Speaker and Presenter Bios

Mary L. “Nora” Disis, MD (Keynote Speaker)
Principal Investigator, ITHS; Associate Dean for Translational Health Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine; Professor of Medicine and Adjunct Professor of Pathology and Obstetrics and Gynecology, UW; Director of the Center for Translational Medicine in Women’s Health, UW; Member, Fred Hutch

Jay Evans, PhD (Keynote Speaker)
Research Professor, Division of Biological Sciences; Director, Center for Translational Medicine, University of Montana

Marco Pravetoni, PhD (Keynote Speaker)
Rick L. Seaver Endowed Professor in Brain Wellness; Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Department of Pharmacology; Director, Center for Medication Development for Substance Use Disorders and Overdose, Garvey Institute for Brain Health Solutions, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA

Elizabeth Johnson, PhD, MS, BSN, is an Assistant Professor at the Montana State University Mark & Robyn Jones College of Nursing in Bozeman, Montana. Prior to her appointment at Montana State, she served for ten years as a research nurse and in community, regional, and global clinical trial management roles. Her research focus is technology development and utilization to support rural healthcare delivery, with clinical trial safety management as a key area. She is Chair-Elect of the Research Committee with the International Association of Clinical Research Nurses, Board Member of Education for the Nursing Institute of Healthcare Design, and a member of the Education Committee- Nursing Informatics Working Group with the American Medical Informatics Association.

Poster Title: Progression of a Novel Wearable Device and Platform Development for Shared Clinical Trial Safety Information Exchange Among Providers

Dmitry Levin serves as the Clinical Director at VA Ventures, Office of Advanced Manufacturing, Veterans Health Administration. He works with both local and national teams to establish new processes for point-of-care additive manufacturing. He also assists in onboarding new VA facilities in both FDA-registered and non-registered capacities. He is overseeing the clinical roll-out of two recently 510k cleared class 2 medical devices manufactured by VA: a patient-matched oromaxillofacial surgical guide product and a patient-matched radiotherapy bolus product. Before joining the VA, Mr. Levin spent over a decade in non-profit and hospital medical device development environments focused primarily on structural heart disease applications.

Poster Title: Point-of-Care Medical Device Manufacturing

Andrew Lewis is a PhD Candidate student in Mechanical Engineering with a research focus on the development of novel medical robots. During the onset of the COVD-19 pandemic, Andrew was a key member of the World Ventilator Foundation’s effort to develop the an affordable portable ventilator. Prior to his PhD studies, Andrew was lead roboticist for UW spinout Applied Dexterity, where he assembled and supported RAVEN surgical robots for universities around the world.

Poster Title: An Airway for Emergencies

James Pan, MD: 5+ years of experience in neurosurgery. Seasoned entrepreneur and product designer. Part of founding team at CareMessage, Gliimpse (acquired by Apple Inc.), and Ciitizen (acquired by Invitae Inc.).

Poster Title:SpineHealthie: Your Surgical Co-Pilot

Professor Steve Shen is the PI of the QUIVER project, Mr. Mike Robinson is the business lead, and Dr. Weiwei Xu is the science lead. The team together has 20-year experience in dental devices and has successfully launched two startups via IPOs.

Poster Title: QUIVER: a Dental Implant Stability Analyzer

Varadaraya Shenoy is a post-doc physician working at Harborview Medical Center in the Department of Neurological Surgery. He is leading the product development and commercialization of AugmenFlo – a novel medical device for improving the treatment of Traumatic Brain Injury patients.

Poster Title: AugmenFlo – Delivering Better Outcomes for Head Injury Patients

Joelle Tudor is a recent graduate from the College of Mechanical Engineering leading the CathConnect team. She’s worked on numerous research projects at the University of Washington, including cardiology gene therapy and novel medical devices. She is passionate about improving human health.

Poster Title: CathConnect: Catheter Breakaway Device

Hannah Benavidez is a fourth-year clinical psychology graduate student at the University of Washington working under Dr. Wendy Stone in the READi Lab. She graduated from UCLA with a BA in Psychology in 2017. Her research focuses on early identification and support for young children on the autism spectrum, specifically on expanding accessibility to services in the health care system and improving family and child outcomes in community settings.

Poster Title: Co-Developing and Piloting Culturally-Responsive Informational Materials about Autism for Families of Young Children: Employing a Train-the-Trainer Implementation Model within a Nonprofit Setting

Brittany Blanchard, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, Assistant Professor, and Director of the Division of Population Health Analytics Team (P-HAT) in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington. She is a current ITHS KL2 Scholar, and the aim of her ITHS-funded research is to develop a harm reduction intervention and implementation plan for primary care patients who use drugs using human-centered design.

Poster Title: Harm Reduction in Primary Care: Meeting Clinics Where They’re At

Lindsie Boerger, BA, is an experienced project manager at the Institute of Translational Health Sciences (ITHS) where she works on projects with the Pilots core, the antiracist committee (ARC), and the Hub Liaisons Team (HLT). With a combined 8 years of experience in health and research, Lindsie has managed multiple studies at multiple institutions such as UNC, Duke University, and Yale University. Her areas of expertise include women’s health, infectious disease, and oncology.

Poster Title:Revolutionizing Research Recruitment:​ A Remote Technology Pre-Screening Course

Julie Boiko, MD, is a KL2 Scholar, Research Associate at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, and attending physician in the Seattle Children’s Hospital Blood and Marrow Transplant Program. Her work seeks to translate preclinical models of post-hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD) into biologically-informed patient therapy selection, blending basic immunology and computational biology approaches.

Poster Title: Single cell RNA sequencing identifies IL-17- and CSF-1-associated pathologic gene expression signatures in blood during chronic graft-versus-host disease

Germán Gornalusse, PhD, is an Acting Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the UW and Affiliated Scientist in the Vaccine Infectious Disease Division (VIDD) at the Hutch. He is currently working with Dr. Florian Hladik’s group and is interested in the intersections between HIV-1 infection and latency, HIV medications, opioids use and the immune response of the female reproductive tract. Germán is originally from Argentina and the first one in his family to obtain a college degree. He completed a program in biochemistry at the University of Buenos Aires (akin to a MS in the States) and a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He has a vast teaching and mentorship experience that range from high school to medical and graduate school students.

Poster Title: M cells: At the intersection of ART-mediated Inflammation and the Dynamics of the HIV Reservoir

Michelle Guignet, PhD, is an Acting Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacy at the University of Washington. Her independent research interests take a therapeutic approach towards understanding mechanisms of drug resistant epilepsy (DRE). She is particularly interested in utilizing clinical approaches in animal models, e.g., mimic a clinical trial design, to ultimately improve the translation of therapies from bench-to bedside for difficult-to-treat diseases like DRE.

Poster Title: Neuroinflammation in a Clinically Relevant Animal Model of Drug Resistant Epilepsy

Amanda Guyton is the Document Manager at the UW Human Subjects Division. She has worked at HSD for 9 years. Prior to that, she was a research scientist at the UW Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology.

Poster Title: Improving Research Consent at the University of Washington

Omeid Heidari, MPH, PhD, NP, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington School of Nursing in the Department of Child, Family, and Population Health. He is adult nurse practitioner with training and experience treating individuals living with HIV and opioid use disorder in the primary care setting. His clinical practice informs his research, and in his doctoral education, he developed expertise on healthcare engagement for people who use drugs. He completed postdoctoral training in a NIDA Drug Dependence Epidemiology T32. His current program of research focuses on three areas: 1) Primary care engagement for people who use drugs, 2) Social network influence on drug use behaviors, and 3) State level evaluations of drug policies and programs.

Poster Title: Use of Telehealth for Medication for Opioid Use Disorder: Patient and Provider Perspectives on Access and Quality

Manal Jmaileh is an MD/MPH student and ITHS Research Fellow with research interests in Trauma Surgery, Injury Prevention, Global Health, and Health care capacity. Under the guidance of esteemed faculty mentors Dr. Barclay Stewart and Dr. Charlie Mock, she conducts research aimed at improving healthcare access and emergency response in vulnerable communities. Manal is originally from Tacoma, WA, and is currently completing her MPH year at the University of Washington School of Public Health.

Poster Title: Describing Geospatial Access to Trauma Care after Road Crash in Ghana: A Key Step Toward Improving Post-Crash Care through Targeted Capacity Development

James Lee, PhD, BCBA-D, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington and the Seattle Children’s Autism Center. His research focuses on developing, adapting, and implementing evidence-based practices among underserved families of young autistic children who live in low-resourced communities both domestically and internationally. James has conducted several studies examining feasibility, effectiveness, and social validity of interventions for caregivers of young autistic children, and he is the lead developer of the Cultural Adaptation Checklist. His primary interest is using implementation science to enhance access to EBP among marginalized families.

Poster Title: Determinants of Culturally Responsive Early Intervention with Minoritized Caregivers of Young Autistic Children

Carina S. Minardi, PhD, is a research and commercial leader who holds a passion for technological advancements with the end goal of supporting human subject research and clinical applications. She is responsible for defining and guiding the organization’s overall commercial and business development strategy, ensuring new and consistent business growth for the organization. Prior to joining Vibrent Health, Dr. Minardi oversaw the operational infrastructure of the Partner team at Truveta as well as spearheaded its technological partnerships in support of Truveta’s President. She also led the strategy and portfolio development and execution for Kaiser Permanente’s Washington region’s Quality and Safety, Member Experience, and medical group Branding and Communications for over 700,000 members and 1,200 clinicians in the state of Washington.

Prior to entering the health care arena, Dr. Minardi began her academic career as a National Science Foundation Fellow at Georgetown University where she obtained her Masters and Doctorate in analytical chemistry. Her research focused on the exploration of ionization mechanisms for mass spectrometric analysis of small molecules, large molecules, and single cell analysis for -omics studies. Dr. Minardi also holds a Masters in Public Health from Yale University with a focus on health policy and administration. She resides in Seattle, WA area with her family both human and furry.

Poster Title: Building a large, diverse digital cohort to evaluate the long-term effects of COVID-19 in India

Gigi Perez, MSW, LICSW, is a Research Project Coordinator for the HUB Liaison Team on several multisite studies. In addition to her ITHS work, she is supporting ROSSEY (ReOpening Schools Safely and Educating Youth), ALMA (Amigas Latinas Motivando el Alma), and the POC (Protecting Our Community) studies. Gigi has been a research coordinator on several studies related to mental health and cancer prevention at the University of Washington, Duke University Medical Center, Seattle Children’s Hospital, and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Poster Title: Implementation, Regulatory, & Equity Considerations in the Conduct of Remote Human Subjects Research

Hayley Purcell has been a research scientist with the Northwest Metabolomic Research Center since 2019. She is working on this project with Melissa Ling, Dr. Suzie Pun, Dr. G.A. Nagana Gowda and Dr. Dan Raftery.

Poster Title: Development of a Rapid Diagnostic for Bacterial Vaginosis

Dr. Asia Marie Riel is an Assistant Research Professor in the Center for Translational Medicine (CTM) at the University of Montana. She was classically trained as a supramolecular chemist with backgrounds in small synthetic molecular motors (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) and fundamental design and evaluation of halogen bond organocatalysts and ion transporters (Ph.D. work, UM). More recently she has transitioned to medicinal chemistry centering on vaccine adjuvant discovery and development. As an early stage investigator in the CTM, Asia’s research interests center on interactions between immunomodulatory compounds and their associated receptors, specifically creating novel compounds, understanding structure-activity relationships and evaluating the mechanism of action.

Poster Title: Evaluating Mincle-Mediated Immune Inhibition by Trehalose Antagonists

Vinita Sharma, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Boise State University, School of Public and Population Health. She is an ITHS KL2 Seminar Fellow.

Poster Title: Exploring early health interactions and linkage to resources to facilitate substance use treatment

Eric Szelenyi, PhD, currently is a Washington Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow working in the laboratory of Dr. Sam Golden in the Department of Biological Structure (UW). He is a first-generation college student who grew up and studied psychology and biochemistry in rural Pennsylvania. After college, he worked for the DoD in Natick, MA researching protein and gene regulation in skeletal muscle and brain in response to traumatic injury and short-term caloric restriction, respectively. He completed his PhD in Neuroscience at Stony Brook University/Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY, where he applied advanced volumetric imaging approaches with genetic tool development to study the role of genomic imprinting in defining brain systems of behavior. He worked briefly in the Molecular Genetics department at Allen Institute for Brain Science before returning to academic research in order to develop novel human-translatable platform technologies that monitor behavioral circuit function in disease and health.

Poster Title: Optimized large-scale image segmentation of single cells with a novel genetic tag

Casey Walsh is a research associate and licensed social work clinician with expertise in adolescent and young adult (AYA) oncology at Fred Hutch Cancer Center. She collaborates with interdisciplinary colleagues to study the psychological and social impacts of cancer on adolescents and young adults. She is developing a research program to help fill the critical gap in survivorship care for AYAs living with advanced cancer.

Poster Title: Witnessing death in online lung cancer support groups: A qualitative study with patients with advanced lung cancer