St. Jude/PIDS Speakers

Dr. Amina Ahmed is the chief of Pediatric Infectious Disease and Immunology at Levine Children’s Hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina. Dr. Ahmed has been practicing for almost 25 years. Her clinical and research interests have included congenital infections and tuberculosis. More recently, she has served as the infectious disease liaison for the solid organ transplant program and is focusing on building a pediatric transplant infectious disease program. 

Upton D. Allen, O.Ont, MBBS, MSc, FAAP, FRCPC, Hon FRCP (UK), FIDSA, is a Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto. He is Chief, Division of Infectious Diseases, Hospital for Sick Children. He is interim director of the Transplant and Regenerative Medicine Centre, Hospital for Sick Children. Dr. Allen is a Senior Associate Scientist in the Research Institute, Hospital for Sick Children. His primary appointment is with the Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Paediatrics at the Hospital for Sick Children.  He is cross-appointed as a professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto. 

Dr. Allen received his medical degree from the University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica.  He received pediatric training at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. He obtained further research training leading to a degree in Clinical Epidemiology (MSc) from McMaster University.   

Dr. Allen is a past director of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and Fellow of the Society. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (UK). He is a past Chair of the Infectious Diseases Specialty Training Committee, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC). Past awards include the Clinical Science Established Investigator Award from the American Society of Transplantation. In 2018, he was awarded the Order of Ontario, which is the highest honor awarded by the province of Ontario, Canada. 

In addition to being a general infectious diseases specialist, he is actively involved in clinical and research activities relating to immunocompromised patients, notably those who have undergone organ and stem cell transplantation as well as cancer therapies. He has a major research interest in Epstein-Barr virus-related post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder (PTLD) as well as an interest in respiratory syncytial virus infections. Dr. Allen has had many academic and professional accomplishments. He has had numerous invited lectures internationally, visiting professorships, greater than 300 scientific publications, several book chapters, more than 190 scientific abstracts and several peer-reviewed research grants.  

Manuel’s research focus is on understanding how bacterial pathogens colonize epithelial surfaces and how epithelial colonization leads to infection and disease. He grew up in Mexico City and fell in love with the wonders of biology as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, where he was taught multiple skills in microscopy and studied the development of marine invertebrates. Afterwards, Manuel returned to Mexico and wrote children’s books that were recorded as radioplays and retold his countless adventures in science and biology. He then moved to California to pursue an M.D./Ph.D. at Stanford University. During his Ph.D., Manuel studied how cytoskeletal proteins aid in cell movement in the laboratory of Heinz Furthmayr. Following the completion of a residency in Pediatrics at Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital, Manuel became a Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellow at Stanford and further trained as a postdoctoral scholar in the laboratory of Stanley Falkow. An avid microscopist, Manuel loves to hide in the microscope room where he can spend countless hours on the confocal looking through the porthole at microbes interacting with cells and tissues. 

Evan J. Anderson is Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine.  He graduated summa cum laude from Wheaton College, IL after which he pursued his medical degree at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. He remained at the University of Chicago for residency in both internal medicine and pediatrics.  Subsequently he completed both an adult and a pediatric infectious diseases fellowship at Northwestern Memorial and Children’s Memorial Hospitals in Chicago.  As such, he is board certified in internal medicine, adult infectious diseases, pediatrics and pediatric infectious diseases.  As such, he splits his clinical care between adults and children. He was a physician at Northwestern for 5 years before moving to Emory University in 2012.  He is an attending physician at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta in pediatric infectious diseases and Emory University Hospital in adult infectious diseases. He is currently one of the multiple PIs of the Emory University Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit (VTEU).  He serves as the lead investigator in Georgia for influenza, RSV, and COVID-19 surveillance for the CDC–funded Emerging Infections Program. He particularly enjoys mentoring trainees at all levels and received the Emory Department of Pediatrics Research Mentor Award in 2017. He has over 150 total publications with particular interest in rotavirus, RSV, influenza, COVID-19, early phase vaccine clinical trials, and the power of community protection.  

Dr. Bassiri completed his Ph.D. in Immunology and his M.D. at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). He then pursued a residency in General Pediatrics and a fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). He was appointed as an Assistant Professor at Penn in 2013, and now provides pediatric infectious disease consultations at CHOP, where he specializes in the care of immunocompromised children. As a faculty member at the Center for Childhood Cancer Research, his current laboratory research focuses on delineating the immunometabolic features of invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells, and defining strategies to co-opt the immunotherapeutic functions of these cells and those of NK cells in the neuroblastoma tumor microenvironment. Finally, at CHOP he also serves as the Associate Program Director for the Pediatric Infectious Diseases fellowship program, an Assistant Director for the Clinical Immunology laboratory, and a member of the Dysregulated Immunity consultation team. 

Dr. Bassler, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and the Squibb Professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University. She began her career receiving a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of California at Davis, and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Johns Hopkins University. She performed postdoctoral work in Genetics at the Agouron Institute and joined the Princeton faculty in 1994.

Dr. Bassler is a passionate advocate for diversity in the sciences and she is actively involved in and committed to science education. She has also received many awards, honors and significant recognition, such as the following: elected to the American Academy of Microbiology in 2002, elected to the Royal Society and the American Philosophical Society in 2012, received the Gruber Prize in Genetics for her groundbreaking discoveries and she also received the Genetics Society of America Medal in 2020.

Anne Blaschke is a tenured Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Utah, and the Director of the Molecular Microbiology Laboratory. She holds the Edward B. Clark II Endowed Chair in Pediatrics. Her research focuses on using molecular techniques and new technologies to improve the diagnosis and management of infectious disease and to understand the pathogen-based epidemiology of infection, particularly complicated pneumonia with parapneumonic effusion.

Her most recent work involves the use of next generation sequencing and comparative genomics to investigate virulence factors in invasive bacterial pathogens such as Streptococcus pneumoniae and Staphylococcus aureus that lead to severe infection. In addition to her clinical and research endeavors, Anne Blaschke is the Program Director for the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellowship at the University of Utah, where she mentors trainees and junior faculty aspiring to careers in academic medicine.

Kristina (Kris) Bryant, M.D. is the hospital epidemiologist at Norton Children’s Hospital, a member of the leadership team that coordinates infection prevention and control efforts at Norton Healthcare in Louisville, KY, and a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. She is the current president of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society Board of Directors and a co-editor of the PIDS-sponsored Handbook of Pediatric Infection Prevention and Control. Since December 2016, she has served as a member of the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC). Dr. Bryant’s research interests include the prevention of device-associated infections, including dialysis-related infections, and vaccine clinical trials. She is an active participant in national research collaboratives to study the epidemiology and prevention of HAIs in children and adults. Dr. Bryant is a member of the Nephrologists Transforming Dialysis Safety Current and Emerging Threats (CET) Workgroup.  

A native of Paraguay, Dr. Caniza, received her medical degree at the School of Medicine of the National University in Asunción, Paraguay. She completed her pediatric residency at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York; and her fellowship training in Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. She earned a Master’s in Public Health from the University of Memphis, Tennessee. She is board certified in Pediatrics and Pediatric Infectious Diseases by the American Board of Pediatrics and she has more than 19-year experience in pediatrics and pediatric infectious diseases at domestic and global sites.

After the completion of her studies, she joined the Department of Pediatrics at the University of South Carolina Medical School, Columbia, South Carolina, mentoring physicians in training and medical students; and she worked providing medical care to uninsured, low insured and immigrants’ children in South Carolina.

In 2001, she was recruited to the Department of Infectious Diseases at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, in Memphis, Tennessee, to build and direct the Global Infectious Diseases Program of the Department of Global Pediatric Medicine (former Infectious Disease – International Outreach), position she holds to date.

At St Jude, she cares for children with catastrophic diseases and infectious complications and she concentrates in improving the standards of prevention and care of infections in children globally by implementing effective practices and building clinical care and quality improvement capacity. To effectively impact multiple global sites, she designs and delivers infection care and prevention training for clinicians, builds and sustains networks and working groups of healthcare providers with expertise in infection care and prevention. Aligning with St Jude, better equipped clinical workforce collaborates in healthcare delivery and research with St Jude Global to further the mission and vision of St Jude.

Education and training are essential tools used to improve the ability of local experts and leaders of institutions to prevent and manage infectious diseases. Also, these tools are used to promote better understanding of local data and dissemination of results through actively building research resources.

In 2012 she received the “HERO” award from the Association of Professionals in Infection Control of America for her work to improve capacity of preventionists of infections throughout Latin America. She collaborates with colleagues worldwide in topics of common interest and writes extensively in areas of her expertise.

Ann Chahroudi, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the Emory University School of Medicine and Director of the Emory+Children’s Center for Childhood Infections and Vaccines. She also serves as Medical Director of the Ponce Family and Youth Clinic of the Grady Infectious Diseases Program and Associate Director for Clinical Affairs of the Emory MD/PhD Program. Dr. Chahroudi received her MD and PhD from Emory University School of Medicine and completed her general pediatrics residency at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.  She returned to Emory for subspecialty fellowship training in Pediatric Infectious Diseases. Dr. Chahroudi’s research focuses primarily on HIV pathogenesis and cure as well as Zika virus infection of infants, with emphasis on translational studies in nonhuman primates. Dr. Chahroudi is an elected member of the Society for Pediatric Research, also serving on the SPR Research Advocacy Committee. She is a member of the Research Affairs and Programs and Meetings Committees of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society. Dr. Chahroudi is an Investigator for the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) HIV Reservoirs and Viral Eradication Transformative Science Group and is Co-Chair of the International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials (IMPAACT) Network Protocol 2015.  

Dr. Archana Chatterjee joined Rosalind Franklin University in April 2020 and is Dean of the Chicago Medical School and Vice President for Medical Affairs. For the previous 7 years, she served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Development at the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine (USD SSOM), Sioux Falls, SD. She has spent nearly 12 years as a leader in Faculty Affairs/Faculty Development (FA/FD), initially at Creighton University School of Medicine, and later at USD SSOM.

Dr. Chatterjee has been elected/selected to serve on several national Advisory Boards and Committees including the US Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Group on Women in Medicine and Science, the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society Board of Directors and the American Board of Pediatrics Subboard of Pediatric Infectious Diseases.

Trained as a pediatric infectious disease specialist, Dr. Chatterjee has practiced in her field for over 20 years, conducted over 120 clinical trials, published over 90 peer-reviewed articles, 26 invited review articles, 24 book chapters and one book. She serves as a reviewer for 35 journals. In the past 20 years, Dr. Chatterjee has delivered over 700 lectures and 175 scientific presentations at various international, national, regional, and local venues. She has served as the course director for over 30 CME programs, given over 55 media interviews and published 25 newspaper articles.

C. Buddy Creech, MD, MPH is Associate 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, C. difficile, and pertussis. Dr. Creech serves as President-Elect for PIDS and chair of the PIDS Research Affairs Committee.

Dr. Cruz Vidal, MD, is a Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellow at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. He received his medical degree at Universidad del Valle at Cali, Colombia. He worked as an HIV physician at Corporacion de Lucha contra el SIDA. He completed his residency in Pediatrics, served as a chief resident and an Emergency Department attending at Hospital Universitario del Valle / Universidad del Valle in Colombia before relocating to Columbus, Ohio. 

His current research focuses on understanding the dynamics of the immune response in the setting of severe infections as a member of the Immune Surveillance Laboratory at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in the Center for Clinical and Translational Research. 

Lara Danziger-Isakov, MD, MPH, practices pediatric infectious diseases at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center where she is the Director of Pediatric Immunocompromised Host Infectious Diseases and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Danziger-Isakov earned her MD at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and complete her residency in Pediatrics at the Cleveland Clinic. She also completed a fellowship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University. Dr. Danziger-Isakov is board-certified in Pediatrics and Pediatric Infectious Diseases by the American Board of Pediatrics. Her clinical interests include pediatric infectious diseases, infections in transplant recipients, and infections in immunocompromised patients. Her research interests include outcomes related to infection after pediatric transplantation with an emphasis on pediatric solid organ transplantation and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. In addition, Dr. Danziger-Isakov participates in clinical trials to evaluate new infectious disease therapies, new methods of detection for infectious diseases, and vaccination in immunocompromised hosts. 

Kathryn M. Edwards, MD, the Sarah H. Sell and Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Pediatrics, has led many of the pivotal clinical trials of vaccines licensed in the past several decades and has played a major role in their implementation.  She graduated from the University of Iowa College of Medicine and completed her pediatric residency and infectious disease fellowship at Northwestern University and her postdoctoral training in Immunology at Rush Medical School in Chicago. Dr. Edwards joined the Vanderbilt Vaccine Program in 1980 and directed it for many years. She has served on multiple CDC, NIH, FDA, WHO, and IDSA committees. In 2006, she received the IDSA Mentor Award for her exceptional mentoring and in 2014 received the Maureen Andrews Mentoring Award from the Society for Pediatric Research. In 2008 she was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, in 2018 she was awarded the Maxwell Finland award for Scientific Accomplishments, and in 2019 she received the Frank Morriss Leadership Award in Pediatrics.  She is currently active on committees to assess the safety and effectiveness of COVID vaccines and monoclonal antibodies.  

Janet Englund, MD, is Professor of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Washington School of Medicine and Seattle Children’s Hospital. She studies new viruses, viral vaccines and novel agents for the treatment and prevention of respiratory viruses including influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19).

Dr. Englund’s research group at Seattle Children’s Hospital is part of the New Vaccine Surveillance Network of the Centers for Disease Control (2010-2021), participating in respiratory and gastrointestinal viral surveillance in King County. This group assesses vaccine effectiveness in population-based studies of healthy children. She also is a leader of the Seattle Flu Study, a group of investigators who evaluate the spread of respiratory viruses within the community and helped identify the first case of community COVID-19 in the USA. Her group evaluates new methods to diagnose and characterize viral respiratory diseases, including COVID-19.

Dr. Englund has been active in national and international organizations including American Academy of Pedtrics, the CDC-sponsored Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRPBAC), and the Maternal Immunization Safety Group at the World Health Organization (WHO). She is past president of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society, past member of the WHO Influenza working group and the Board of Directors of the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA), and a current member of the IDSA COVID-19 Diagnosis Working Group.

Kristen A. Feemster, MD, MPH, MSHP, is a board-certified pediatric infectious diseases physician, health services researcher and public health practitioner.   She received a B.S. in Environmental Biology at Yale University and an M.D. / M.P.H. at Columbia University before moving to Philadelphia for residency and fellowship training at CHOP and the and University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.  She joined the faculty at Penn in 2010 in the Division of Infectious Diseases.  After several years as an academic physician, she transitioned to a full time public health role as Medical Director of the Immunization Program and Acute Communicable Diseases at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health until June 2020.  She is now a Global Director, Medical Affairs for pneumococcal vaccines at Merck Research Laboratories, Merck & Co., Inc..    

Kristen’s research interests have included vaccine policy and the epidemiology of vaccine preventable diseases both domestically and internationally. She has maintained an academic appointment as an adjunct associate professor of pediatrics at Penn and has been active in the Vaccine Education Center as the Director of Research, PolicyLab and global health fellowship programs at CHOP.  

Megan Culler Freeman, MD, PhD is currently a senior Pediatric Infectious Diseases fellow at the UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. She completed her Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Kentucky, and then earned her M.D. and Ph.D. degrees at Vanderbilt University, where she studied coronaviruses. She completed her Pediatrics residency at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh as part of the Pediatric Scientist Development Program (PedSDP). She currently works in the laboratory of Carolyn Coyne, where her research interests include pathogenesis and cell biology of RNA viruses and advanced tissue modeling, with a current focus on enterovirus D68, the hypothesized cause of acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) in children. She is the proud recipient of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society-St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Fellowship Program in Basic and Translational Research. 

Dr. Galvis is the son of Colombian immigrants and was born in Daly City CA. He completed his undergraduate studies in 2002 at Santa Clara University where he obtained a B.Sc. in Biological Sciences and B.A. in Religious Studies. He subsequently attended San Francisco State University from 2002-2005 working on his MSc in Molecular Biology and worked on HIV research looking at the latent reservoir in patients that were receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy. In 2005 he was admitted to medical school at the University of California Irvine. During his time in medical school he became part of the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) and Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community (PRIME-LC). Dr. Galvis was also very involved with the Latino Medical Student Association serving 3 years as Southern CEO for the West region and National President for two terms. He obtained his PhD in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry in 2014 working with Drs. Hung Fan and David Camerini in the mechanism of reverse transcription of HIV. Dr. Galvis completed medical school in 2015 and went to the University of Nevada Las Vegas for pediatric residency from 2015-2018. He stayed on for an additional year from 208-2019 and served as Chief Resident. In 2019 he became the first infectious diseases fellow for UCI-CHOC and currently is on his second year of a three-year fellowship.  During the COVID-19 pandemic he has been doing both clinical and basic science research in the immune system response to SARS-CoV2 infection in pediatric and adult population.  

Hayley Gans is a Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University Medical Center. She spends her clinical time on the Pediatric Infectious Diseases service, and Co-directs the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Program for Immunocompromised Hosts. She is the Director of Fellowship Education for the Department of Pediatrics overseeing 23 fellowships and more than 100 fellows participating in these programs. In addition, Dr. Gans is the Associate Program Director for the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fefllowship Program. In these roles she is active in curriculum development, teaching and mentoring of residents, fellows and faculty. She has lead over 10 workshops on curriculum development, leadership and well-being during National Medical Education conferences. The focus of Dr. Gans’ research has included investigations into the innate and adaptive immunity to viral vaccines in several different populations. Initial studies involved infants receiving an early measles vaccination regimen which then expanded to include preterm infants, HIV infected adults and children, and children and adults undergoing liver transplantation. Subsequent studies expanded the repertoire of viral antigens, such as adenovirus, CMV, poliovirus, varicella and mumps. Current studies include immune recovery following pediatric solid organ transplantation. Additional research efforts include bioinformatics in the immunocompromised cohorts and outcome measures in ambulatory pediatrics. Dr. Gans has contributed numerous peer reviewed articles and authored several book chapters, including chapters in the RedBook, Nelson’s Textbook of Pediatrics and for UptoDate. She has been invited to moderate platform sessions and to deliver keynote presentations at National Conferences. She also serves on DSMB committees and several CDC, FDA and NIH grant review and other committees.

Michael Green, MD, MPH, is Professor, Pediatrics, Surgery, and Clinical and Translational Science, at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He received his medical degree from the University of Illinois in Chicago and his master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. He completed a pediatric residency and a fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Throughout his career, Dr. Green’s clinical and research interest have focused on the prevention and treatment of infections in immunocompromised children with a particular interest in the care of children undergoing solid organ transplantation.  Among his professional affiliations, Dr Green is a member of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society, the American Pediatric Society, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the International Pediatric Transplant Association, and the American Society of Transplantation (AST).

Dr Green has published more than 160 peer-reviewed articles, has been invited to author over 45 publications, and has written more than 75 review articles or textbook chapters. He serves as an Associate Editor for both Pediatric Transplantation and the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society. He was co-editor of the First Edition of the Guidelines for the Prevention and Management of Infectious Complications of Solid Organ Transplantation published by the American Society of Transplantation and was the Editor-in-chief for the recently published 4^th edition the guidelines which were published in 2019. He currently serves on the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Sub board of the American Board of Pediatrics and is a member of the FDA Antimicrobial Advisory Committee.

Stephan Grupp, MD PhD, is the Chief of the Cellular Therapy and Transplant Section, Director of the Cancer Immunotherapy Program, and Medical Director of The Cell and Gene Therapy Lab at CHOP, as well as the Novotny Professor of Pediatrics at the U Penn Perelman School of Medicine.  

Dr. Grupp came to CHOP in 1996 after training in Boston. His primary area of research is the use of CAR T and other engineered cell therapies in pediatric cancers and other life-threatening disorders such as sickle cell disease. He led all of the pediatric ALL trials of CTL019 (now approved as Kymriah). As a result of this work, he presented the Clinical Perspective at the first FDA ODAC CAR meeting. Dr. Grupp was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019.  

Dr. Halasa is the Craig Weaver Professor in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University.  She received a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in biology from the University of Akron. She received her M.D. degree from the Medical College of Ohio and completed a residency in pediatrics at Columbus Children’s Hospital. She completed a fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases at Vanderbilt and earned an M.P.H. degree during her fellowship training. She joined the faculty in 2004. Dr. Halasa’s research involves determining the burden of diarrheal and respiratory illnesses in young children and specialized populations and finding ways to reduce their burden (e.g. through vaccine, drugs, etc…).  Since 2002, Dr. Halasa has been involved in vaccine trials enrolling children from all ages, including young infants and specialized populations such as children with cancer.  The vaccine trials that Dr. Halasa has been involved with in the past include influenza vaccines (both the trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine and the cold-adapted influenza vaccine), pertussis vaccines, pneumococcal, and RSV vaccines.  In addition, she has the expertise in vaccine protocol development. She was the PI of a respiratory viral surveillance study in Amman, Jordan, which was funded Union Bank of Switzerland.  Currently, currently is PI of the Vanderbilt site of the New Vaccine Surveillance Network initially established in 1999 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to predict the impact of potential new vaccines and three NIH grants investigating high dose influenza vaccine versus standard dose influenza vaccine in pediatric and adult hemopoietic stem cell recipients and adult solid organ transplant recipients. She is also actively involved in COVID-19 research to understand the long-term complications and the immunologic responses over time.    

Benjamin Hanisch, MD, is an assistant professor of pediatric infectious diseases and director of transplant infectious diseases at Children’s National Hospital in Washington D.C.. His research and clinical interests are focused on the care of immunocompromised patients, particularly those who have received transplants.  

Betsy C. Herold, M.D. is a Professor of Pediatrics and Microbiology-Immunology, Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Pediatrics, and Division Chief, Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx, NY.  Dr. Herold graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, completed a residency in pediatrics, clinical fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases, and postdoctoral fellowship in herpes virology at Northwestern University. She leads a translational research program focused on understanding herpes simplex (HSV) viral entry and pathogenesis, the HIV-HSV syndemic, and exploiting that knowledge to develop safe and effective vaccines and antivirals.  She also helped establish the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society (PIDS) ID Transplant Research Network whose goal is to conduct multicentered research studies to optimize treatment and prevention of infectious complications in solid and stem cell transplant recipients.  She has applied her research experiences to study COVID-19, focusing on why the clinical outcomes in children differ from adults. 

Chandy C. John, M.D., M.S., holds the Ryan White Endowed Chair in Pediatric Infectious Diseases and is director of the Ryan White Center for Pediatric Infectious Disease and Global Health at Indiana University. Dr. John’s research focuses on malaria pathogenesis, immunology and epidemiology and infections in children with sickle cell disease. Key discoveries of his collaborative research team include: 1) the first prospective studies to establish that severe malaria is associated with long-term cognitive impairment in children, 2) identification of immunologic factors that increase risk of severe malaria and cognitive impairment after severe malaria; 3) determination of geographic and immunologic factors that affect risk of malaria in areas of unstable malaria transmission; and 4) pioneering studies on the efficacy, safety and optimal dosing of hydroxyurea for treatment of children with sickle cell anemia in malaria endemic areas. 

Dr. John conducts research and training programs in Kenya in collaboration with colleagues at the Kenya Medical Research Institute, and in Uganda in collaboration with colleagues at Makerere University. He is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and 30 book chapters. Dr. John is co-chair of the Thrasher Research Fund Scientific Advisory Committee, a member of the NIH Fogarty International Center Advisory Board, and has served on or chaired numerous NIH and national and international study sections and review boards. Dr. John’s awards include the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society Young Investigator Award (2004), and the Bailey K. Ashford Medal from the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene for contributions to tropical medicine research (2011). 

Dr. John is an active clinician, specializing in pediatric infectious diseases at Riley Hospital for Children. As an educator, Dr. John was director of global health residency tracks in pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University and the University of Minnesota. Dr. John served as president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in 2019. 

Krystal Kohlman is a physician assistant with 2 years of experience in pediatric infectious diseases at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford.  Prior to moving to California, she practiced medicine as a PA in adult infectious diseases in Virginia. She graduated from Baldwin Wallace University in Ohio with a Master of Medical Science and has undergraduate degrees in Anthropology, Environmental Science and Biology.   

Dr. Laufer is a pediatric infectious disease specialist, with a primary research interest in malaria and global child health. She has conducted research, clinical care and professional education in several resource-limited countries but has dedicated the past 15 years to working in Malawi. She and her research team use clinical and laboratory research to develop and evaluate interventions to decrease the burden of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. She currently serves as Principal Investigator for clinical trials and epidemiological studies throughout Malawi. Her current research focuses on malaria during pregnancy and its impact on infants, the interaction between HIV and malaria and identifying reservoirs of malaria transmission. Her laboratory at the University of Maryland explores the application of molecular epidemiology tools to address critical issues related to malaria pathogenesis, disease burden and drug resistance. Dr. Laufer serves as the Associate Director for Global Health at the Institute for Global Health. She leads outreach efforts throughout the School of Medicine and the entire University of Maryland campus to support and promote global health research. 

Dr. Laurens is a pediatric infectious disease specialist with a primary research interest in vaccine development. He conducts studies at the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health (CVD), University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore and at international sites in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Malawi. Dr. Laurens evaluates vaccines and therapeutics that target infectious pathogens, studies the interaction of HIV and malaria, and investigates the acquisition of immunity to malaria and Salmonella infections. The broad goal of Dr. Laurens’ research is to illuminate the mechanisms of immunity to inform development of vaccines and therapeutics. He is also a co-Principal Investigator for the Phase 3 Moderna mRNA-1273 vaccine study at the Center for Vaccine Development, University of Maryland School of Medicine. 

Katelyn Leake has been a board certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner at Boston Childrens Hospital for the past three years. Katelyn received her BSN from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia after which she worked as a registered nurse in a pediatric emergency room for five years prior to returning to school to pursue her MSN within the dual acute and primary care pediatric nurse practitioner program at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. Following graduation Katelyn continued to teach undergraduate public health clinicals within the Cambridge public school system and joined the Pediatric Infectious Diseases team at Boston Childrens Hospital where she was tasked to carve out a roll as their first inpatient ID nurse practitioner. Within the department she has a specific focus on Transplant and Immunocompromised ID. Within this role, Katelyn’s specific interests include optimization of immunization rates in the pre and post transplant population, as well as patient and family education regarding strategies for safe living following transplantation. From a professional standpoint she is on the executive board of the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP) where she serves as communications chair and is the Co-founder of the Advance Practice Provider working group within the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society (PIDS). 

Elizabeth graduated from Quinnipiac University with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and received her Master of Science in Nursing from Boston College. She has worked at Boston Children’s Hospital for over 6 years, initially as a staff nurse for inpatient surgical programs and then later transitioned to a Nurse Practitioner role in inpatient General Surgery.  She developed a passion for caring for the solid organ transplant population and now works as an Immunocompromised/Transplant Infectious Disease Nurse Practitioner.  She is certified as a pediatric nurse practitioner in addition to being PALS certified.  At Children’s Hospital she is a member of the Quality Improvement Committee and is active in staff education for the Pediatric Transplant Center. 

Gabriela Maron, MD, MS, is an Associate Member in the Department of Infectious Diseases at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Director of the Infectious Diseases in Bone Marrow and Cellular Therapy (ID–BMTC) Program at St. Jude. She is a member of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Transplant (PIDTRAN) group and leads the PIDTRAN Research Data Coordinating Center which is housed at St. Jude. Dr. Maron’s is interested in the prevention and treatment of infections in HCT and CT patients, with a special interest in the relation between colonization, antimicrobial exposures and infections in this population.  

Kevin Messacar, MD, is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He is an attending pediatric hospitalist and infectious disease consultant at Children’s Hospital Colorado. Dr. Messacar obtained a BS with honors in biochemistry at the University of Michigan and MD at the University of Michigan Medical School. Dr. Messacar did his pediatric residency and infectious disease fellowship training at the University of Colorado where he received numerous teaching awards.

Dr. Messacar’s research interests focus on improving the use of diagnostic tests for infectious diseases with a focus on central nervous system infections. He is interested in the process of selecting, implementing, and evaluating newly emerging rapid diagnostic technologies using concepts of diagnostic and antimicrobial stewardship. He is currently conducting an NIH-sponsored trial evaluating the clinical impact of rapid multiplex PCR panels and metagenomic sequencing of cerebrospinal fluid on children with suspected meningitis and encephalitis. In 2014, Dr. Messacar received the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Astute Physician Award for recognition of the association between acute flaccid myelitis and enterovirus D68 in Colorado children, and he is currently a member of the CDC Acute Flaccid Myelitis Task Force.

Carolyn Michaels received her Bachelors of Science in Nursing from Illinois State University in 2005. She worked as a pediatric oncology/hematology/transplant registered nurse at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital from 2005-2012 and earned her Masters of Science in Nursing as a primary care pediatric nurse practitioner from Vanderbilt University in 2011.  She then started working as a pediatric nurse practitioner in January 2013 at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in oncology. In 2014 she became the first nurse practitioner to join the Infectious Disease Department working specifically with Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy patients at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Carrie is also the IDS consult advanced practice provider manager for the last two years. Her areas of interest include post-transplant immunizations and the effect of gut flora on transplant outcomes. 

William Muller’s primary clinical interest is in infections in immunocompromised patients, including stem cell and solid organ transplant recipients. He is involved in numerous clinical trials involving anti-infectives, in both the immunocompromised population and in situations involving other pediatric infections. He also studies the pathogenesis of viral encephalitis, using models which focus on host-pathogen interactions in neurologic disease due to herpes simplex virus in newborns. 

Flor Muñoz, MD, is Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Infectious Diseases at Baylor College of Medicine, and Director of Transplant Infectious Diseases at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, TX. She is a clinician-investigator with various projects supported by the US NIH, CDC, BMGF or industry, focusing on vaccines, the epidemiology of respiratory infections in healthy and immunocompromised hosts, and the evaluation of safety and immunogenicity of vaccines in pregnant women, children, and transplant recipients. She has published extensively on topics related to influenza, RSV, vaccines, and maternal immunization. Dr Muñoz is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Committee on Infectious Diseases (COID), the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) influenza and pertussis working groups, and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) Immunization Expert Work Group. Dr. Munoz serves as chair of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Baylor College of Medicine, and is a member of various academic societies, including the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (PIDS), the Society for Pediatric Research (SPR), the Research Committee of the European Society of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, and the PIDS Transplant Group.  

Dr. Nellore is Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases and Associate Medical Director of the Immunocompromised Infectious Diseases Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.  

Prof. Pape is pediatric nephrologist with a full professorship for pediatric nephrology. He is Director of the University Childrens’ Hospital in Essen as well as head of the KfH-center for Nephrology. His main research focus is the development and establishment of biomarkers in pediatric nephrology as well as health services research mainly in transitional medicine and improvement of care after kidney transplantation. Prof. Pape is secretary treasurer of the International Pediatric Transplantation Society and Director of Studies of the German Pediatric Nephrology Association as well as deputy chairman of the task force kidney transplantation of the GPN and the national pediatric health system advisor for dialysis. He is also editor-in-chief of “Transition Medicine”.

Pratik “Tik” Patel is a 3rd year pediatric hematology/oncology fellow at Emory University/Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. He completed undergraduate studies and medical school at the University of Virginia and pediatric residency training at UT Southwestern/Children’s Health in Dallas, TX. His clinical interests include the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infections in immunocompromised children including those with malignancies and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation recipients. His research interests include epidemiology of opportunistic infections and antibiotic stewardship. Following completion of his hematology/oncology fellowship in June 2021, he will start additional clinical fellowship training in infectious disease at Emory.   

Dr. Anubama Rajan is currently a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine. She obtained her Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine and her M.S. from Georgia State University. Her research focuses on development of organoid model systems to study gastrointestinal and respiratory infections and pathogenesis. Currently, she is working on developing human organoid models to study SARS-CoV-2 and RSV infection. 

Dr. Shane is a pediatric infectious disease physician who has a passion for the prevention of infectious disease in children both globally and internationally. Originally from South Africa, she has spent the last 14 years of her academic career at Emory University School of Medicine and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.  

She completed her undergraduate degree in the Biological Basis of Behavior at the University of Pennsylvania followed by completion of her Masters in Public Health degree at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York City. Her medical education was completed at the Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans and her pediatric residency and chief residency at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/ Montefiore in the Bronx, New York. Dr. Shane was an Epidemic Service Intelligence Officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2001-3, a fascinating time to be in engaged in public health. She completed her pediatric infectious disease fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. She was a KL2 recipient and completed her Master of Science in Clinical Research degree at Emory in 2009.  

Dr. Shane joined PIDS as a fellow and was honored to be a PIDS Fellowship recipient. She has tries to pay forward the mentoring and guidance that others have provided to her during her career. She serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (JPIDS), after serving as the cover art editor for 5 years. She currently divides her time among serving as the Division Chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease, her responsibilities as the Marcus Professor of Hospital Epidemiology and Infection Prevention for the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta system, caring for patients, clinical research, teaching, mentoring, and advancing a local and international child health agenda.

Tanvi Sharma, MD, MPH is co-director of the immunocompromised hosts infectious diseases (ID) service and co-director of ID in the Pediatric Transplant Center at Boston Children’s Hospital. She is an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Sharma serves as the Associate Chief and Clinical Director within the division of pediatric ID, as well as Director of the Pediatric ID Fellowship Program at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Sharma completed her medical training, residency in pediatrics, and fellowship in pediatric ID and immunology at University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center. She joined the faculty with the divisions of pediatric ID/immunology and pediatric clinical research at the University of Miami before moving to Boston.  Her early research interests focused on metabolic complications in children with perinatally-acquired HIV infection receiving antiretroviral therapy, and have since evolved to evaluating infectious outcomes in children undergoing solid organ and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.  As both an educator and clinician caring for children with immunocompromising conditions, Dr. Sharma has additionally take on an active role in the development of curricula and training experiences focused on pediatric immunocompromised hosts ID.

Dr. Sharma serves as Chair of the American Society of Transplantation (AST) ID Community of Practice Pediatrics Working Group, which is leading a collaborative effort with the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (PIDS) to develop interactive educational modules and clinical conferences for pediatric transplant ID clinicians.  Dr. Sharma serves on the PIDS Transplant ID Subcommittee, and has previously served on the PIDS Education Committee and PIDS Training Program Directors Committee. 

George Siberry, MD, MPH is a pediatric infectious disease physician who joined USAID as a medical officer in the Office of HIV/AIDS (PEPFAR) in September 2018.  At USAID, he is a Deputy Principal and a senior technical advisor for adult and pediatric HIV treatment with particular focus in Kenya, Lesotho, Cameroon, Angola and South Africa. Before joining USAID, he was the director of the PEPFAR technical unit on HIV care, treatment and TB for the State Department (S/GAC), including primary responsibility for technical leadership on pediatric HIV in PEPFAR programs globally. Prior to PEPFAR, Dr. Siberry was on full-time faculty (2003-2008) in the Department of Pediatrics and as the Director of the Harriet Lane Clinic at Johns Hopkin and medical officer position at the Pediatric Adolescent Maternal AIDS Branch of NICHD/NIH (2008-2015). He participates in WHO HIV Guidelines development and serves on the US pediatric ARV guidelines and US Perinatal HIV Guidelines Panels. He serves as a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Committee on Pediatric AIDS (COPA) and as a Panel member of the FDA Antimicrobial Drug Advisory Committee. Dr. Siberry co-authors pediatric HIV chapters in Mandell, Douglas, and Bennett’s Principles & Practice of Infectious Diseases and Long, Pickering &Prober’s Principles & Practice of Pediatric Infectious Diseases. He is Associate Chief Editor for the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal for which he oversees the HIV Reports section. He provided care to children and youth with HIV infection at the Johns Hopkins Hospital for over 20 years (until 2018). He joined the Yale School of Medicine as a part-time faculty member in the Department of Pediatrics in 2019. 

Elizabeth received her Bachelors of Science in Nursing from Lipscomb University in 2010. She began working as a registered nurse on the pediatric leukemia/lymphoma/hematology floor at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in 2010-2015. She went back to school and achieved her Masters of Science in Nursing from University of Alabama- at Birmingham in 2014. After working in a different subspecialty for a few years, she started working in November 2018 as one of the nurse practitioners in the pediatric infectious disease department specifically in bone marrow transplant and cellular therapy at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Her areas of interest include patient & family education about infectious disease complications post-transplant and post-transplant immunizations. 

Mehgan’s career in pediatric infectious disease started with a Master of Science degree in global medicine from the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, followed by her medical education at Texas A&M Health Sciences Center. Following that was her residency training in pediatrics at Phoenix Children’s Hospital/Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Currently, Mehgan is now as a 3rd year pediatric infectious disease fellow at Emory University. Her research interests include improving infectious outcomes in immunocompromised hosts, specifically within the pediatric stem-cell transplant population. Her primary research focus through fellowship has been a translational project evaluating microbiome changes within SCT and how that affects transplant outcomes.  

In addition, Mehgan has actively contributed to healthcare system’s response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and is engaged in the maintenance of her healthcare system’s patient database that includes over 3400 patients to date. She is gaining experience in clinical trials operations, including the processes of recruitment and enrollment of study participants as a co-investigator for the phase III COVID-19 vaccine trials that are ongoing at Emory University School of Medicine. 

Paul Thomas obtained his undergraduate degree in Biology and Philosophy at Wake Forest University. He did his PhD training at Harvard University, working on the innate immune response to Schistosoma-associated carbohydrates and their role in promoting Th2 responses. From there, he moved to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital for a postdoctoral fellowship with Peter Doherty on T cell responses in the influenza model. In 2009, he started his own lab St. Jude, where he is currently a Member in the Department of Immunology. His lab studies innate and adaptive immunity to viral infections and cancer, with an emphasis on principles of T cell receptor specificity. 

Jacqueline Toia has been a board certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago for the past 35 years. The majority of her career was in the practice of oncology, where she was an active member within the Pediatric Oncology Group (POG), then Children’s Oncology Group (COG), as a contributing member of the nursing education and research committees and as the assigned protocol nurse for AAML1331, a large multi-center phase 3 clinical trial.  

In 2015, she secured the first non-HIV advanced practice provider (APP) position in pediatric ID established at Lurie Children’s and joined the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.  She founded and leads the PIDS Advance Practice Provider Workgroup.  

Dr. Toia completed her Bachelors of Science in nursing at the College of Saint Teresa in MN, Masters of Science in nursing at DePaul University in Chicago, Masters of Science and Doctor of Nursing Practice at Rush University in Chicago. Her area of practice and expertise are Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Transplant Medicine, and Pediatric Oncology. Her research interests include antibiotic use at the end of life for pediatric patients, invasive fungal infections in immunocompromised hosts, norovirus in transplant recipients, and vaccine optimization in pre- & post-transplant patients.  

Dr. Toia is a member of several other professional organizations including IDSA and National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners.   

Taylor Treadway is an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison majoring in neurobiology and psychology. She has been working under the mentorship of Dr. Emma Mohr for two years studying Zika virus via a pregnant, rhesus macaque model. She plans to pursue a career in the health sciences or a PhD in translational research. 

Alison C. Tribble, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases. She is also the medical director of the Pediatric Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (ASP), a hospital program that works to optimize antimicrobial use throughout Mott to improve outcomes from infections and to minimize the negative impact of antibiotics, such as adverse reactions and development of antimicrobial resistance.

Dr. Tuomanen is Member and Chair of the Department of Infectious Diseases at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. She received her B.Sc., M.D., C.M. from McGill University (Montreal, Canada). After pediatric training at Montreal Children’s Hospital, she was an infectious diseases fellow at the University of Virginia and a research fellow at Rockefeller University in New York City. Subsequently, she was appointed Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Head of the Molecular Infectious Diseases Laboratory at Rockefeller University. In 1997, she joined the faculty at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as Member and Chair of the Department of Infectious Diseases. She has received the E. Mead Johnson Award and the Maxwell Finland Award for excellence in research and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and Association of American Physicians. Dr. Tuomanen’s primary area of expertise is in pneumococcal infections. She has elucidated the interactions of pneumococci with the innate immune response and the molecular mechanisms of bacterial-host cell interactions in invasive disease. She has developed therapeutic interventions to alleviate brain damage in meningitis and participates in current efforts to formulate a protein based pneumococcal vaccine.

Josh Wolf is an Associate Member in the Department of Infectious Diseases at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital where he is a clinical infectious diseases physician, medical director of antimicrobial stewardship, and a clinical and translational researcher. His research interest is prediction, prevention and amelioration of infectious complications in children with cancer. He received his MD (2001) and PhD (2019) degrees from the University of Melbourne, and completed residency and fellowship in General Pediatrics and Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Royal Women’s Hospital and Peter MacCallum Cancer Center in Melbourne, before undertaking further fellowship training in Pediatric Infectious Diseases at St. Jude and Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, where he received the Physician Scientist Training Program award. He started in his current position at St. Jude in 2014. 

Dr Yeganeh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Disease at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She obtained a medical degree at University of Washington School of Medicine, a Master of Public Health at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and has been at UCLA since 2005, completing her training as a board certified pediatrician and pediatric infectious disease physician. Her current NIH–supported research focuses on preventing the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) to infants through the implementation of an initiative offering testing for STIs to partners of pregnant women. This project is currently enrolling patients at sites in South Brazil, with an aim to protect mothers from infection during the vulnerable time of pregnancy. She has been collaborating with sites in Brazil since 2010, evaluating HIV and other STIs in vulnerable populations, and have worked extensively with collecting and analyzing data collected during large trials including the HPTN 040/IMPAACT 1043 trial. She has also been the Pediatric Infectious Disease Fellowship Director since 2018 and the Program Director for the International Travel and Adoption Clinic at Mattel’s Children Hospital since 2015.  She is an attending on the Pediatric Infectious Disease service, focusing her clinical time caring for transplant and immunocompromised children. 

Inci Yildirim, MD, PhD, MSc is Associate Professor of Pediatrics (Infectious Diseases and Global Health) at Yale School of Medicine and Director of Transplant Infectious Diseases at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital in New Haven, CT. She has served as a PI/co-I on a number of phase I/IV vaccine clinical trials including conjugated pneumococcal vaccines, SARS-CoV-2, pandemic influenza vaccines, EBOLA and dengue vaccines working with adult, elderly, pregnant women and pediatric populations. Her research focuses on vaccine specific immune response among children with immunocompromising conditions and transplantation