze," which attracts scholars from across the country to the law school. Professor Graber is recognized as one of the leading scholars in the country on constitutional law and politics. He is the author of A New Introduction to American Constitutionalism (Oxford 2013), Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil (Cambridge, 2006), and co-editor (with Keith Whittington and Howard Gillman) of American Constitutionalism: Structures and Powers and American Constitutionalism: Rights and Powers, both also from Oxford University Press, and co-editor with Mark Tushnet and Sandy Levinson of Constitutional Democracy in Crisis (Oxford 2018). His most recent book is Punish Treason, Reward Loyalty: The Forgotten Goals of Constitutional Reform After the Civil War (Kansas, 2023). Professor Graber is also the author of over 100 articles, including "The Non-Majoritarian Problem: Legislative Deference to the Judiciary" in Studies in American Political Development, "Naked Land Transfers and American Constitutional Development," published in the Vanderbilt Law Review and "Resolving Political Questions into Judicial Questions: Tocqueville’s Aphorism Revisited," published by Constitutional Commentary. He has been a visiting faculty member at Harvard University, Yale Law School, the University of Virginia School of Law, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Toronto, the University of Oregon School of Law, and Simon Reichman University.

David Gray, JD

Criminal Law

David Gray is the Jacob A. France Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law where he teaches criminal law, criminal procedure, evidence, international criminal law, and jurisprudence. He also teaches an interdisciplinary course in the College Park Scholars Program at the University of Maryland, College Park. He was voted Professor of the Year in 2012. Professor Gray’s scholarship focuses on criminal law, criminal procedure, constitutional theory, and transitional justice. His books include The Fourth Amendment an Age of Surveillance (Cambridge University Press 2017), the Cambridge Handbook of Surveillance Law (Cambridge University Press 2017), Get a Running Start: Your Comprehensive Guide to the First Year Curriculum (West 2016), and Stay Ahead of the Pack: Your Comprehensive Guide to the Upper Level Curriculum (West 2018). In 2019, he joined the leading textbook American Criminal Procedure: Cases and Commentary. He has also published dozens of articles and book chapters in leading journals and collections. His work has been cited and followed by state and federal appellate courts. In 2019, he was named University of Maryland, Baltimore, Researcher of the Year in recognition of his scholarly contributions. In addition to his own scholarship, Professor Gray works closely with students to develop and publish their work. Recent work written by or with his students has appeared in JURIST, the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Texas Law Review, the Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice, New England Law Review, the Federal Sentencing Reporter, Vermont Law Review, Maryland Law Review, and in edited collections. Consistent with Maryland Carey Law’s mission as a public educational institution, Professor Gray frequently provides expert commentary for local and national media outlets on topics relating to criminal law, police procedure, and surveillance. He has also written and contributed to amicus briefs filed in state appellate courts, federal courts, and the United States Supreme Court. Prior to joining the faculty, Professor Gray practiced at Williams & Connolly LLP, was a visiting assistant professor at Duke University School of Law, and served as a clerk in the chambers of The Honorable Chester J. Straub, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and The Honorable Charles S. Haight, Jr., U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Professor Gray is an elected member of the American Law Institute and is admitted to the Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and District of Columbia bars.

Mojdeh Heavner, PharmD, BCPS, BCCCP

Critical Care

Medication Safety

Dr. Heavner received a Bachelor of Science in Physiology and Neurobiology from the University of Maryland College Park and a Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. Subsequently, she completed a pharmacy practice residency and critical care and solid organ transplant specialty residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut. She is board certified in pharmacotherapy and critical care. Following her residency training, Dr. Heavner practiced as a clinical pharmacy specialist in the medical intensive care unit, served as the residency director of the critical care pharmacy specialty program, and spent several years as the supervisor of clinical pharmacy services at Yale-New Haven Hospital before joining the faculty at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. Dr. Heavner is active in professional organizations at the local, state, and national levels, including the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, the Society of Critical Care Medicine, and the Maryland Society of Health-System Pharmacists. She served as secretary on the board of the Connecticut Society of Health-System Pharmacists for several years and was recognized as Pharmacist of the Year by that organization in 2016. Dr. Heavner’s practice and research interests include performance management and quality improvement, delirium, medication safety, and antibiotic pharmacokinetics and stewardship in the intensive care unit.

Emily Heil, PharmD, MS

Infectious Diseases

HIV

Antimicrobial Stewardship

Emily Heil, PharmD, MS, BCIDP, AAHIVP is an Associate Professor in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. She is the Pharmacy Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at the University of Maryland Medical Center and provides direct patient care on inpatient and outpatient infectious diseases teams. She completed her undergraduate and PharmD at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and subsequently completed her pharmacy practice and infectious diseases pharmacy residency training at the University of North Carolina Hospitals. She is an Associate Editor for Clinical Infectious Diseases and is professionally active in the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists. Her research interests include individualization of antimicrobial dosing, particularly in critically ill patients, antibiotic allergies, gram-negative resistance, and antimicrobial stewardship (domestic and international).

Cheri Hendrix, DHEd, MSBME, PA-C, DFAAPA

Physician Assistant Education

Dr. Hendrix is responsible for the overall management, development and implementation strategies regarding program rankings, residency programs, facilities development, and scholarship of physician assistant (PA) education for the UMB/Anne Arundel Community College (AACC) collaboration. She earned her doctorate in health education from A.T. Still University in 2011 and her Master of Science in engineering and applied physics of biomedicine from Johns Hopkins University in 1998. Dr. Hendrix’s first career was as an engineer, earning four U.S. patents in medical imagery device design. Deciding to pursue her PA education, she became a 2003 graduate of AACC’s PA program and completed a postgraduate PA residency in general surgery at Duke University Medical Center in 2004. Her practice as a certified PA spans a multitude of specialties including general, vascular, and thoracic surgery, emergency medicine, and urgent care. Dr. Hendrix has spent the last 16 years in higher education; her passion in developing students’ critical thought processes at the graduate and postgraduate levels has allowed her to excel in her roles in PA education. She is a highly sought-after lecturer on the national stage and has earned a solid reputation for curriculum development that cultivates critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills in PA and medical residents. She is a distinguished fellow of the American Academy of Physician Assistants and a member of the Florida Academy of Physician Assistants, the Maryland Academy of Physician Assistants, and the Physician Assistant Education Association.

Stephen W. Hoag, PhD

Tablet Formulation and Process Development

Dr. Hoag received his PhD in pharmaceutics from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and a BS in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin Madison. His two main areas of research interests include developing systematic methods for formulating controlled and immediate release tablets, as well as the use of mathematical models to understand the mass transport processes in hydrogels. Dr. Hoag is also the director of the Applied Pharmaceutics Lab.

Charles C. Hong, MD, PhD

Cardiovascular Genetics

Inherited Heart Diseases

Stem Cells

Charles (Chaz) Hong is a physician-scientist whose research, which functions at the intersection of developmental biology, chemical biology, stem cell biology, and cardiovascular medicine, has led to new biological insights and therapeutic opportunities. Dr. Hong’s work includes innovative chemical genetic studies in zebrafish as well as the use of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) to better understand human heart diseases at the cellular level. His scientific contributions include the first small molecule inhibitor of bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling, which has led directly to a clinical stage therapeutic program for devastating human diseases. Additionally, his small molecules are key components of the “Dual Chemical SMAD Inhibition,” the most widely used strategy to generate neurons and neural organoids from human stem cells. Moreover, his chemical genetic studies elucidated the roles of mitogen-activated kinase in artery-vein specification during development. Finally, he has made important contributions toward the utilization of human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) as an in vitro model for the study of human cardiomyocyte physiology. Dr. Hong edited one of the first books focused on the role of chemical biology in stem cell and regenerative medicine, and a book covering the latest methods and protocols in chemical biology. He serves on editorial boards of number of scientific journals and is inaugural Chief Editor of Frontiers in Drug Discovery overseeing Hematologic and Cardiovascular domains. His ongoing basic investigations include the elucidation of the novel role of centrosome proteins in cardiac structure and function, and therapeutic targeting of a novel pro-oncogenic pathway activated downstream of the Warburg Effect. His clinical expertise is in cardiovascular genetics. Finally, Dr. Hong is a key member of the West Baltimore RICH (Reducing Isolation and Inequities in Cardiovascular Health) Collaborative, an interdisciplinary team of community leaders, churches, local charities, 2 local hospitals, the University of Maryland, and federally qualified health centers to develop sustainable strategies to overcome health disparities in West Baltimore.

Karen Hopkins

Leadership development in the human services

Performance management in nonprofit human service organizations

Organizational capacity development and evaluation in nonprofit human services

Dr. Karen Hopkins is Professor and Co-Director of the Human Services Leadership Certificate at the School of Social Work, University of Maryland. She is the Academic Coordinator for the Graduate MSW/MBA dual degree and teaches courses in human service management and leadership and performance management. Her research with nonprofit and public agencies is related to supervision, management, and leadership practices and outcomes, performance management, workforce development, and organizational learning and capacity building. She is a national peer reviewer for the Standards of Excellence Institute certification for nonprofits. She has served on the Boards of the Network for Social Work Management, Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR), and the Association of Community Organization and Social Administration (ACOSA). She is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Human Services Organizations: Management, Leadership, and Governance journal. She received a PhD from the University of Chicago, MSW from the University of Pittsburgh, and a BS from the Pennsylvania State University.

Lauren Hynicka, PharmD, BCPS

Internal Medicine

Hepatology

Dr. Hynicka received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy. She went on to complete both a PGY-1 general practice and PGY-2 internal medicine residency at the Virginia Commonwealth University/Medical College of Virginia Health System. She served as a clinical pharmacy specialist on a general internal medicine team at the University of Maryland Medical Center for six years before transitioning into her current role, where she manages treatment of HCV infected patients enrolled in Maryland Medicaid. Her teaching, research, and patient care activities focus on the care of patients with chronic liver diseases including chronic HCV infection. Recent areas of research include streamlining the prior authorization process for HCV medications at a large academic health system and evaluating HCV treatment interruptions. Dr. Hynicka has a variety of research interests including transitions of care, infectious diseases, viral hepatitis C, chronic liver disease, provision of care to underserved patients, and global health.

Shannon K. Idzik, DNP, CRNP, FAANP, FAAN

NP Scope of Practice

Endocrine and Diabetes Management

Dr. Idzik is an expert in nurse practitioner practice, education, and policy. She has led numerous legislative initiatives related to the full scope of practice and removing scope-of-practice barriers for nurse practitioners. She is a past president of the Nurse Practitioner Association of Maryland and has represented the profession as a member of the Chesapeake Regional Information System for Our Patients clinical advisory board. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Doctoral Nursing Practice. Dr. Idzik also is an expert in endocrine and more specifically diabetes management. She was elected to serve for the past three years on the National Clinical Care Commission, a federal advisory board that made recommendations to Congress on improving diabetes care in the United States. She has practiced in a variety of settings including endocrinology, bariatric surgery, primary care, and chronic disease management. She was awarded the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) State Award for Excellence in 2012 and was selected as a fellow of the AANP in 2014 and a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing in 2017.

Amy Ives, PharmD, BCPS

Internal Medicine

Practice-Based Research

Educational Methods and Outcomes

Dr. Amy Ives is an assistant professor in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and an internal medicine clinical pharmacy specialist at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. Dr. Ives received her Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy degree from Rutgers College of Pharmacy and a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. She completed a pharmacy practice residency at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ. She is a board-certified pharmacotherapy specialist and has completed a medical education research certificate sponsored by the American Medical Association. Dr. Ives has more than 25 years of hospital pharmacy practice experience. Prior to coming to the University of Maryland, she was a clinical pharmacy specialist in critical care and anticoagulation at the VA Maryland Health Care System. During her 17 years there, Dr. Ives developed the PGY-1 Pharmacy Residency Program, with 15 residents completing this program under her direction. She remains active in pharmacy residency training through precepting and mentoring research projects at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. In addition, she precepts Georgetown University medical students on their independent study projects. Dr. Ives is active in professional organizations at the regional and national level. She is a past secretary for the AACP Laboratory Special Interest Group and former chair for the Eastern States Residents and Preceptors Conference. She has been an active member of the Eastern States Residency Advisory Board since 2012. Before joining the faculty full time, Dr. Ives served as co-course manager for Therapeutics I and II in the Non-Traditional PharmD program. Since becoming a full time faculty member, Dr. Ives has developed training modules in medication reconciliation, therapeutic drug monitoring, and renal dosing for the PharmTechX program. She has been co-course manger in Abilities Labs 1 and 3, and is currently co-director for the Pharmacy Practice Laboratories. Dr. Ives’s practice and research interests include medication safety, transitions of care, anticoagulation, and medical education research using electronic health record technology.

Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS

Surgery

Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS, was selected as the seventh president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) on Sept. 10, 2020, after serving as interim president for eight months. During the interim period, Dr. Jarrell guided the University’s efforts to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic once it unfolded in March 2020. The appointment as president was the latest in a long line of upward moves by Dr. Jarrell at UMB, where he has served as chief academic and research officer, senior vice president, executive vice president, and dean of the Graduate School. Named chief academic and research officer and senior vice president in April 2012, Dr. Jarrell served as the focal point for all academic matters at UMB and was responsible for facilitating the research mission of the University by working closely with UMB administrators, deans, research leadership of the schools, and others. Through and with the deans and vice presidents, Dr. Jarrell worked to further the University’s core values among faculty, staff, and students in the leadership, management, and promotion of the institution’s education, research, clinical, and community engagement agendas. Dr. Jarrell was named executive vice president and provost in December 2017, expanding his already wide-ranging duties. In this role, Dr. Jarrell had the authority to act on behalf of the president in a variety of matters and settings. Dr. Jarrell, who was dean of the Graduate School, also oversaw many of the University’s most critical institutional relationships, such as the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State, UMB’s innovative and structured collaboration with the University of Maryland, College Park, and worked to build and maintain academic interactions with all USM institutions. Dr. Jarrell arrived at UMB in 1997 as chair of the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s (UMSOM) Department of Surgery. He expanded UMSOM’s surgical programs and developed innovative research studies and clinical trials, leading to its ranking as 11th nationally in total research funding from the National Institutes of Health. In 2003, he moved to the UMSOM Dean’s Office, where he served as executive vice dean, directing the school’s education and research enterprises. Dr. Jarrell also served as the institutional official for human research protection and animal research protection, and he has remained actively involved in research and medical student education throughout his career. He received his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Delaware and his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He completed a general surgical residency and renal transplantation fellowship at the Medical College of Virginia and held faculty positions at Jefferson, where he performed kidney and liver transplantation and hepatobiliary surgery for 10 years, and the University of Arizona, where he was a professor and chair of its Department of Surgery.

Chad Johnson, PhD

Medical Cannabis

Drug Addiction

Dr. Johnson received his PhD and completed his post-doctoral research in medicinal chemistry/pharmacology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. His research interests include the synthesis of novel, fast-acting antidepressants targeting the muscarinic receptors (mAChRs) for major depressive disorder and opioid analgesics with reduced reinforcement for treatment of drug addiction. Dr. Johnson is the co-director of the MS in Medical Cannabis Science and Therapeutics program.

Jace W. Jones, PhD

Mass Spectrometry

Drug Development

Dr. Jones received his PhD in analytical chemistry at the University of Washington where he did his thesis research under the supervision of František Tureček. The focus of his thesis was developing gas-phase ion chemistry strategies to gain structural insight into peptides and glycolipids. Dr. Jones then further developed tandem mass spectrometry platforms for structural elucidation of bacterial glycolipids in the laboratory of David R. Goodlett at the University of Washington, School of Pharmacy. At this time, he moved to industry and was the Technical Director at an Analytical Laboratory (Jones Environmental, Inc.) in Fullerton, CA. He made my way back to academic research as a research scientist followed by research assistant professor in the laboratory of Maureen A. Kane at the University of Maryland, School of Pharmacy.

Courtney Jones-Carney, DPA, MBA

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Dr. Jones Carney focuses many of her efforts on advancing student success and the development of cultural competencies to inform professional practice. Additionally, she challenges students, faculty, and staff to critically examine themselves and the ideals that they hold about others while understanding the role of oppression in the formation of policy, practices, and procedures in institutions and systems. She continues to hold a leadership role in administering, analyzing, and sharing the findings of the UMB Student Climate for Diversity Survey and serves as an ex-officio member of UMB’s Diversity Advisory Council. Dr. Jones Carney’s research areas of interest include the impact of microaggressions, intercultural development, and the relationship between acts of discrimination on campus climate and employee engagement. She is an alumna of Morgan State University and completed her doctoral studies in public administration at the University of Baltimore. Her dissertation examined the relationship between exposure to racial and ethnic microaggressions and employee engagement.

Maureen A. Kane, PhD

Mass Spectrometry

Dr. Kane received a BS degree in chemistry from Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y., and a PhD in analytical chemistry from the University at Buffalo-State University of New York. She completed postdoctoral training at the University of California, Berkeley, where she received a National Institutes of Health-Kirschstein Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship. Her areas of research interest include mass spectrometry to interrogate biological problems; retinoid (vitamin A) metabolism and active metabolite (retinoic acid) signaling; biomarker discovery, quantification, and validation; mass spectrometry imaging; bioanalysis for pharmacokinetic studies; quantitative mass spectrometry assay development and validation; collaborations pertaining to metabolism, metabolite signaling, lipid profiling, and lipid signaling; and biomarkers, drugs, and drug metabolites. As executive director of the School of Pharmacy’s Mass Spectrometry Center, Dr. Kane heads the areas of metabolite quantification, metabolomics, and mass spectrometry imaging. She also leads several collaborative efforts focused on biomarker discovery, quantification, and validation in drug development efforts.

Gerald Kayingo, PhD, MMSC, PA-C

Education Leadership

Clinical Practice

Global Health

Professor Kayingo has extensive experience in scholarship, education, leadership, clinical practice, and global health. As assistant dean of research, Dr. Kayingo seeks to advance the research mission by nurturing scholarship and the growth of extramural research funding for physician assistant education and practice. His research interests relate to health professions education, health care delivery science, and the intersection of infectious diseases and substance use disorders/addiction. His clinical interests are in primary care settings as well as advancing rural health. Nationally, Professor Kayingo has served as a board member for various organizations and as associate editor of BMC Health Services Research. He has co-authored three books on health professions education and published extensively on health systems science and infectious diseases in peer-reviewed journals. He is a recipient of several awards, including a university book prize, the 2016 American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA) PA Student Academy Mentor Award, the 2015 AAPA Research Publishing Award, and the 2014 Jack Cole Society Award from Yale University.

Asaf Keller, PhD

Chronic pain

Addiction

Early Exposure to Drugs

Dr. Keller is a leading scientist in the fields of addiction, chronic pain, and affective disorders. His lab, which receives funding from the National Institutes of Health with multiple grants, focuses on how brain circuits responsible for sensory perception are affected by drug exposure and pain conditions. His team described changes in brain circuits that lead to chronic pain, as well as brain circuits that can modulate the perception of pain. Dr. Keller's team is working on harnessing this knowledge to relieve chronic pain conditions. They also demonstrated that exposure to drugs, such as marijuana or opioids, in the womb or in adolescence—both critical periods for brain development—can lead to lasting, irreversible changes in brain function and behavior. The work focuses on learning how to prevent these devastating, lasting neurological and psychiatric deficits. Dr. Keller's research has been and continues to be funded by the National Instituted of Health.

Raya E. Kheirbek, MD, MPH, FGSA

Geriatrics

Hospice and Palliative Medicine

Internal Medicine

Dr. Kheirbek is a Professor of Medicine and the inaugural Division Head of Gerontology, Geriatrics, and Palliative Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Geriatric Medicine, and Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Her clinical work focuses on offering comprehensive care and support to individuals and their families facing serious and advanced illnesses. Her research centers on the oldest segment of the population, particularly centenarians as expert survivors. Dr. Kheirbek is an advocate for social justice and a writer who provides expert testimonies addressing the unique needs of marginalized and vulnerable individuals, including elders within the criminal justice system. Her work has been featured in academic journals as well as the Baltimore Sun, New York Times, Washington Post, and US World and News Report.

J. Howard Kucher, DPA, MBA

Social Entrepreneurship

Dr. Kucher is an internationally recognized thought leader in social entrepreneurship and the lead author of “Social Entrepreneurship: A Practice-Based Approach to Social Innovation.” His research interests focus on the practical applications of social enterprise, with a particular interest in faith-based contexts. Before joining UMB, Dr. Kucher led the Baltimore Social Enterprise Collaborative, a program that was nationally recognized for its innovative curriculum and helped more than 60 area nonprofits develop new models for meeting the needs of their constituents while increasing the sustainability of their organizations. He has successfully secured over $70 million in working capital on behalf of mission-oriented enterprises and assisted more than 100 area nonprofits and social enterprises in developing new models for meeting the needs of their constituents while increasing the sustainability of their organizations. He earned a Doctorate in Public Administration with a concentration in social entrepreneurship from the University of Baltimore, where he also earned an MBA with an entrepreneurship specialization. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Kean University, a graduate certificate in urban theology from the Ecumenical Institute at St. Mary’s Seminary and University and has earned certification as a project management professional and a new product development professional. He is an advisor, coach, and mentor to several regional social change initiatives including the Boost Program at Innovation Works and the Social Innovation Lab at Johns Hopkins University. Among his many honors, Dr. Kucher has been recognized as a Baltimore Renaissance Seed Scholar, an Unsung Hero of Small Business, and a Fulbright Specialist Scholar in Social Entrepreneurship.

Nancy Kusmaul, PhD, MSW

nursing homes

aging policy

trauma-informed care

Nancy Kusmaul, Ph.D., MSW is an Associate Professor in the Baccalaureate Social Work program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She received her PhD from the University at Buffalo and her Master’s in Social Work from the University of Michigan. She was a nursing home social worker for more than a decade. Her research focuses on quality of life and quality of care in nursing homes, organizational culture, trauma informed care, and the impact of trauma experiences on workers and care recipients. She is co-chair of the NASW-Maryland Committee on Aging and is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America. Dr. Kusmaul was a 2019-2020 Health and Aging Policy Fellow. She has done several podcasts on aging, trauma, and nursing homes on various platforms.

Wendy G. Lane, MD, MPH

Child Maltreatment

Maternal and Child Health

Preventive Medicine

Wendy Lane, MD, MPH is a clinician and researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She is board certified in General Pediatrics, Child Abuse Pediatrics, and Preventive Medicine. A Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health and the Department of Pediatrics, she serves as Medical Director for the Center for Hope/Baltimore Child Abuse Center (CFH/BCAC) and the Howard County Child Advocacy Center. She is a member of the Child Protection Team at the University of Maryland Medical Center, where she served as Chair from 2004-2011. In 2020, Dr. Lane became Director of the Maryland CHAMP (Child Abuse Medical Professionals) Program, which provides training and peer review to health care professionals throughout Maryland. She and her colleagues have been working to identify and train doctors and nurses to serve all Maryland counties, and to increase their participation in peer review. Since 2008, Dr. Lane has served as Chair of the Child Maltreatment and Foster Care Committee for the Maryland Chapter of the AAP (MDAAP). She collaborated with MDAAP on a national AAP grant to address health care services for children in foster care. Dr. Lane has continued this work as a member and now Chair of Maryland’s State Council on Child Abuse and Neglect (SCCAN), one of the three citizen panels mandated by CAPTA. Advocacy by SCCAN helped pass Maryland legislation to create a Medical Director for Child Welfare and to require an electronic health passport for children in foster care. In addition, SCCAN worked with legislators to pass two bills to reduce the likelihood of sexual abuse and misconduct in schools. In addition to her child maltreatment work, Dr. Lane also serves as Director of the Preventive Medicine Residency Program and the Principal Investigator for B’more for Healthy Babies Upton/Druid Heights (BHB-U/DH), a community-based and community-engaged intervention to improve birth outcomes. Since its inception 11 years ago, this predominantly low-income, Black community has seen a 75% decrease in infant mortality rates.

Cherokee Layson-Wolf, PharmD, BCACP, FAPhA

Immunizations

Medication Therapy Management

Pharmacy Education

Dr. Cherokee Layson-Wolf received her PharmD from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. She completed a community pharmacy residency at Virginia Commonwealth University and Ukrop’s Pharmacy. She is associate dean for student affairs, the residency program director for the PGY-1 Community Pharmacy Residency Program, and is board-certified in ambulatory care pharmacy. Dr. Layson-Wolf is also a faculty member of the American Pharmacists Association's Pharmacy-Based Immunization Delivery certificate course. Dr. Layson-Wolf’s research interests include evaluations of immunization programs, point of care testing, medication adherence, and innovative patient care program implementation.

Alexander MacKerell, PhD

Chemical and Biological Discovery

Drug Design

Research in the MacKerell lab involves the development and application of computational methods to investigate the relationships of structure and dynamics to function in a range of biological and chemical systems. These efforts range from empirical force field development, including the CHARMM36 and classical Drude polarizable force fields, development of novel solute and conformational sampling methodologies, understanding the physical forces driving the structure and dynamics of proteins, nucleic acids and carbohydrates and computer-aided drug design (CADD) studies including development of novel methods such as the Site Identification by Ligand Competitive Saturation approach.

Richard J. Manski, DDS, MBA, PhD

Socioeconomic Inequities in Health Care

Dental Public Health - Medicare, Elderly

Dr. Manski manages and provides oversight for a team of faculty, staff, educators, and researchers at the School of Dentistry. His disciplines of interest and areas of responsibility include public health, research methods, statistics, education, practice management, the school’s externship program, and the Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry (NMD). Dr. Manski also manages a multi-institutional and multidisciplinary team of researchers that studies the effects of dental utilization patterns associated with changes in dental coverage and changes in retirement status among older Americans. As executive director of NMD, Dr. Manski is responsible for all operations of the museum, a Smithsonian Affiliate organization that has one of the most comprehensive dental collections in the world; is the national collection for the social, cultural, economic, scientific, and technological history of dentistry; and represents the origins and development of dentistry in the United States and beyond. The museum received congressional designation as the official U.S. museum of the dental profession in 2003. Dr. Manski also serves as a senior scholar for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) within the Department of Health and Human Services. As a senior scholar, he provides advice to AHRQ staff on the editing and imputation of Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data related to use, source, expenditures, and health insurance benefits for oral health care. He also provides technical assistance and advice to the oral health community on issues related to dental policy, expenditures, dental benefit, and dental utilization data.

Diane Martin, PhD, MA

Gerontology

Quality of Later Life

Dr. Martin has been committed throughout her career to developing high-quality, impactful, and engaging academic and non-academic activities designed to increase the knowledge and skill sets of professionals and paraprofessionals employed in the senior service and care industry. As an applied gerontologist, her research has centered on quality-of-later-life initiatives, including person-centered care and aging in place. Dr. Martin is a member of the Gerontological Society of America and the Academy for Gerontology in Higher Education. She earned her doctorate in psychology with a concentration in aging from Northcentral University, her master’s degree in experimental psychology from Towson University, and her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland.

Radi Masri, DDS, MS, PhD

Prosthodontics

Oral Health Technologies

Advanced Education - Prosthodontics

Dr. Masri received his first dental degree from the University of Jordan Dental School in 1997 and completed a prosthodontic residency at the University of Maryland School of Dentistry in 2001. He also holds a master's degree in oral biology and a PhD in biomedical sciences/pain. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Prosthodontics, a fellow of the American College of Prosthodontists, and a member of the American Academy of Fixed Prosthodontics. In addition to expertise in fixed, removable, and implant dentistry, Dr. Masri is a dedicated academician and researcher. He is a professor at the University of Maryland School of Dentistry and University of Maryland School of Medicine. Dr. Masri lectures nationally and internationally and serves as an external examiner for international dental schools in the field of prosthodontics. He is the editor in chief of the Journal of Prosthodontics, a past president of the American Board of Prosthodontics, and a past president of the American Academy of Fixed Prosthodontics. Dr. Masri currently supervises a federally funded research laboratory that studies the etiology and treatment of chronic pain.

Russell McClain, JD

Law

Law School Associate Professor and Associate Dean Russell McClain graduated Order of the Coif from the University of Maryland School of Law in 1995. From 1995 until 2005, Professor McClain was a civil litigator in Los Angeles, California. Professor McClain began teaching in the fall of 2005 as a legal writing instructor at Howard University School of Law. Professor McClain began teaching at the University of Maryland School of Law in 2006, and he received a full-time appointment to the faculty in 2007. Since then, he has worked as the Director of the law school’s Academic Achievement Program, which focuses on assisting with the academic development of law students. In 2016, Professor McClain was promoted to law school associate professor, and he was appointed by the law school Dean to the position of Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion. He also is a member of the President’s Diversity Advisory Council of the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Professor McClain’s scholarly interest is in the psychological factors that affect academic performance, including stereotype threat and implicit bias. This research explores whether stereotype threat (the fear of confirming negative group stereotypes) and implicit bias (subconscious categorizations that are biased against racial/ethnic minorities and women) work together to suppress the performance of these groups in higher education, including in law school. See Russell A. McClain, Helping Our Students Reach Their Full Potential: The Insidious Consequences of Ignoring Stereotype Threat, 17 RUTGERS RACE & L. REV. 1 (2016); Russell A. McClain, Bottled at the Source, Recapturing the Essence of Academic Support as a Primary Tool of Education Equity for Minority Law Students, 18 MD. L.J. OF RACE, RELIGION, GENDER & CLASS 139 (2018). Professor McClain has made dozens of presentations and conducted numerous workshops for educational institutions and professional groups. Professor McClain is the President of the Association of Academic Support Educators. He also has served as a member of the Law School Admissions Council’s Diversity Committee. Professor McClain was honored by the University of Maryland Chapter of the Black Law Students Association as the 2006-2007 Alumnus of the Year. In 2011 and 2018, the chapter named him Professor of the Year.

Mary Lynn McPherson, PharmD, PhD, BCPS

Pain and Palliative Care

Health Professions Education

Dr. McPherson has maintained a practice in both hospice and palliative care throughout her career. She teaches extensively in the School’s Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) program on pain management and end-of-life care, including didactic and experiential content. She also developed one of the first palliative care pharmacy residency programs in the United States and is executive program director of the School’s online graduate studies in palliative care, including a Master of Science, Doctor of Philosophy, and graduate certificates. Dr. McPherson currently serves as the first pharmacist selected for the board of the American Association of Hospice and Palliative Care and is a founding trustee and board member of the Society of Pain Management and Palliative Care Pharmacists. She has received many honors for her work, including the American Pharmacists Association Distinguished Achievement Award in Specialized Practice, the University System of Maryland Board of Regents Award for Excellence in Teaching, the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s Founders Week Teacher of the Year Award, the Maryland Society of Health-Systems Pharmacists W. Purdum Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Robert K. Chalmers Distinguished Pharmacy Educator Award from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. She has written five books, including the best-selling Demystifying Opioid Conversion Calculations, A Guide to Effective Dosing, 2nd ed.

Valli Meeks, DDS, MS, RDH

Oral Health - HIV AIDS

Community Engagement - Oral Health or Education

UMB’s 2018 Public Servant of the Year, Dr. Meeks is director of the School of Dentistry’s PLUS Clinic, which focuses on treating people who are living with HIV disease and in need of oral health services. Halfway around the world, Dr. Meeks supports a second vulnerable population by collaborating in an effort that formed the first school of dentistry in Rwanda. She also has taught at, helped form the curriculum, and assisted an orphanage in becoming a dental education outreach center. Additionally, Dr. Meeks works with students in Baltimore to donate dental equipment that she delivers to Rwanda. The project involves teaming with two Rwanda nonprofits, the Urukundo Learning Center (ULC) and the Rwanda Village Concept Project (RVCP). ULC began as an orphanage for children displaced by the genocide of 1994 and now serves as a primary and secondary school for children in the area. RVCP is an organization run by the students at the University of Rwanda College of Medicine and Health Sciences that works to advance the health of Rwandans living in rural areas.

Megan Meyer, PhD, MSW

Social Work Practice

Sociology

Political Science

Dr. Meyer has taught community organization and macro social work practice at the School of Social Work for 17 years. Dr. Meyer’s research and publications have been interdisciplinary, spanning the fields of social work, sociology, and political science. She has sought to examine the practices and challenges of building social capital and organizing for social change in economically distressed urban environments, barriers to and practices in facilitating collaboration among community-based organizations and associations, and effective practices for community-university partnerships. She received her PhD and MSW degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Sarah L.J. Michel, PhD

Metallotherapeutics

Sarah L.J. Michel, PhD, is a distinguished educator and researcher who joined the School of Pharmacy faculty in 2004. She is a former chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences (PSC) and associate dean for graduate studies. Michel is an internationally recognized leader in the field of metals in medicine. Her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and U.S. Army Research labs for investigating the roles that metals play in the regulation of chronic inflammation, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases. She has also been active in clinical research through U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) grants and has been closely involved with the Maryland Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (M-CERSI). Notably, an FDA clinical trial headed by Michel led the FDA to issue new guidance on how generic nanomedicines should be evaluated for approval. In addition, she is part of a PSC and University of Maryland School of Dentistry team of researchers funded by the FDA that is investigating the safety of electronic cigarettes. In her 19 years at UMSOP, Michel has been intricately involved in all of its educational aspects, including PhD and MS programs, as well as the Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) program, where she re-designed the core biochemistry course to emphasize clinical applications to pharmacy and led the development of the PharmD research pathway. She has mentored dozens of PhD and PharmD students and has a keen understanding of the pharmacy profession, as well as the many roles and career opportunities for today’s School of Pharmacy students. Early in her career at the School of Pharmacy, Michel developed “Spring into Maryland Science” with funding from the NSF to provide research experiences to students from groups underrepresented in science. As director of the School’s PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences program, she was instrumental in partnering with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Meyerhoff Scholars program, which led to the successful application in 2022 of an NIH Initiative for Maximizing Student Development T32 grant to train students from groups underrepresented in health-related sciences. Michel served as president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) Faculty Senate from 2015 to 2017, where she worked with colleagues in the Staff Senate and Graduate Student Association, as well as UMB leadership, on the UMB Statement of Shared Governance. She also testified in the Maryland General Assembly on behalf of UMB faculty on legislation that led to the formation of the MPower collaboration with the University of Maryland, College Park. Michel earned a BA in chemistry from Cornell University in 1995 and a PhD in inorganic chemistry from Northwestern University in 2000. She completed a NRSA postdoctoral fellowship in biophysics and biophysical chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Jill Morgan, PharmD, BCPS, BCPPS, FNAP

Pediatrics

Dr. Jill A. Morgan is professor and chair of the Department of Practice, Sciences and Health Outcomes Research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.  She practices at the Interprofessional Pediatric GI Clinic at the University of Maryland Midtown in Baltimore.  She received her PharmD from the University of Illinois at Chicago and completed pharmacy practice and pediatric pharmacy specialty residencies at the University of Maryland Medical Center. For a number of years, Dr. Morgan has been teaching pediatric and neonatal pharmacotherapy to nursing and pharmacy students as well as medical residents. Dr. Morgan served as director for the PGY2 Pediatric Pharmacy Residency program for several years. She is also board certified in pharmacotherapy and pediatric pharmacy. In, 2017, Dr. Morgan became a fellow of the National Academies of Practice (NAP). Dr. Morgan has been involved with several professional organizations. She served as chair of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Administrative Services Section and the Student Services Special Interest Group, as president of the Maryland Society of Health System Pharmacists (MSHP), as chair of the Research Committee for the Pediatric Pharmacy Association (PPA), and chair of the NAP's Pharmacy Academy. Dr. Morgan serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Pediatric Pharmacology and Therapeutics. She is the co-advisor for the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy Pediatric Pharmacy Association.  Dr. Morgan received the AACP Administrative Services Section Award for Sustained Contribution to Administrative Practice in Pharmacy Education, the Excellence in Innovation Award and the Mentor of the Year Award from the Maryland Pharmacists Association, the Purdum Award from MSHP, and the University of Maryland Board of Regents’ Faculty Award for Mentoring. In 2021, Dr. Morgan received the State of Maryland Governor’s Citation for her teamwork in the University of Maryland, Baltimore's Community Mass Vaccination Site. Her research interests include asthma, constipation, care of pediatric patients in community pharmacy, taste and flavoring of liquid medications for children, nutrition, immunizations, pediatric dermatology, transitions of care for pediatric patients, and interprofessional education.

C. Daniel Mullins, PhD

Pharmacoeconomics

Comparative Effectiveness Research

Health Disparities

Dr. Mullins’ research and teaching focus on community-engaged, patient-centered comparative effectiveness research to advance health equity. He has received funding as principal investigator from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Food and Drug Administration (through its CERSI initiative), the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), various pharmaceutical manufacturers, patient advocacy organizations, and the insurance industry. In addition to his faculty appointment, Dr. Mullins is executive director of The PATIENTS Program at the School of Pharmacy and director of the Community & Collaboration Core for the UMB Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, as well as editor-in-chief for the journal Value in Health.

Eun-Shim Nahm, PhD, RN, FAAN, FGSA

Informatics

Care Coordination

Dr. Nahm’s research focuses on the use of technology-based interventions to engage patients, caregivers, and community-dwelling older adults in their care and to promote the management of chronic conditions. She has conducted numerous studies in the nursing informatics field, including qualitative, measurement, theory testing, usability studies, and longitudinal intervention trials. In her most recent R21 study, Dr. Nahm and her team investigated the effects of a theory-based patient portal e-learning program on selected health-related outcomes in older adults with chronic illnesses. She also leads online cancer survivorship studies in collaboration with oncologists and oncology nurses. Dr. Nahm has published more than 65 peer-reviewed journal articles and seven book chapters in her area

Jason Noel, PharmD, BCPP

Mental Health

Dr. Jason Noel received his Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy and Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degrees at Rutgers University College of Pharmacy. He completed a residency in Psychiatric Pharmacy Practice at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. Dr. Noel’s clinical practice focus is in mental health and intellectual/developmental disabilities. He teaches therapeutics of psychiatric and neurologic disorders in UMB’s PharmD and Nursing graduate programs as well as to audiences of training and practicing clinicians, including pharmacists, physicians, nurses, and social workers. He is a Board Certified Psychiatric Pharmacist and serves as the administrator for the School’s ACPE-Accredited Continuing Education Program. Dr. Noel’s area of scholarly focus is in the integrated psychopharmacologic and behavioral treatment in people with co-occurring intellectual disability and behavioral/psychiatric concerns.

Yolanda Ogbolu, PhD, NNP, FNAP, FAAN

Health Equity

Social Determinants of Health

Social Isolation

Dean Ogbolu’s interprofessional and community-engaged research and scholarship teaching, and professional activities have focused on addressing health inequities and disparities in care locally and globally. Her projects have centered on strengthening nurses’ capacity to impact global health, improving the provision of culturally and linguistically appropriate care in rural and urban hospitals, and addressing social isolation and social determinants of health in marginalized communities. Her international efforts have sought to improve nursing practice in low-resource communities in Nigeria, Rwanda, and Liberia, and later to apply lessons learned from communities in Brazil to issues of social isolation in West Baltimore. She has garnered more than $12 million in funding, as principal investigator and co-investigator, from diverse state and federal agencies and foundations. She has received funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) for three global learning for health equity projects, one translating a social inclusion program from Brazil to Baltimore to reduce family social isolation in West Baltimore and the other building on this work to lead the development of a national global learning network to advance health equity by catalyzing communities across the United States. She is highly regarded for her collaborative spirit and currently leads the West Baltimore RICH (Reducing Isolation and Inequities in Cardiovascular Health) Collaborative, under a $2.4 million Pathways for Health Equity grant from the Maryland Community Health Resources Commission. This project includes a network of 15 community and faith-based organizations, academic institutions, and health care organizations working together to address hypertension and social isolation in West Baltimore. Engaged in local policy advocacy, Dean Ogbolu serves as the chair of the Social Determinants of Health Taskforce of Baltimore City, a novel policy intervention and the first legislatively mandated such committee in the nation. She has also served on taskforces to reduce disparities in newborn outcomes and to improve delivery of culturally and linguistically appropriate care.

Amanda Oglesby, PhD

Bacterial Pathogenesis

Dr. Oglesby has investigated the role of iron in bacterial pathogenesis for over 20 years. In 2005, she completed her doctoral training at The University of Texas at Austin in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, where she studied iron and sRNA regulation in Shigella species, the causative agents of bacillary dysentery. Following her graduate training, her postdoctoral studies at the University of Colorado School of Medicine focused on iron and small RNA regulation in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Mandy joined the faculty at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in 2012, and in 2018 she was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. Her laboratory employs a variety of approaches to understand the mechanism and impact of iron regulatory pathways of P. aeruginosa. A primary focus of her research program is the development of more biologically relevant in vitro growth systems, which have revealed novel impacts in bacterial iron regulation on virulence trait expression.

Ebere Onukwugha, MS, PhD

Pharmacoeconomics

Health Care Resource Utilization

Health Disparities

Dr. Onukwugha is a professor in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and executive director of the School's Pharmaceutical Research Computing center. She received a Bachelor of Science in economics and French from the University at Albany, State University of New York, a Master of Science in agricultural and applied economics, as well as a Doctor of Philosophy in economics (concentration: econometrics) from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). Dr. Onukwugha completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in pharmacoeconomics and health outcomes research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. Dr. Onukwugha’s research interests are in pharmacoeconomic analysis, health disparities, and medical decision-making by individuals and institutions. She examines the costs and health outcomes associated with health-related decisions as well as the institutional and environmental context framing individuals’ health-related decisions. The health-related decisions of interest include the decision to receive guideline-recommended treatment, self-care following a hospital discharge, and health care resource utilization in the oncology and cardiovascular disease settings. Her research on cost-effectiveness and regression modeling has received Contributed Research Awards at international conferences sponsored by the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research. Dr. Onukwugha’s research has been published in journals such as Cancer, Urologic Oncology: Seminars and Original Investigations, Journal of General Internal Medicine, JCO: Clinical Cancer Informatics, PharmacoEconomics, Journal of Geriatric Oncology, Value in Health, Ethnicity & Disease, Medical Care, Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy, Journal of Oncology Practice, and Medical Decision Making. She is an editorial board member for PharmacoEconomics and an associate editor for Ethnicity & Disease.

Lynn M. Oswald, PhD, RN

Addictions

Dr. Oswald conducts research on neurobiological factors that underlie interrelationships among stress, childhood trauma, impulsive behavior, and risks for substance use disorders.

Jenny Owens, ScD, MS

Health Equity

Technology-Assisted Community Support

Dr. Jenny Owens serves as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Associate Professor in the University of Maryland Graduate School. She has over a decade of experience in graduate education and further leads the Graduate Research Innovation District (The Grid), an innovation hub designed to support student entrepreneurial ventures through education, early-stage funding, and programming. Her background in health science, combined with coursework in leadership and business fundamentals and a doctorate with a focus in human centered design and user research gives her a unique perspective on designing innovative education for students in the health professions. Dr. Owens' research interests include health equity, medical housing as a health-related social need, and access to healthcare in healthcare deserts. She co-chairs the Advocacy and Awareness Committee of the Healthcare Hospitality Network, a national network of 140 medical housing organizations across the United States. She is a Warnock Social Innovation Fellow and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University Social Innovation Lab. She is also an alum of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Leader, a prestigious national leadership program that fosters collaboration—between people from all fields and professions that have an influence on people’s health—to build just and thriving communities.

Nicole K. Palmore, MSW

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Nicole K. Palmore is the executive director of diversity, equity, and inclusion for Administration and Finance at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB). Prior to assuming this role, Nicole was the director of diversity, inclusion, and intercultural learning at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. Nicole worked for four years as a senior organization and employee development consultant with Human Resource Services at UMB. She originally joined the University in 2016 after working in learning and development for over 15 years. Nicole held positions in organizational development with the Department of Transportation and Springfield Hospital Center, and as a training director with the Maryland Police and Correctional Training Commissions. She also has consulted with companies in the nonprofit and health care industries. Nicole holds a bachelor’s in psychology cum laude from Georgetown University and a master’s in social work summa cum laude from the University of Maryland School of Social Work. She also completed a graduate certificate in instructional design technology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Most recently, she completed a graduate certificate in intercultural leadership at UMB.

Neha Pandit, PharmD, BCPS, AAHIVP

Infectious Diseases

HIV

Dr. Pandit is a clinical pharmacy specialist at the HIV ambulatory care clinic at the University of Maryland Medical System's Evelyn Jordan Center and the Oncology Infectious Diseases Clinic. She received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree at the University of Sciences in Philadelphia and completed her pharmacy practice residency at New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. She also completed an HIV/Infectious Diseases Specialty Residency at the University at Buffalo. Dr. Pandit is credentialed as an HIV pharmacist by the American Academy of HIV Medicine and a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist by the Board of Pharmaceutical Specialties. She is a member of the Drug Utilization Board of Maryland Medicaid and the Board of Directors of Chase Brexton Health Services in Baltimore. Dr. Pandit’s research interests include adherence, HIV treatment outcomes, HIV complications, antiretroviral drug-drug interactions, education, and other chronic diseases.

Kristine Parbuoni, PharmD, BCPPS

Pediatrics

Dr. Parbuoni obtained her Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in 2005. She then completed a PGY-1 Pharmacy Residency and PGY-2 Pediatric Residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Following residency training, Dr. Parbuoni obtained a position as the clinical pharmacy specialist in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at the University of Maryland Children’s Hospital, where she later also took on administrative roles. Dr. Parbuoni then moved to California and joined the faculty at Loma Linda University School of Pharmacy as an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice. Dr. Parbuoni was also the Residency Program Director of the PGY2 Pediatric Residency Program at Loma Linda University. She was excited to return to her alma mater in 2018. Dr. Parbuoni is a Board Certified Pediatric Pharmacy Specialist. She has a clinical practice site at the University of Maryland Children’s Hospital. She is also the Residency Program Director of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy PGY2 Pediatric Residency. Dr. Parbuoni has been actively involved in professional organizations throughout her career. She served as president of the Maryland Society of Health-System Pharmacy from 2012 to 2013, and is currently on its Board of Directors. She was a delegate for the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), on ASHP’s Council on Education and Workforce Development, and the SCSS’s Preceptor Development SAG and Pediatrics SAG. Dr. Parbuoni served as chair of the Research Committee of the Pediatric Pharmacy Association from 2019 to 2020. Since becoming faculty, she has been a member of the American Academy of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), has served as a delegate to its House of Delegates, and is chair-elect of the AACP Pediatric Special Interest Group. Dr. Parbuoni’s research interests include clinical outcomes in pediatrics (infectious diseases, critical care), pediatric pharmacokinetics, educational methods and outcomes in simulation, and post-graduate training.

Michelle Pearce, PhD

Spiritual Competency in Mental Health Care

Dr. Pearce is a clinical psychologist who researches the relationship among religion/ spirituality, coping, and health as well as the integration of spirituality into the practice of psychotherapy. She has developed a national online training program for spiritual competency in mental health care and directs the Integrative Health and Wellness graduate certificate program. She also teaches several Graduate School courses on mind-body interventions, health coaching, self-care for professionals, and writing for the public. She is the author of the books “Night Bloomers: 12 Principles for Thriving in Adversity” and “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Christians with Depression: A Practical, Tool-Based Primer.” She also co-authored the book “Religion and Recovery from PTSD.” Her areas of clinical expertise include cognitive behavioral therapy, mind-body stress reduction methods, existential issues, and behavioral medicine to address the intersection of mental and physical illness.

Ryan M. Pearson, PhD

Nanotechnology

Immune Engineering

Dr. Pearson is an assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences and molecular microbiology & immunology at the University of Maryland. He received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy and was a postdoc at the University of Michigan prior to starting his independent career in 2018. Dr. Pearson’s laboratory focuses on developing nanotechnology-based strategies for treating dysregulated immune responses specifically focusing on infectious disease, autoimmunity, and cancer. He has published over 35 peer-reviewed articles on his research in top journals including Biomaterials, Journal of Controlled Release, ACS Nano, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Advanced Functional Materials. Dr. Pearson’s significant scientific contributions relate to his development of nanoparticle-based inverse vaccines to induce antigen-specific immune tolerance and his studies evaluating the inherent immunomodulatory properties of polymeric nanomaterials. Dr. Pearson been recognized with several awards and recently received the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy New Investigator Award, American Association of Immunologists Early Career Travel Award, National Institute for Pharmaceutical Technology and Education Rising Star Award, and the Shock Society Faculty Research Award. Dr. Pearson is an active member of the Bio- and Nano-technology center and the Computer-Aided Drug Design Center at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, and a member of the Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Pearson serves on the editorial board of Pharmaceutical Research, as faculty advisor for the AAPS UMB Student Chapter, and as the Chair of the Immuno Delivery Focus Group for the Controlled Release Society.

Eleanor Perfetto, PhD, MS

Comparative Effectiveness Research

Health Care Quality Performance Measurement

Patient-Focused Drug Development and Reimbursement

Prior to joining the faculty, Dr. Perfetto was with Pfizer for more than seven years, most recently as senior director of federal government relations. A pharmacist and health services researcher, she holds BS and MS degrees in pharmacy from the University of Rhode Island, and a PhD from the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, concentrating in health policy and epidemiology. Currently, she serves as a Pharmacy Quality Alliance and Health Industry Forum board member. In recent years, she has served on boards and committees for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the National Quality Forum, and the Center for Medical Technology Policy, among others. Early in her career, Dr. Perfetto served in the U.S. Public Health Service, initially as an Indian Health Service pharmacist and later as senior pharmacoepidemiologist, Agency for Health Care Policy & Research (now AHRQ). Dr. Perfetto is an advocate for patients with head trauma-related dementias, receiving wide recognition for her advocacy efforts. She is president of the Board of Directors for the Sports Legacy Institute. Dr. Perfetto’s research interests include comparative effectiveness research, patient-centered outcomes research, patient-focused drug development, quality performance measurement, and measurement of patient-reported outcomes, especially as part of clinical development plans.

Kathleen Pincus, PharmD, BCPS

Family Medicine

Transitions of Care

Kathleen Pincus, PharmD, BCPS, is a board certified pharmacotherapy specialist and an associate professor in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. She is the Residency Program Director for the PGY2 Ambulatory Care Residency Program. An alumna of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy (’09), Dr. Pincus completed her Pharmacy Practice Residency at the University of Maryland Medical Center and her Pharmacotherapy Specialty Residency at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. Dr. Pincus is an ambulatory care specialist at the University of Maryland Family and Community Medicine practice and a clinical pharmacy consultant with the Governor’s Wellmobile Program. Dr. Pincus’ research interests include transitions of care, integrating clinical pharmacy services in primary care practices, patient motivators for medication adherence and chronic disease state management, including asthma, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and hepatitis C.

James E. Polli, PhD

Regulatory Affairs

Bioequivalence of Brand and Generic Drugs

Dr. Polli’s research focus is oral drug absorption. His two main research interests are 1) maximizing oral bioavailability through formulation and chemical approaches and 2) developing public quality standards for oral dosage forms. He has served as advisor to 24 Ph.D. graduates. He is co-Director of the University of Maryland Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (M-CERSI) and the Center for Research on Complex Generics (CRCG), each an FDA-funded collaborative agreement with the Agency. He is Director of the online MS in Regulatory Science program. He is a fellow of the American Association for Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) and served as an editor of its flagship journal Pharmaceutical Research for 12 years. He was the recipient of the 2022 AAPS Global Leadership Award and 2021 TOPRA Education Award.

Judy L. Postmus, PhD, ACSW

Domestic Violence

Intimate Partner Violence

Dating Violence

Dean Postmus’ research has focused on the physical, sexual, and economic victimization of women. She was the founder and director (2007-2018) of the Rutgers University Center on Violence Against Women and Children, which works to eliminate physical, sexual, and other forms of violence against women and children — and the power imbalances that permit them — through multidisciplinary research, education, and community engagement. In 2016, Dean Postmus received a grant from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), within the U.S. Department of Justice, to create the Rutgers Violence Against Women Research Consortium. The consortium works collaboratively with interdisciplinary researchers and NIJ scientists to identify, implement, and disseminate research and evaluation projects that fill the gaps in our current knowledge of intimate partner violence, sexual violence, stalking, and teen dating violence.

Danya Qato, PhD, PharmD, MPH

High-Risk Medications in Vulnerable Populations

Health Disparities

Pharmacovigilance

Dr. Danya M. Qato is a practicing pharmacist, epidemiologist, and health services researcher. She holds a PhD in health and pharmaceutical services research from the Brown University School of Public Health, a PharmD from the University of Illinois, and a MPH with a concentration in international health and humanitarian studies from Harvard University. In 2020, she was selected as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Leader. Her research is currently funded by the National Institute on Aging, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research. At Brown, Dr. Qato was funded as an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and National Institutes of Health doctoral and postdoctoral research fellow in comparative effectiveness research. Dr. Qato’s substantive areas of research pertain to improving regulatory and policy tools to reduce use of high risk medications in vulnerable populations, substance use and women’s health, risk management and post-marketing surveillance, drug pricing and access to essential medicines, environmental and global health systems development, pharmacovigilance, and global health equity. She was previously a Schweitzer Fellow, a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow (for support of her MPH at Harvard), and a U.S. research fellow of the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC) and the Arab Council for the Social Sciences funded by the Swedish International Development Agency. In the 2015-2016 academic year, Dr. Qato was based at the Institute for Community and Public Health at Birzeit University in Palestine, where she was a Fulbright Scholar and served as an expert consultant to the World Health Organization. In addition to her role as an associate professor at the School of Pharmacy, Dr. Qato holds a secondary appointment in the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, is a faculty affiliate at the University of Maryland Institute for Global Health, and a faculty member of the joint UMB/UMBC PhD Program in Gerontology. She is former chair of the Drug Policy and Pharmaceutical Services Committee of the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association and is a member of the Public Health subcommittee of the Maryland State Taskforce on Reconciliation and Equity.

Sandra Quezada, MD, MS, AGAF

Unconscious Bias in Academic Medicine

Social Determinants of Health in Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Diversifying the Physician Workforce

Dr. Quezada received her medical degree from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD, where she also completed her post-graduate residency training in internal medicine and fellowship training in gastroenterology and hepatology. She is passionate about equity, inclusion, and diversity, and brings this lens to her work in academic medicine. She is Associate Dean for Medical School Admissions and Associate Dean for Faculty Diversity and Inclusion at the School of Medicine (SOM), and has worked locally, regionally, and nationally to amplify physician workforce diversity, and to impact the climate in which future and current physicians train and practice. As co-Chair of the SOM Diversity Advisory Council, Dr. Quezada spearheaded the development of an Equitable Faculty Search Policy, and established an unconscious bias training initiative for SOM faculty, leadership and students. She led the SOM initiative to eliminate race in the estimation of GFR in the University of Maryland Medical System. She is faculty advisor to the SOM Student Diversity Council, and serves on the University of Maryland Baltimore campus Diversity Advisory Council. Dr. Quezada is a practicing gastroenterologist who subspecializes in inflammatory bowel disease, and is recent past-Chair of the Diversity Committee, current co-Chair of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Equity Project, and Chair of the Intersociety Group on Diversity in Gastroenterology. She is also a member of the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force for the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation National Scientific Advisory Committee, and DEI Section Editor for Gastroenterology, the AGA's flagship journal. She was awarded the 2021 Distinguished Award for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion by the American Gastroenterological Association, and the 2022 Healio Disruptive Innovator Health Equity Award by the American College of Gastroenterology.

CS Raman, PhD

Chemical and Biological Discovery

CS Raman is an associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. His research interests include multifaceted structural and biological studies that combine high-resolution X-ray crystallography with biochemistry, biophysics, molecular biology, and evolutionary and phylogenetic analyses.

Jacques Ravel, PHD

Microbiome

Women’s Health

Bacterial Genomics

Over the past 18 years, he has developed a research program focused on applying modern genomics technologies and ecological principles to characterize the role and dynamics of the vaginal microbiome in women's health. He uses clinical genomics and systems biology approaches to develop improved strategies to manage gynecological and obstetrics conditions. His foundational research has led to the development of innovative live microbiome-based live biotherapeutic drugs to restore vaginal health, and treat conditions such as bacterial vaginosis and urinary tract infections. These interventions are being evaluated in several clinical trials in the US and Africa. He previously was an investigator at the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Md., where the first microbial genome was sequenced in 1995. He was elected to the American Academy of Microbiology in 2012 and was awarded the Blaise Pascal International Research Chair in 2015. He has published over 300 peer-reviewed publications and is among the most highly cited scientists worldwide. Dr. Ravel is the current and founding editor-in-chief of the journal Microbiome and an associate editor of the journal mBio. He received his PhD in environmental molecular microbiology and ecology from the University of Maryland, College Park, and performed his postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of Chemistry, working on microbial natural product chemistry.

Kristin Reavis, MD

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Dr. Reavis joined the School of Medicine (SOM) faculty in 2013 and practices a full scope of family medicine. She is the faculty advisor for SOM’s chapter of the Student National Medical Association, co-faculty advisor for the Student Diversity Council, and has been an advisor for SOM’s House Advisory System since its inception in 2016. Additionally, she serves on the Diversity Advisory Councils at UMB and SOM. As a leader for equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) efforts at SOM, she is working to establish an Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in an effort to centralize DEI efforts at the school. Dr. Reavis is an inaugural member of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine’s Anti-Racism Task Force and is working to integrate anti-racism policies into the strategic plan of the leading organization that supports family medicine educators, thus affecting the future of family medicine. Dr. Reavis serves as the director of maternal child health and is a family medicine obstetrics provider for the Department of Family and Community Medicine. Her academic and clinical interests include women’s health and social justice/health equity. She is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and was the 2019 recipient of the Dean’s Alumni Award for Diversity and Inclusion. Dr. Reavis completed her undergraduate education at Morgan State University before earning her Master of Biological Sciences degree at Drexel University. She earned her medical degree from UMSOM and completed her residency and fellowship training in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

William F. Regine, MD, FACR, FASTRO, FACRO

GI and CNS Malignancies

Dr. Regine, ranked in the top five in National Institutes of Health research funding, is recognized nationally and internationally in the areas of gastrointestinal and sympathetic nervous system malignancies and in the use of stereotactic radiosurgery. At the Maryland Proton Treatment Center, he leads the first and most advanced facility of its kind in the Baltimore-Washington region, providing nearly 2,000 cancer patients a year with precise “pencil-beam” technology to treat solid tumors. UMB’s 2016 Entrepreneur of the Year, Dr. Regine has served as principal or co-principal investigator on at least four National Cancer Institute (NCI)-sponsored cooperative group clinical trials. He has also been the Radiation Oncology Principal Investigator/Study Chairman of at least 2 additional Institutional clinical trials published in JAMA and the Lancet which defined new standards of care for patients with brain metastases and malignant spinal cord compression. He is co-editor "Principles and Practices of Stereotactic Radiosurgery," the first comprehensive textbook of its kind. His department ranks top 5 in NIH funding for Radiation Oncology. Dr. Regine was named a "Top Doctor" in the specialty of Radiation Oncology by Baltimore Magazine and "Super Doctor" in Mid-Atlantic by Washington Post Magazine multiple years.

Barbara Resnick, PhD, RN, CRNP, FAAN, FAANP

Gerontology/Aging

Functional Status

An internationally recognized expert in gerontology, Dr. Resnick focuses on developing innovative interventions to motivate older adults to engage in healthy behaviors, particularly with regard to function and physical activity as well as other behaviors such as adhering to recommended immunizations and to managing pain and other symptoms commonly noted in aging, and to implement these in real-world settings. These interventions are designed to optimize recovery, health, function, and physical activity regardless of age or underlying co-morbidities. Examples include helping individuals recover from orthopedic events or, for individuals with and without dementia, to optimize their participation in personal care activities and ambulation and engage in physical activity.

Mark A. Reynolds, DDS, PhD, MA

Dentistry

Dental Education

Dental Health Equity

A distinguished academic dentist, Dr. Reynolds has been a professor at the School of Dentistry (SOD) since 2009 and served for one year as interim dean before being named dean in 2014 after a national search. He has published nearly 200 peer-reviewed articles with more than 11,000 citations and serves on the editorial boards of journals including Biomaterials, Clinical Advances in Periodontics, the International Journal of Periodontics and Restorative Dentistry, and the Journal of Periodontal Research. Dr. Reynolds is a diplomate and past director and co-chair of the American Board of Periodontology. He has served on the board of organizations such as the American Academy of Periodontology and LifeNet Health. He is past president of the National Dental Honor Society, Omicron Kappa Upsilon, Supreme Chapter, and a fellow of the American College of Dentists, International College of Dentists, and Pierre Fauchard Academy. Dr. Reynolds has participated in more than 40 National Institutes of Health (NIH) study sections, serving as a regular member of the Skeletal Biology Development and Disease Study Section from 2006 to 2010. He was a consultant to the Commission on Dental Accreditation and Naval Postgraduate School and served two four-year terms as a voting member of the Food and Drug Administration’s Medical Devices Advisory Committee, Dental Products Panel, including as chair during the second term. He began his NIH funding in 1992, when he earned a competitive five-year NIH Individual Dentist Scientist Award to support his residency and PhD studies. His research focuses on bone and periodontal regeneration. In 2004 and 2016, Dr. Reynolds received the American Academy of Periodontology R. Earl Robinson Periodontal Regeneration Award. Most recently, he serves as co-chair of the Task Force on Oral Health in Maryland. In 1999, Dr. Reynolds earned his PhD in oral and experimental pathology from the University of Maryland Graduate School. In 1995, he earned a certificate in periodontics from SOD, where he had earned his DDS in 1986. Dr. Reynolds also earned a master’s degree in community-clinical psychology in 1982 and a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1978, both from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Scott J. Riley, PhD

Drug Discovery

Machine Learning

Dr. Riley serves as an instructor and MS internship coordinator in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. He earned his PhD in bioinspired materials engineering from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and completed his postdoc with the APHL-CDC Ronald H. Laessig Newborn Screening Fellowship. His research interests include development of machine learning algorithms focused on predictive models for drug discovery/delivery and microelectronic control of drug delivery using biocompatible platforms.

Charmaine Rochester-Eyeguokan, PharmD, CDE, BCACP

Diabetes Management

Dr. Rochester-Eyeguokan graduated from Howard University College of Pharmacy in 1996 and subsequently received her Pharmacy Practice Residency (PGY1) training at the Medical University of South Carolina in 1997 and her Post graduate Year 2 (PGY2) Primary Care Residency at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 1998. She is associate director of clinical services at the School of Pharmacy's P3 eHealth Services. She also serves as an ambulatory care preceptor for the Ambulatory Care Residency Program at the University of Maryland Medical Center. She is a board certified ambulatory care pharmacist and a certified diabetes educator.

Magaly Rodriguez de Bittner, PharmD, BCPS, CDE, FAPhA

Chronic Disease Management

Diabetes

Cultural Competency

In addition to serving as the Felix Gyi Endowed Memorial Professor in Pharmapreneurship and associate dean for clinical services and practice transformation at the School of Pharmacy, Dr. Rodriguez de Bittner is the director of the Maryland P3 Program — a patient-centered comprehensive medication therapy and chronic disease management program provided by pharmacists throughout the Mid-Atlantic region — and executive director of the School’s Center for Innovative Pharmacy Solutions (CIPS). She engages in legislative advocacy and state and national leadership to expand the role of pharmacists in chronic disease management. She is an innovator who has implemented many new health care delivery models particularly in community pharmacies and received many grants and contracts to develop innovative programs. She is a member of the Maryland Health Care Reform Council Health Care Delivery Reform Subcommittee, subcommittee of the Maryland Patient-Centered Medical Home pilot, a past-president of the Maryland Pharmacists Association (MPhA), past board member and president of the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Foundation, and member of the Pan-American Commission for Pharmaceutical Education. She has provided presentations and authored/co-authored many publications. She has received numerous awards including: the APhA Pinnacle Award and its Community Pharmacy Residency Excellence in Precepting Award; the Distinguished Achievement in Pharmacotherapeutic Practice Award; the LKS/Merck Vanguard Leadership Award; the MPhA Bowl of Hygeia Award; the APhA Merit Award; MPhA's Innovative Pharmacy Practice Award; Baltimore’s Magazine Best of Baltimore Pharmacist of the Year, and the APPM Merit Award. Her research interests include chronic disease management; clinical outcomes in diabetes and cardiovascular diseases; medication therapy management and practice-based research; vulnerable populations; collaborative practice; cultural competence

Paul Sacco, PhD

substance use

gambling

aging

Paul Sacco received his MSW from Arizona State University in 1995 and practiced for 10 years as a psychiatric social worker. In 2005, he returned to complete his PhD in Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis and joined the faculty of the School of Social Work in 2009. His research focuses primarily on behavioral health and addictions with a focus on life course development, alcohol use disorders, problem gambling, tobacco use, and behavioral health integration. Sacco combines his behavioral health research with an interest in the training of social work students in evidence-supported behavioral health interventions. He served as the Project Director of a SAMHSA-funded Screening and Brief Intervention and Referral for Treatment (SBIRT) Training program (2014-2017) and continues to provide training in this public health approach. He also directs the BHWISE-Lifespan Fellows Program, a HRSA-funded workforce development project focused on integrated behavioral health training. Sacco teaches in the foundation and clinical practice areas. He also teaches structural equation modeling in the PhD program. As an educator, he endeavors to support students in learning the latest from research while helping them to recognize the core elements of effective social work practice.

Thomas M. Scalea, MD

Surgery

Critical Care

Dr. Scalea is one of the world’s foremost authorities on trauma research, education, and clinical practice. As physician-in-chief of the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, he leads the largest facility of its kind in the nation and the first in the world to treat shock. Since taking over Shock Trauma, he has elevated the center to be one of the premier trauma facilities in the world, treating 8,000 critically injured patients annually with a 96 percent survival rate for gunshot victims, head-on car collisions, and other trauma injuries. Widely acknowledged as a pioneer in the treatment of shock trauma, Dr. Scalea puts in 60 to70 hours a week attending to patients and performing about 600 surgeries a year. His Program in Trauma has expanded clinical services, and his faculty is responsible for the bulk of emergency general surgery patients at the University of Maryland Medical Center. His group has built a regionwide critical care program and is responsible for nine intensive care units and over 100 beds. Several years ago, he established the GO Team, a physician-led rapid response team consisting of an anesthesiologist, surgeon, critical care medicine specialist, and certified registered nurse anesthetist that is available around the clock every day and serves as a specialized component of Maryland’s statewide emergency medical system. Dr. Scalea remains a prolific investigator, and Shock Trauma investigators from his department report at many national meetings.

Lauren A. Schuyler, PhD

Income support programs (e.g., TANF, SNAP)

Public sector outcomes measurement

Equity considerations in social policy

Dr. Schuyler (she/her) currently serves as the Assistant Research Director of the Family Welfare Research and Training Group at the University of Maryland School of Social Work (SSW). She has 15 years of experience supporting evidence-based policy- and decision-making through research, and translating data into accessible deliverables. Broadly, her experience is in the social policy and higher education policy spaces, with specific expertise related to TANF, SNAP, access to higher education, measuring outcomes across diverse populations, public sector performance management, and equity considerations in performance management. In her role at SSW, she provides the Maryland Department of Human Services with research and analytic support related to the state’s TANF and SNAP caseloads. She is currently the principal investigator for a mixed methods, comprehensive evaluation of Maryland’s TANF program, evaluating program design, policies, and processes, with a focus on equity and best practices. Lauren completed her graduate training at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), receiving an MA in Sociology and a PhD in Public Policy with an Evaluation and Analytical Methods concentration.

Julia Scott

Diversity

Equity

Anti-Racist Frameworks

Julia Scott develops diversity and inclusion-focused education, programs, and events for the School of Social Work’s faculty, staff, and students and the local community. She also works with Baltimore Racial Justice Action (BRJA), which collaborates with individuals and organizations to fight racism and other forms of institutional oppression. With BRJA, she serves as an Advisory Board member, primary trainer, and “13th of the Month” event co-coordinator. Her interest revolves around using anti-racist and anti-oppression frameworks to approach community building and leadership programming. Scott earned her bachelor’s degree in English literature from Morgan State University.

Leah Sera, PharmD, MA, BCPS

Palliative Care

Medical Cannabis

Dr. Sera received her PharmD from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in 2010. She completed a pharmacy practice residency at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Md., and a specialty residency in pain management and palliative care at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. She is a board-certified pharmacotherapy specialist. She earned a master’s in instructional systems development at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2017. Dr. Sera's clinical specialties are pain management and palliative care. Dr. Sera is co-director for the nation’s first MS in Medical Cannabis Science and Therapeutics (MCST) program at the School of Pharmacy. She teaches in several courses in the MCST program, including an introduction to medical cannabis history, culture, and policy; a course introducing students to patient care and the clinical uses of medical cannabis; she also mentors students in their capstone projects. In the Doctor of Pharmacy program, Dr. Sera teaches a variety of topics in required and elective courses. Additionally, she holds an associate faculty position at the University of Maryland Graduate School. Dr. Sera maintains an active clinical practice in the Transitional Care Center at the University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie, Md. Dr. Sera has been invited to speak on pain management, palliative medicine, and cannabis therapeutics topics at professional pharmacy conferences and at medical centers such as the National Institutes of Health. She received a Leader in Healthcare Award in the category of medical cannabis from the Baltimore Business Journal in 2020.

Wendy Shaia, MSW, EdD

Positive School Climate

Community Outreach

Wendy Shaia, Clinical Associate Professor and Executive Director of the Center for Restorative Change, is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Social Work. Wendy obtained her Doctor of Education in Human and Organizational Learning from The George Washington University. She has more than 20 years of experience developing, implementing, and leading organizations and programs. In New York, she developed and operated a shelter for homeless pregnant and parenting young women in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and built transitional and affordable housing in East New York, Brooklyn. She provided technical assistance to community organizations for the Enterprise Foundation, and conducted the summative evaluation of the Red Cross’ long-term recovery effort after hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. Most recently, Wendy worked as a strategic planner for the Department of Defense, where she led change management efforts, and developed strategies around Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity. Wendy is also the co-founder of the Positive Schools Center at the University of Maryland School of Social Work. Her work focuses on creating positive school climate and reducing the disproportionate suspensions and expulsions of children of color and children with disabilities from Maryland schools, particularly where children, families and school staff have experienced, complex, secondary and vicarious trauma. Wendy has been trained in restorative practices by the International Institute for Restorative Practices and in mindfulness by the Center for Mindful Awareness. She is passionate about issues related to poverty, social justice and oppression. Wendy is on the Board of Directors of the Community Law Center.

Paul Shapiro, PhD

Chemical and Biological Discovery

Dr. Shapiro received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1987, and his doctorate in molecular physiology and biophysics from the University of Vermont in 1995. He completed post-doctoral training from 1995-1999 in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Dr. Shapiro’s research focuses on protein kinases and their role in regulating signaling pathways that control cellular functions and dysregulation of protein kinases during disease. Specific areas of research focus on the discovery and development of novel small molecules that inhibit the extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK1/2) and p38 MAP kinases and provide the rationale for clinical applications of these molecules in treating cancer or inflammatory disease.

Terry V. Shaw, PhD, MSW, MPH

Child Welfare

Foster Care

Administrative Data

My background and interests focuses on leveraging existing administrative data systems to improve state policy and practice related to child and family health. I am particularly interested in examining the pathways into and through child serving systems focusing on opportunities for state systems to collaborate, understand service overlaps, improve overall service delivery and address the multiple needs of the children and families involved with these systems (including child, youth and family physical and mental health; surveillance of psychotropic medication use; pathways to permanency; educational access; interactions between the court and child welfare services, and child maltreatment prevention). I have over two decades of experience and expertise in developing the infrastructure, relationships and programming structure to successfully implement multi-agency data linking systems (having instituted data linking projects in South Carolina, California, and Maryland). I have expertise in advanced statistical methods and extensive experience utilizing longitudinal data systems to answer questions related to service outcomes to inform policy and practice.

Fadia Shaya, PhD, MPH

Pharmacoeconomics and Pharmacoepidemiology

Health Disparities and Social Determents of Health

Health Policy and Regulatory Science

Dr. Shaya directs the Informatics Core in the UMB Institute for Clinical and Translational Research and is executive director of the School of Pharmacy's Behavioral Health Research and Resource Team (BHRT). She serves on the Faculty Advisory Council of the Maryland Higher Education Commission and on the Board of AcademyHealth, and is the regional director of the Harvard Business School Healthcare Alumni Association. She is a member of HIMSS, AMIA, AcademyHealth, AACP, APHA, ISPE and ISPOR. Dr. Shaya’s work focuses on building strategic partnerships, taking into account the social determinants of health, to optimize the effectiveness and reduce the risk of prescription drugs and medical devices. Her implementation/dissemination research is based in human data science and uses artificial intelligence and machine learning methods. With multidisciplinary collaborations, she develops and applies new methods in pharmacoeconomics, pharmacoepidemiology, public health, and clinical informatics to inform practice and policy.

Corey Shdaimah, PhD, LLM, LLB

Sex Work

Foster Care

Child Care Policy

Dr. Shdaimah, who has degrees in law and social work, examines the impact of policy as it evolves through implementation, with a focus on child welfare, prostitution policy, and child care. She is an expert on alternative criminal justice responses to prostitution and street-based sex work and has consulted with jurisdictions across the country and internationally on development, implementation, and evaluation of such programs. In the field of child welfare, Dr. Shdaimah studies case processing. She advises the Maryland judiciary and has worked with the state’s Foster Care Improvement Program as well as a number of local jurisdictions on dependency court reforms and the involvement of stakeholders in the court process. She also is a leading voice on U.S. child care policy, speaking in academic venues and to the news media about the struggles faced by families and providers and the range of early education and child care policy responses to address them.

Jana Shen, PhD

Chemical and Biological Discovery

Data Science

Dr. Shen earned her PhD from the University of Minnesota at Twin Cities before completing her postdoc at The Scripps Research Institute. Her current research areas include the development of molecular simulation and data science tools; molecular mechanisms of kinases, proteases, proton-coupled transmembrane channels/transporters, GPCRs; and pH-responsive materials based on polysaccharides. Among her honors and awards are a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation in 2011.

Yan Shu, MD, PhD

Drug Transport and Metabolism

Pharmacogenetics and Pharmacogenomics

Dr. Yan Shu is an associate professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. He received his medical degrees (MB/MD) from Hunan Medical University (now Xiang Yia Medical School, Central South University) in China. He then completed a clinical pharmacology fellowship between 2000 and 2002 in the University of California San Francisco, where he later received his PhD degree in pharmaceutical sciences & pharmacogenomics in 2006. He worked at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center at Los Angeles as a faculty scientist in 2007. He joined the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in 2008. Research in Dr. Shu’s group is to understand the genetic mechanisms of drug response and the roles of membrane transporters in pharmacokinetics and clinical drug response. In particular, research is focused on genetics and epigenetics of drug effects on body metabolic homeostasis. Research is also specifically directed to explore the regulatory mechanisms of drug transporters and their clinical implication. The key aspect of the group’s effort is to translate laboratory findings to clinical outcomes by integrating research approaches of molecular, cellular, animal, and human studies.

Julia Slejko, PhD

Medication Adherence and Decision-Analytic Modeling

Cost Effectiveness and Comparative Effectiveness Research

Dr. Slejko’s research is focused on innovative approaches for decision-analytic modeling for economic and health outcomes assessments. She has applied these methods to modeling medication adherence and translating pharmacometric findings to cost-effectiveness analyses. She holds a BA in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology from the University of Colorado Boulder. Her PhD training at the University of Colorado School of Pharmacy Center for Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research was focused on pharmacoeconomics. Her postdoctoral training was completed at the Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research and Policy Program in the University of Washington School of Pharmacy. Prior to her PhD training, she had a seven-year career in drug discovery at Array BioPharma. Dr. Slejko is very active in the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) and maintains close connections with industry and academic partners. Her research focuses on assessing economic and comparative value of medications and health care. Current efforts include informing decision-analytic models with real-world evidence on effectiveness, in particular patients’ adherence to medications as a determinant of value, how adherence affects economic evaluations and how predicting and improving adherence may increase value. As co-director of the School of Pharmacy's Patient-Driven Values in Healthcare Evaluation (PAVE) Center, she leads research on incorporating patient-driven value elements into cost-effectiveness analyses and other components of value assessments.

Audra Stinchcomb, PhD

Drug Delivery

Translational Research

Dr. Audra Stinchcomb’s research is focused on transdermal prodrugs, microneedle-enhanced delivery, and translational research models for public-private partnerships. She has developed a research program in transdermal drug delivery in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy that revolves around the examination of the mechanisms and optimization of prodrug skin permeation and microneedle-enhanced skin permeation. This research has studied the influence of prodrug physicochemical properties on skin flux, distribution, and metabolism. The results of this prodrug knowledge fueled the genesis of F6 Pharma, LLC, a transdermal specialty pharmaceutical company. Transdermal prodrugs are in development for treatment of cancer chemotherapy nausea and vomiting, alcoholism, drug addiction, and pain. Transdermal cannabinoid delivery has also been a major research focus, with new prodrugs developed to improve aqueous solubility, chemical stability, as well as skin permeation. The microneedle research focus has been on formulations for improved permeation rate and micropore lifetime, utilizing animal studies translated to human subject studies.

Marc Taraban, PhD

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Chemical and Biological Discovery

Dr. Taraban received his MS in physical chemistry from Novosibirsk State University and PhD in chemical physics from the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Chemical Kinetics & Combustion. His pioneering research in the Laboratory of Magnetic Phenomena used methods of Chemically Induced Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (CIDNP) to observe organometallic intermediate species and magnetic field effects on enzymatic reactions for the first time. As a visiting assistant professor at the University of Utah, Dr. Taraban continued his research of mechanisms of enzymatic processes using spin chemistry techniques, and expanded his focus to structural determination of biomacromolecules and polymers using Small Angle X-Ray Scattering (SAXS). At the University of Maryland, College Park, he created new force-sensitive nano-networks (FSNNs) from soft and wet viscoelastic materials assembled from peptides and other biopolymers in order to construct injectable and biodegradable mechanosensors and drug release matrices to aid the repair and rehabilitation of damaged musculoskeletal tissues. Dr. Taraban holds an issued patent for noninvasive analytical technologies.

Deanna Tran, PharmD, BCACP

Family Medicine

Community Pharmacy

Immunizations

Deanna Tran, PharmD, BCACP, received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and subsequently completed a PGY-1 community pharmacy residency at Virginia Commonwealth University and Martin’s Pharmacy. She is co-director of the School's Pharmacy Practice Laboratories and co-advisor of the American Pharmacists Association Academy of Student Pharmacists (APhA-ASP) student chapter. She practices as an ambulatory care specialist at the University of Maryland Family and Community medicine practice. From 2017 to 2019, she was a clinical pharmacist at the University of Maryland Capital Region Health – Family Health and Wellness at Cheverly’s Inter-professional Care Transition Clinic. Prior to that, she was a clinical pharmacist for the University of Maryland Anticoagulation Clinic and the Clinical Programs Consultant for the Landover division of Giant Pharmacy, serving 158 pharmacies in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, and the District of Columbia. She assisted in the development and implementation of Giant Pharmacy’s patient care services, including medication therapy management, travel health clinics, and outreach programs such as chronic disease management classes. She was also a faculty clinical specialist at the University of Maryland Medical Center’s Anti-thrombosis Center. Dr. Tran's focuses are the scholarship of teaching, point-of-care testing, travel-health, and immunizations. She is active in a number of professional pharmacy organizations, including the American Pharmacists Association, the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, and the Maryland Pharmacists Association.

Alison Trinkoff, ScD, MPH, RN, FAAN

Musculoskeletal Injuries

Long-Term Care

Dr. Trinkoff’s longitudinal study of more than 2,600 registered nurses examined the relationship among long work hours, needlestick injuries, and musculoskeletal disorders. More recently, her research has focused on the implications of nurses’ work environments on patient outcomes. She has been studying long-term care settings, including certified nursing assistant preparation and training, nursing home leadership, and their impact on resident care outcomes.

James Trovato, PharmD, MBA, FASHP

Hematology and Oncology

James A. Trovato, PharmD, MBA, FASHP, is a professor and co-vice chair of academic affairs at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in Baltimore. He completed a BS in pharmacy from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, a PharmD degree from Purdue University, and an American Society of Health System Pharmacists-accredited oncology residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Dr. Trovato has a demonstrated history of leadership and management in pharmacy higher education. He is skilled in oncology therapeutics, instructional design, and curricula development and assessment. His research interests include treatment and survival outcomes in cancer patients, instructional design, and student academic success.

Ester Villalonga Olives, PhD, MsC

Patient-Reported Outcomes

Social Epidemiology

Health Inequities

Dr. Villalonga-Olives is a social epidemiologist with a PhD in biomedicine, specializing in epidemiology and public health. She obtained her BsC and MsC in sociology and health from the University of Barcelona, with an international stint at the Università degli Study di Trieste in Italy. Her PhD, with International Doctor Distinction, was from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, and she completed stays at the London School of Economics in the UK and the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany. During her PhD, she conducted public health interventions for non-governmental organizations in India and Cuba. Currently an adjunct professor at New York University, she has also been a teaching and research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, guest lecturer at Yale School of Public Health and the University of Tarapacá, Chile, and a research scientist at the University Medical Center of the Georg-August-University of Goettingen in Germany. Dr. Villalonga-Olives is a member of the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center and the International Expert Group on Operationalizing Social Capital Interventions in Forced Displacement Situations led by the United Nations. She was part of the Early Investigators Advancement Program of the NIH, received a GLOBALtimore teaching fellowship, served on the board of the International Epidemiology Association for 10 years, and received an award from the Spanish Society of Epidemiology to train at the European Epidemiology Program in Florence (Italy). Her research focuses on the social determinants of health, emphasizing social capital, health inequalities, structural racism, and health intervention design. She has a background in psychometrics and works with patient-reported outcomes, particularly health-related quality of life, and developed a measure for assessing bridging social capital. She leads various projects, including an NIH R01 grant creating a measure of structural racism. In her research she is exploring social capital's link to health outcomes in underserved populations, adapting cancer knowledge tools for Hispanics/Latinos, studying racial Differential Item Functioning in social indicators, and implementing social capital interventions to boost cancer screening among Hispanic/Latino immigrants. She co-investigates two NIH R01 projects on social connectedness's impact on mental health in Black adults and creating a shared decision-making measure in maternity care. Her research methodologies encompass mixed methods, structural equation modeling, multilevel modeling, and Rasch analysis. Dr. Villalonga-Olives has received awards for multiple conference presentations, published in prestigious journals like the American Journal of Epidemiology, Social Science and Medicine, and the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. She serves on the editorial board of Frontiers in Public Health and actively contributes to scientific committees at international events.

Kathryn Walker, PharmD, BCPS, CPE

Pain and Palliative Care

Dr. Walker is an associate professor at the School of Pharmacy and assistant vice president for palliative care at MedStar Health, where she creates palliative care strategy, demonstrates its value within the health system, and leads and collaborates on interdisciplinary research focused on health services related to telehealth and appropriate medication use. She teaches in both the School’s PharmD program and its MS in Palliative Care program. She also serves as site director for the pain/palliative care residency program that is shared between the University of Maryland and MedStar Health. At MedStar, she serves as the clinical co-leader for the health system and oversees inpatient palliative care consultation teams at nine hospitals as well as the community-based Palliative Telehealth Connecting to Home (PATCH) program, which she started in 2015. Dr. Walker completed one of the only specialty residencies at the time in palliative care at University of Maryland after completing her Doctor of Pharmacy degree. She is the past president of the Maryland Pain Initiative (MPI) and served on the Board of Directors for MPI and the Maryland Society of Health System Pharmacists.

Hongbing Wang, PhD

Genomics and Personalized Medicine

Dr. Wang’s research interests focus primarily on the influence of drugs and genetic factors on the expression of metabolizing and detoxifying enzymes and drug transporters in humans as well as the early prediction of metabolism-associated drug interactions. Dr. Wang joined the School of Pharmacy in 2006 after receiving his doctorate in toxicology from Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and working at the University of North Carolina’s Eshelman School of Pharmacy. As chair of Experimental and Translational Therapeutics, he leads a program that aims to optimize drug metabolism, pharmacokinetics, and therapeutic efficacy of drugs through a combined strategy that integrates experimental and translational therapeutic approaches.

Gary Warburton, DDS, MD, FACS

Dental Implantology

Maxillofacial Trauma

surgical management of temporomandibular joint disease

Dr. Warburton earned his dental surgery and medical degrees at Manchester University in the United Kingdom and completed his training at the University of Maryland Medical Center and the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the Faculty of Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and the American Academy of Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgeons; and is a member of the American Association of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons, Maryland Society of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons, and American Society of Temporomandibular Joint Surgeons. He holds a faculty appointment at the University of Maryland Medical Center, and he is the chief of Maxillofacial Trauma at Sinai Hospital. Dr. Warburton's clinical interests include dental implantology, orthognathic surgery, maxillofacial trauma, and the surgical management of temporomandibular joint disease.

Roger J. Ward, EDD, JD, MSL, MPA

Institutional Effectiveness

Leadership and Organizational Behavior

Dr. Ward was named UMB provost and executive vice president in October 2021 after serving in interim roles since January 2020, when he also was named dean of the Graduate School. These are the latest in a series of upward moves for Dr. Ward at UMB. He was promoted to senior vice president for operations and institutional effectiveness in January 2018, serving as UMB’s chief operating officer and directing departments and initiatives that promote institutional effectiveness and assure accountability including human resources, strategic planning, enterprise risk management, and institutional accreditation. In addition, he oversaw areas that promote University compliance and transparency, including the offices of research integrity, conflict of interest, human research protections, and education and equal access. On the academic side, Dr. Ward is dean of the Graduate School after serving as vice dean, where he was responsible for building graduate programs that are self-sustaining and responsive to evolving needs of the health and human services workforce in the state. Dr. Ward joined UMB in March 2009 as the associate vice president for academic and student affairs. He served as chief academic officer and interim dean of the Graduate School during the 2011-2012 academic year. In June 2012, Dr. Ward was named UMB’s first chief accountability officer and was promoted to vice president for academic affairs in October 2013 and to vice president of operations and planning in June 2015. He served as interim chief human resources officer from October 2014 to November 2015. Before joining UMB, Dr. Ward served as assistant vice president for student affairs at the New School in New York and also held senior administrative positions in the City University of New York system. Dr. Ward holds an associate’s degree in data processing/computer programming from Kingsborough Community College, a bachelor’s degree in government and a master’s in public administration, both from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He holds a Doctor of Law degree from New York Law School and a Master of Science in Law (cybersecurity) from Maryland Carey Law. Dr. Ward also holds a Doctor of Education degree in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania. He has been teaching on-site, online, and in a blended environment since 2004 and has taught graduate courses in ethics, the history of higher education, leadership and organizational behavior, legal issues in higher education policy, and cybersecurity policy, among others.

Linda Wastila, BSPharm, MSPH, PhD

Health Services Research in Mental Health

Substance Use Disorders in Geriatrics

Dr. Linda Wastila is professor and Parke-Davis Chair in Geriatric Pharmacotherapy in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research and director of research for the Peter Lamy Center for Drug Therapy and Aging. For more than two decades, she has conducted research focusing on prescription drug policy, quality, and outcomes. She received her Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she also completed a Master of Science in Public Health. In 1993, she received her doctorate in health policy from Brandeis University, where she served as a Pew Health Policy Fellow. From 1994–2001, she served as senior scientist at the Schneider Institute for Health Policy and was a lecturer at Harvard Medical School. With a focus on older adults and other vulnerable populations, Dr. Wastila examines issues such as: prescription drug use, abuse, and diversion; intended and unintended policy impacts on prescription drug utilization and outcomes; psychopharmacological medication use, quality, and outcomes in community- and residential-residing older adults; innovative methods addressing multi-morbidity and poly-pharmacy; mental health disorders and impact on medication use, adherence, and outcomes; and medication quality and falls prevention. Dr. Wastila’s current research portfolio includes papers on psychopharmacological treatment and quality of treatment in long-term care beneficiaries, substance use disorders epidemiology, and co-morbidity of psychiatric and physical health conditions. She has received grants and contracts from the National Institute of Aging, National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Agency for Health Research and Quality, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Research Retirement Foundation, the Maryland Department of Health, and other sources.

Chanel Whittaker, PharmD, BCPS, CGP, FASCP

Geriatrics

Nephrology

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Dr. Chanel Whittaker received her Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Pharmacy degrees from Rutgers University. She completed a managed care pharmacy practice residency with Kaiser Permanente, Mid-Atlantic States and a primary care specialty residency at the Baltimore Veterans Affairs Medical Center, focused on chronic disease state management. Dr. Whittaker is a board certified pharmacotherapy specialist and certified geriatric pharmacist. She is residency program director for the PGY2 – Geriatrics Residency Program. Her practice and teaching specialties include geriatric pharmacotherapy and chronic kidney disease. She has practiced in a number of ambulatory and community settings providing services to older adults in the Baltimore area. Her current practice sites include the Geriatric Education and Medication Management Clinic and the ambulatory nephrology clinic at the Baltimore Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Dr. Whittaker’s research interests include health literacy, health communication, interprofessional education, and improving medication related outcomes in diverse older adults. She completed an interprofessional faculty development program in ethnogeriatrics with the Stanford Geriatric Education Center to develop educational programs to equip health care professionals to address the health care needs of culturally diverse older adults. She is currently conducting research in the community to evaluate knowledge of medication safety and poison prevention in culturally diverse older adults with low health literacy. In 2022, she was named the School of Pharmacy's inaugural assistant dean of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). In this role, Dr. Whittaker oversees the development and implementation of the School's EDI strategic plan and initiatives.

Angela Wilks, PhD

Antibiotic Resistance

Metallotherapeutics

Dr. Wilks’ research interests focus on mechanisms by which bacterial pathogens acquire and utilize heme as an iron source. Her research spans disciplines employing bacterial genetics and metabolomics alongside biochemical and biophysical approaches to understand the molecular mechanisms by which pathogenic bacteria acquire heme. These studies have led to the structural characterization of several proteins involved in heme uptake and degradation and to the rational design of potential therapeutic agents that reduce virulence through global effects on iron metabolism. Dr. Wilks received her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Lancaster, England. She received her PhD in biochemistry from the University of Leeds, where she worked on the mechanism of heme degradation with Professor Stanley B. Brown. After a postdoctoral fellowship with Professor Paul Ortiz de Montellano, she took an appointment as a research assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco. In 1998, she joined the faculty at the School of Pharmacy.

Patrick Wintrode, PhD

Chemical and Biological Discovery

Dr. Wintrode's research is focused on protein folding and misfolding, and the role of protein dynamics in function and allosteric regulation. His primary research tools are hydrogen/deuterium exchange, radiolytic footprinting, mass spectrometry, molecular dynamics simulation and small angle x-ray scattering. The biological systems he currently focuses on are 1) serpins: a class of metastable protease inhibitors whose unusual biophysical properties render them susceptible to misfolding and polymerization. Serpin misfolding is implicated in a number of inherited diseases including emphysema, thrombosis and early onset dementia. 2) HIV-1 reverse transcriptase: the role of conformational dynamics in inhibition and drug resistance. 3) AAA+ proteases: mechanisms of action and regulation. Additionally, he is part of a collaboration applying novel advanced computational techniques to simulate large conformational changes in all atom detail.

Graeme F. Woodworth, MD

Neurosurgery

Neuro-Oncology

Image-Guided Interventions

Graeme Woodworth, MD, FACS is Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He also serves as the Director of the Brain Tumor Program and the Translational Therapeutics Research Group in the Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Maryland. Dr. Woodworth completed medical school and neurosurgical residency training at Johns Hopkins. He also completed fellowships in cancer nanomedicine at Johns Hopkins and cranial endoscopy at Cornell with Dr. Ted Schwartz. His clinical subspecialty areas of interest are Neurosurgical Oncology and Skull base and Stereotactic surgery. Dr. Woodworth’s research focuses on developing new therapeutic strategies to improve the treatments and outcomes for patients with malignant brain tumors. These efforts include (1) leveraging the diverse interstitial effects of transcranial focused ultrasound and hyperthermia, (2) developing advanced nano-therapeutics to improve treatment efficacy, and (3) expanding the suite of patient-derived and genetically engineered models of human brain tumors to improve predictive therapeutic testing. A core component of the research has been centered on the concept of using the operating room as a portal for discovery and opportunity to improve our understanding of and therapeutic delivery to brain cancers. Dr. Woodworth’s team is leading the first-in-human clinical trials of MRI-guided focused ultrasound (FUS) and Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy (LITT) combined with radiation in the United States. Dr. Woodworth will provide insights into the emerging role and impact of image-guided focused ultrasound in neurosurgery.

Fengtian Xue, PhD

Chemical and Biological Discovery

Dr. Xue is an associate professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. He completed his PhD in chemistry at Brown University before completing his postdoc in medicinal chemistry at Northwestern University. His research interests include pre-clinical development of small molecule therapeutics for bacterial infections, alcohol use disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, and cancer.

Bruce Yu, PhD

Nanomedicine

Translational Therapeutics

In his independent research career at the University of Utah and the School of Pharmacy, Dr. Yu has worked on developing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) agents and on biomaterials engineering. In the imaging area, the focus was to synthesize dendrimer imaging agents for multicolor F-19 MRI and advanced MRI technology to evaluate the mechanical properties of soft materials and biological tissues. In biomaterials engineering, he has explored the link between molecular chirality and material mechanical properties, exploiting chirality to create biomaterials with novel mechanical properties for cell growth and differentiation. Current research in Dr. Yu’s lab involves regulatory science for biologics and nano-drugs, particularly nondestructive analytical technologies that are being developed for pharmaceutical solutions of drug substances and drug products and for product inspection, using a variety of physicochemical techniques. Dr. Yu received the Kimmel Scholar Award in 2004 for his work on imaging agent development and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists for Engineers in 2005 for his work on biomaterials. He holds several issued patents for dendrimer synthesis, biomaterials engineering, and noninvasive analytical technologies. Dr. Yu received a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Peking University and a PhD in biophysics from Johns Hopkins University. His postdoctoral training was in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy at the State University of New York-Buffalo and in peptide chemistry at the University of Alberta.

Wenbo Yu, PhD

Drug Design

Dr. Yu is a research assistant professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. His research interests include computer-aided drug design (CADD) targeting cancer and other diseases; new CADD methods development and coding; force field development; and molecular level simulation for phenomenon of biological and medicinal interests.

Zafar Zafari, MSc, PhD

Mathematical/Statistical Simulation Modeling

Cost-Effectiveness Analyses

Health Policy

Dr. Zafari is a quantitative outcomes researcher with interests in a wide range of applied and theoretical topics in health economics, outcomes research, and health policy, including developing advanced cohort/micro simulation models for cost-effectiveness or comparative effectiveness of health policies or technologies, Bayesian methods of synthesizing and reconciling evidence, statistical methods of longitudinal analyses, prospective, or retrospective studies including multi-level (hierarchical) modeling, age-period-cohort analysis, non- or semi-parametric modeling to address burning epidemiological and health policy questions. From 2016 to 2018, Dr. Zafari was a postdoctoral research scientist in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. During this time, besides working on a on a variety of projects on cost-effectiveness of social and preventive policies in the US public health system and especially New York City, one main pillar of Dr. Zafari's research activities was to quantify and understand the trends of despair over time and their impact on survival inequalities in the US. From 2012 to 2016, Dr. Zafari was a PhD student at University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, where he obtained his PhD in health economics/outcomes research. During his PhD, Dr. Zafari worked as a mathematical modeler and data scientist affiliated with the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation (2014-2016) and as a health economist/epidemiologist for the Center of Collaborations for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, Vancouver, Canada (2012-2014). He received a MSc in mathematics from the University of British Columbia in 2012 and a BSc in electrical engineering from Tehran Polytechnic University in 2010.