TIRAR Trainees
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 Former TIRAR Postdoctoral Trainee, Sarah Clock (l) with CIRAR and TIRAR Director, Elaine Larson (r) |
Pre-doctoral Trainees |
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Laurie Conway |
Columbia University School of Nursing E-mail: ljc2145@columbia.edu Laurie Conway is certified in infection control and has worked as an infection preventionist and critical care nurse in various institutions both in the United States and abroad. Ms. Conway earned her BS in nursing from the University of Western Ontario and her MS in nursing from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, where she also received a Certificate in Teaching in Nursing and Health Professions. Ms. Conway is currently pursuing a PhD at Columbia University School of Nursing. Her current research interests focus on multidrug-resistant gram negative bacilli in acute care settings. For her dissertation, she plans to examine the prevalence, predictors, and costs of these infections. |
May Uchida |
Columbia University School of Nursing E-mail: mu2188@columbia.edu May Uchida is a doctoral student at Columbia University School of Nursing. Her research interests are focused around improving quality of care for the geriatric patient population through patient-centered outcomes and cost effectiveness research. Specifically, Ms. Uchida is interested in the prevention of healthcare-associated infections in long-term care settings. Ms. Uchida earned her BSN from Keio University in Tokyo, Japan, and her MSN in Gerontology (Nurse Practitioner) from Yale University. |
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Postdoctoral Trainees |
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Ann-Margaret Navarra, PhD |
Columbia University School of Nursing E-mail: ad66@columbia.edu Ann-Margaret Navarra earned her PhD in Nursing from Columbia University School of Nursing in 2011. Dr. Navarra completed her dissertation, “Health Literacy and Adherence to Antiretroviral Treatment among HIV-infected Youth,” as a pre-doctoral TIRAR trainee from 2009-2011. Dr. Navarra holds a BS in Nursing from the College of New Rochelle and an MS in Nursing from Columbia University. Dr. Navarra specializes in the adolescent HIV/AIDS population and worked as a pediatric nurse practitioner for 15 years at Cornell Medical Center’s Program for Children and Adolescents with AIDS. Her current research interests include health literacy and antiretroviral adherence in HIV infected youth, specifically the relationship among adherence to antiretroviral medications, health literacy, and the biomarkers of HIV disease (viral load, CD4 count). She also plans to explore how the developmental stage of adolescence impacts on adherence in teens with HIV disease. |
Benjamin Miko, MD |
College of Physicians & Surgeons of Columbia University Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital; Columbia University Medical Center E-mail: bm2266@columbia.edu Ben is a second year fellow in the division of infectious diseases at Columbia University. He holds an MD from Boston University and completed his internal medicine residency training at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in 2009. His research interests relate to the molecular epidemiology of community-associated Staphylococcus aureus (CA-SA). Working with Dr. Franklin Lowy, Ben is participating in a pilot study to evaluate CA-SA as a sexually-associated pathogen. Research will focus the prevalence of genital colonization and incidence of infection with CA-SA among a cohort of patients attending an inner city STD clinic in Baltimore, Maryland. Traditional risk factors for SA infection will be assessed, as will the effects of specific sexual practices and concomitant sexually transmitted infections. A molecular epidemiologic characterization of the isolates will be used to assess whether particular CA-SA clones posses unique determinants that facilitate genital colonization and infection. |
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Previous Trainees |
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Nowai Keleekai, PhD |
Nowai Keleekai completed the TIRAR training program and earned her PhD from the Columbia University School of Nursing in 2011. Dr. Keleekai also holds a B.S. in nursing from The Ohio State University, where she completed an NIH-funded undergraduate thesis examining the relationship between engagement in the patient-provider relationship and quality of life and adherence in an HIV/AIDS population. Her current research interests include exploring the profile of New York State prisoners co-infected with HIV/AIDS and MRSA to identify risk factors that may predispose HIV-infected individuals to contracting MRSA in this setting. |
Jennifer Horan, MD, PharmD |
Jennifer concluded her 2-year training in June, 2011. She holds a PharmD from the University of Texas and worked as a clinical pharmacist at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. She subsequently obtained her MD degree from University of Texas and completed her internal medicine and chief residency training at Columbia University Medical Center. Her research interests are focused on antimicrobial resistance in the context of solid organ transplantation and the immunocompromised host. Jennifer's current research includes the evaluation of multidrug resistant pathogens in bloodstream infections in the liver transplant population to further define trends and ellucidate risk factors and outcomes. She is additionally engaged in a clinical pharmacokinetic evaluation of polymyxin B in the treatment of patients with multidrug resistant pathogens to ascertain the effects of varying degrees of renal function on polymyxin B pharmacokinetics to further optimize current dosing strategies. |
Richard Eastman, PhD |
Rich completed his postdoctoral training in September, 2010. He holds a B.S. and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington. His research interests are focused on mechanisms of drug resistance in the pathogenic protozoan, Plasmodium falciparum, one of the causative agents of malaria. To elucidate the genetic and epigenetic determinants, Rich is employing whole genome analysis, using next-generation sequencing, along with biochemical and genetic approaches. In addition, he is involved in systematic analysis of the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of antimalarial drug combinations in order to identify optimal ACT combinations and dosing regiments that decrease the rate of recrudescence and treatment failure. |
Daniel Scanfeld |
Dan completed his 2-year training in August, 2010. He earned a B.A. in Computer Science and Russian from Cornell University, an M.S. in Computer Science from Tufts University, and worked for 2 years as a computational biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. His research included analyses of genetic markers of breast cancer, the development of theoretical methodologies for characterization of global transcriptional states, and a malaria pathogenesis study.
Dan is a doctoral student in the Integrated Graduate Program in Cellular, Molecular, Structural and Genetic Studies. As a member of the Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (C2B2) and the Fidock Malaria laboratory, he plans to study the genetic determinants of P. falciparum resistance to new antimalarials and compensatory mechanisms that accompany the acquisition of antimalarial drug resistance. Dan was interviewed on Good Morning America for his study on Tweeting Medical Misinformation. Click here to view the interview online or download the video. |
Tim Landers, PhD |
Tim concluded his training in December, 2009 and has rejoined the faculty of The Ohio State University School of Nursing as an Assistant Professor. A nurse and family and pediatric nurse practitioner, Tim's clinical background includes work with at-risk populations including the homeless and underserved. He holds a BS (Nursing) from Binghamton University, an MA (Theological Studies) from LaSalle University, and an MS (Nursing) from Pace University. His current research interests include colonization with Staphylococcus aureus and MRSA in community dwelling individuals. He is also interested in patterns of community-based transition, including the role of companion animals and environmental contacts in MRSA colonization. He is currently working on the effect of misclassification on estimates of risk for the development of antibiotic resistance. |
| Presentations:
Patel S, Landers T, Larson E, Wong-McLoughlin J, Ferng Y, Paul D, Saiman L. Increasing an Understanding of Antibiotic Prescribing Practices in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) by Using Clinical Case Vignettes. Fifth Decennial International Conference on Healthcare-Associated Infections 2010, Atlanta, GA, March 18-22, 2010. |
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Sarah Clock, PhD |
Sarah concluded her 2-year training in October 2009. She worked in collaborative, independent, and supervisory capacities on two epidemiologic studies during her traineeship. In the first study, she helped conduct and validate electronic surveillance methods to identify multi-drug resistant bacterial infections. She also helped design methods to collect and examine treatment, outcome, and potential risk factor data to use in a case-control study. Additionally, Dr. Clock designed and supervised in vitro testing of resistant bacterial isolates using combinations of antimicrobial agents. Dr. Clock's role in this study was to establish methodology for collecting observational data of adherence to contact precautions for multi-drug resistant organisms in the hospital; archive recorded observations; and interpret statistical analyses of the data. To date, this work has resulted in one accepted publication, four accepted abstracts, and two awards. Dr. Clock is currently serving as Project Coordinator in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases at Columbia University on CIRAR-affiliated project, "Improving Antimicrobial Prescribing Practices in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (iNAP Study)." |
| Peer-Reviewed Publications:
Clock SA, Cohen BA, Behta M, Ross B, Larson EL. Contact Precautions for Multidrug-Resistant Organisms (MDROs): Current Recommendations and Actual Practice. Am J Infect Control (in press). Cohen BA, Clock SA, Behta M, Larson EL, Saddul R, Vawdrey, D. Provider Orders and Nursing Documentation of Contact Precautions for Patients with Multidrug-Resistant Organisms (MDROs). In: Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology Annual Conference, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, June 2009 [Abstract 18-207]. Clock SA, Zhou J, Patel SJ, Alba L, Weisenberg SA, Whittier S, Schuetz AN, Della-Latta P, Jenkins SG, Furuya EY, Kubin CJ, Rhee KY, Saiman L. Susceptibility of Extremely Drug-Resistant Gram-Negative Bacilli (XDR-GNB) to Polymyxin B and Tigecycline and Management of XDR-GNB Infections. In: Society for Healthcare Epidemiologists of America 19th Annual Scientific Meeting, San Diego, CA, March 2009 [Abstract 72-370]. Clock S, Cohen B, Behta M, Ross B, Larson E. Barrier Precautions for Multidrug-Resistant Organisms (MDROs): Current Recommendations and Actual Practice. In: Society for Healthcare Epidemiologists of America 19th Annual Scientific Meeting, San Diego, CA, March 2009. Awards: 2009: Infectious Disease Society of New York Fellow's Award for Research |
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Ettie Lipner, MPH |
Ettie concluded her 2-year training in October 2009. She is continuing to pursue her doctoral degree in the Department of Epidemiology. During her time in TIRAR, Ettie worked with her faculty mentor, David Fidock, to conduct a qualitative review to assess PfCRT (Plasmodium falciparum chloroquine resistance transporter) as a determinant in the development of chloroquine resistance and to determine whether PfCRT is a necessary and/or sufficient cause for the presence of chloroquine resistant parasites. She also completed her Interdisciplinary Field Experience Site as the National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH, where she analyzed single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPS) from patients of filarial endemic regions who were filariasis normal, infected, or diseased and compared amongst the three groups of patients to detect associations between specific SNPS and susceptibility to filariasis. |
Tiffani Bright, PhD |
Tiffani graduated with her PhD in May 2009. She spent her year of training working with Dr. Suzanne Bakken in the areas of decision support and knowledge representation focusing on antibiotic therapeutic planning. Her dissertation focused on the development and evaluation of an ontology for guiding appropriate antibiotic prescribing. Her dissertation contributed to the understanding of ontology development and evaluation methods and addressed a need for formal ontology evaluation methods to measure the quality of ontologies from the perspective of their intrinsic characteristics or usefulness for a specific task. |
Publications/Presentations: Bright TJ, Furuya EY, Kuperman GJ, Bakken S. Creating an ontology for an antibiotic prescribing decision support system. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2008 Nov 6:888. PMID: 18998876 |
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Bianca Malcolm, MPH |
Bianca concluded her training in October 2008. She is continuing to pursue her doctoral degree and is now a Graduate Research Assistant in the Department of Epidemiology, Columbia University, supported by the Initiative for Maximizing Student Diversity (Grant # R25 GM062454). |
