About PIDS

Buddy Creech, MD, MPH is the Edie Carell Johnson Chair and Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, and Director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Research Program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Creech is Principal Investigator of the NIH-funded Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit and co-PI for the CDC-funded Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment Project. His work focuses on the evaluation of new vaccines and therapeutics targeting a number of pathogens, including S. aureus, influenza, RSV, and pertussis. Dr. Creech serves as President of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases.

Kristina Bryant, MD is Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Louisville, Director of the Kosair Charities Fellowship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Hospital Epidemiologist at Norton Children’s Hospital. The majority of her professional activity is devoted to clinical service, education of fellows and residents, and oversight of infection control and hospital epidemiology at Norton Children’s Hospital. Dr. Bryant’s research interests include vaccine clinical trials and prevention of healthcare-acquired infections. She has been a member of PIDS since 2000. Dr. Bryant has served on the PIDS Training Programs Committee since 2004, with stints as chair and co-chair. Also since 2008, she has served as the moderator or co-moderator of the annual Pediatric Fellows’ Day Program held during IDWeek. She completed a two-year term as PIDS President in 2021 and currently serves as the PIDS Past President and current chair of the PIDS Foundation.

William J. Steinbach, MD, is Robert H. Fiser, Jr. MD Endowed Chair in Pediatrics, Chair of Pediatrics and Associate Dean for Child Health at UAMS, and the Pediatrician-in-Chief at Arkansas Children’s. For the last 20 years, Dr. Steinbach has led an NIH-funded multi-disciplinary clinical care and research program supporting immunosuppressed children. His molecular, translational, and clinical research focuses on the pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of invasive fungal infections and spans broader efforts with all infections in immunocompromised patients. His laboratory centers on the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus to understand the molecular mechanisms of cellular signal transduction in disease, develop novel fungal-specific molecular targets as therapeutics, devise new diagnostic assays, and conduct phase I-IV clinical trials in children. Dr. Steinbach founded and is the Director of the International Pediatric Fungal Network, a global consortium of 55 sites dedicated to investigating pediatric invasive fungal infections through multi-center cooperative studies that has led to the first pediatric-specific guidelines for these diseases. He has co-edited four textbooks, including Aspergillus fumigatus and Aspergillosis, Feigin & Cherry’s Textbook of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, the American Academy of Pediatrics Nelson’s Pediatric Antimicrobial Therapy, and most recently the first textbook in a new subfield: Pediatric Transplant and Oncology Infectious Diseases.

Deb Palazzi, MD, MEd is Professor of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX. She is the Medical Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at Texas Children’s Hospital and participates in national antimicrobial stewardship educational and research activities. Dr. Palazzi is Director of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program as well as Co-director of Fellows’ College in the Department of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine. She has been on the PIDS Board since 2016 and now serves as PIDS Secretary-Treasurer. She is a member of the PIDS Committee on Antimicrobial Stewardship, PIDS Education Committee, as well as the PIDS Liaison to the Infectious Diseases Society of America Education Committee. Dr. Palazzi has been an Associate Editor of the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society since 2016.