NED 2020 Agenda

Speaker: Aimee Schantz, University of Washington

Aimee Schantz, M.Ed. is a Research Coordinator with the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington.  Aimee has provided research coordination and management of regulatory affairs for a varied portfolio of research endeavors to include neurodegenerative conditions, infectious disease related cancers, and Mendelian genetics.  Aimee directed the UW Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center’s Neuropathology Core and tissue repository; launched the Clinical Core of the newly funded Pacific Northwest Udall Center of Excellence for Parkinson’s Disease Research; and most recently held a position as Research Operations Manager in Kampala, Uganda with the Global Oncology program of Fred Hutch.  Locally, Aimee has worked on the campuses of Harborview, UWMC, and the Puget Sound VA.  Aimee received her undergraduate degree in the liberal arts at the University of Florida, and her Master’s degree in education from Vanderbilt University.

Speaker: Lara Schiff, University of Washington/Seattle Cancer Care Alliance

Lara B. Schiff, MPH, has worked with psychosocial and health research groups across the country in research implementation and program development and evaluation. She started her career working among communities and organizations conducting health promotion research and evaluation. In 2013, she received her Master of Public Health degree from University of Michigan’s School of Public Health with a focus in Health Behavior and Health Education and specialization in Research Methods. Upon completion of her graduate school education, Lara began working in clinical research at the University of Washington as a Clinical Research Coordinator, Clinical Research Manager and Clinical Research Implementation Manager. Over the past six years she has become more engaged in clinical research start-up and implementation at a clinical site level. Lara currently works for the University of Washington Thoracic, Head & Neck Oncology Program at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

Speaker: Adrienne Meyer, University of Washington

Adrienne Meyer, MPA, CIP, is the Assistant Director of Reliances in the Human Subjects Division at the University of Washington (UW). Adrienne is a regulatory specialist and frequent lecturer on issues associated with regulatory compliance and research ethics in a broad spectrum of research disciplines. Adrienne has been at the UW for nearly 20 years and has worked in many capacities with researchers from nearly every department and research discipline: from behavioral research with young children to first-in-human chemotherapy trials. She is the SMART IRB Ambassador for the West and Pacific region and the IRB representative on ITHS’s Trial Innovation Network team.

Speaker: Erin Sullivan, Seattle Children’s

Erin Sullivan is a biostatistician with the Children’s Core for Biomedical Statistics (CCBS) at Seattle Children’s Research Institute. As a part of CCBS, Erin provides consultation and support for PIs in areas including study design, data management, statistical analysis and reporting, and manuscript writing. Prior to joining CCBS, she worked as a research coordinator in both adult and pediatric medicine, as a statistician at the CDC, and as a health industries consultant. She has a Master of Public Health in epidemiology.

Speaker: Kelly Shipman, Seattle Children’s

Kelly Shipman is a clinical research coordinator at the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics at Seattle Children’s Research Institute. She currently works on research projects in bioethics and pediatric palliative care, following work in oncology clinical trials and healthy volunteer trials within infectious disease. Kelly has 15 years of experience supporting multiple aspects of research coordination, serving in patient-facing, regulatory, project management, and quality assurance roles. In addition, she serves on the leadership team for the Seattle Children’s Clinical Research Coordinator Discussion Group, which aims to support research coordinators in their daily work and growth. She is currently working on developing her own research to increase the participation of individuals with LEP in research studies. 

Speakers: Stephanie Kraft and Katie Porter, Seattle Children’s Research Institution

Stephanie A. Kraft, JD, is an Assistant Professor at the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and the University of Washington School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics. She conducts empirical research on issues related to improving informed consent for research, and she also participates in the ITHS Research Bioethics Consultation service. Her primary research interests are in understanding how people make decisions about research participation and in developing interventions to improve study enrollment, especially among historically underrepresented patient populations.

Kathryn M. Porter, JD, MPH is a Research Scientist for the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics at Seattle Children’s Research Institute. She is the ITHS Bioethics Program Manager and a research bioethics consultant. Her own research focuses on research ethics, improvement of informed consent and the ethical and legal issues related to genetics.

Speaker: Sheila Ganti, Seattle Children’s

Sheila Ganti has been a coordinator at Seattle Children’s for about four years. Prior to that, in another life, she trained as a bench scientist, so she has been involved with research in one form or another for the better part of 15 years. Sheila works on several tissue banking/GWAS type studies and many studies involving vascular anomalies. One of her passions is working with study teams to identify ways to meet study milestones.

Speaker: Cody Blankenship, Oregon Health Sciences University

Cody Blankenship is the current Regulatory Project Manager within the Department of Dermatology at Oregon Health and Science University. In her current role she helps to determine feasibility, start-up timelines, negotiate consent and authorization language and manages the regulatory aspect of 30+ studies. Previously, she was the Program Manager for a multi-site longitudinal epidemiology study funded by the VA and DoD, focusing on hearing related implications of recent Service Members. She has a passion for quality assurance and process improvement. When she isn’t working, she enjoys traveling and cooking with her 8 year-old twins and husband.

Speaker: Karen Moe, University of Washington

Karen E. Moe is the Director of the Human Subjects Division (HSD) at the University of Washington (UW). HSD and the UW Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) that it manages perform the federally-required review of human subjects research that is conducted by UW faculty, staff and students and a few local institutions. HSD staff also provide guidance to researchers about regulatory and ethical issues. Until recently, Karen was also a research associate professor at the UW, where she had a federally-funded research program on sleep in older humans for about 15 years prior to joining the Human Subjects Division. She became the Director of the Human Subjects Division in 2007.

Speaker: Eli Reis, University of Washington

Eli Reis is a Communications and Training professional with the University of Washington Clinical Trials Office. Eli has more than 20 years of experience supporting the business side of medicine, from one-on-one coaching and classroom training, to acting as site leader for the implementation of an enterprise wide electronic medical record system. Eli is a certified Epic trainer, co-chairs the Clinical Research Coordinator Peer Network, and advises on multiple research-related initiatives at UWM.

Eli believes in the power knowing of “why” as motivation, the value of professional relationships and collaboration, and that you’re never too old to join a punk band.

Speakers: Cody Hammer, University of Washington and Tara Bumgarner, Seattle Children’s

Cody Hammer is a Clinical Research Manager with UW Medicine’s Division of Hematology, a Certified Clinical Research Professional, and a Clinical Research Consultant with Glycomimetics Inc.

Tara Bumgarner has been working at Seattle Children’s for over 4 years in their gene therapy and gene editing programs as the lead clinical research coordinator. In the past, she worked with the Seattle Children’s Oncology cooperative groups for 3 years and almost 7 years with Dr. John Hansen and the transplant group at Fred Hutch. Prior to Fred Hutch, Tara worked almost 3 years as a lab research assistant in the Ferric Fang lab at University of Washington.