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 Ann-Margaret Navarra
TIRAR Pre-doctoral Trainee
PhD Student, School of Nursing
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Columbia University School of Nursing
E-mail: ad66@columbia.edu
Ann-Margaret Navarra is pursuing her PhD
at Columbia University School of Nursing. Ms. Navarra earned a BS in
Nursing from the College of New Rochelle and a MS in Nursing from
Columbia University. Ann-Margaret 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. |
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Daniel Scanfeld
TIRAR Pre-doctoral Trainee
PhD
Student, Department of Genetics and Development |
Department of Genetics and Development
Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
E-mail:
dms2110@columbia.edu
Dan 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.
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Jennifer Horan, MD, PharmD
TIRAR Postdoctoral Trainee
Fellow, Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine
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College of
Physicians & Surgeons of Columbia University
Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital; Columbia University Medical
Center
email:
jh2360@columbia.edu
Jennifer is currently a second year infectious diseases fellow
at Columbia University Medical Center. 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. |
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Tim Landers, PhD
TIRAR Postdoctoral Trainee
School of Nursing |
Columbia
University School of Nursing
E-mail:
tl2385@columbia.edu
Tim is a nurse and family and
pediatric nurse practitioner. His 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. He recently defended
his dissertation, “Methods to detect colonization with
Staphylococcus aureus among a homeless population” at The
Ohio State University College of Public Health. Prior to coming
to TIRAR, he was a clinical instructor at OSU and practiced
part-time at a clinic in Columbus.
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. |
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Previous Trainees |
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Sarah Clock, PhD
Former
TIRAR Postdoctoral Trainee |
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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)." |
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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).
Publications/Presentations:
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].
Zhou J, Clock SA, Behta M,
Alba L, Weisenberg SA, Patel SJ, Ross B, Whittier S, Della-Latta P,
Schuetz AN, Jenkins SG, Rhee KY, Saiman L. Electronic Surveillance for
Extremely Drug-Resistant (XDR) Gram-Negative Bacilli (GNB) in ICU
Patients. In: Society for Healthcare Epidemiologists of America 19th
Annual Scientific Meeting, San Diego, CA, March 2009 [Abstract
72-357].
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
2009: Society for Healthcare Epidemiologists of America Travel
Award |
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Ettie Lipner, MPH
Former
TIRAR Pre-doctoral Trainee |
| 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. |
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Tiffani Bright, PhD
Former
TIRAR Pre-doctoral Trainee
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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
Former
TIRAR Pre-doctoral Trainee
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| 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). |
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