ARAC - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Assistant
Annie is a Senior Research Assistant at ARAC supporting laboratory scientists and epidemiologists on research and data management and data analysis. She received her MPH in Epidemiology from GWU's Milken Institute School of Public Health in the Fall of 2023 culminating in a research project examining the effectiveness of an antibiotic stewardship intervention on reducing rates of inappropriate prescribing in a large urgent care network. She received her BS in Public Health and Business from GWU in 2022.
Job Titles:
- Chief Medical Officer
- Co - Director
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational
Cindy M. Liu, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and Chief Medical Officer of Antibiotic Resistance Action Center at the George Washington Milken Institute School of Public Health in Washington D.C.
Dr. Liu is trained in molecular microbiology, microbial ecology, and clinical pathology (laboratory medicine). It is her career mission to help medicine to shift infectious disease and public health practices based on our understanding of the human microbiome, and importantly, to move beyond empiric antibiotic use in order to combat antibiotic resistance.
To achieve her career mission, Dr. Liu works on several research projects that are funded through the NIH and other governmental agencies and foundations. Her research projects are highly multidisciplinary and involves team members and collaborators that range from molecular microbiologists, bioinformaticists, immunologists, clinicians, and epidemiologists to individuals working on communications and behavioral research as well.
As the Chief Medical Officer of the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center at George Washington, Dr. Liu's recently began working on outpatient antimicrobial stewardship. This project seeks to improve antimicrobial stewardship in retail healthcare sectors (e.g., urgent care, telemedicine, etc.) through a collaboration with industry partners, the Urgent Care Association of America, and Dr. Rana Hamdy, the Director of Antimicrobial Stewardship at Children's National Medical Center.
Daniel E. Park, PhD MSPH, is an epidemiologist and senior research scientist. He received a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from George Washington University in 2023 and also holds an M.S.P.H. in international health from Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Park's research has focused on antibiotic stewardship, microbiomics, vaccines, and pneumonia. His most recent work utilizes machine learning approaches and network analyses to elucidate mechanisms underlying associations between the human microbiome and risk factors for disease including COVID-19 and HIV. He co-developed novel Bayesian approaches to quantify zoonotic transmission of pathogenic bacteria, and co-leads antibiotic stewardship projects across a range of clinical settings. Prior work includes analysis of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine effects on upper respiratory tract carriage of pneumococcus, evaluation of digital auscultation in pediatric pneumonia diagnosis, and serving as lead coordinator and analyst for the Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) project. Dr. Park has collaborated with scientists and policy makers at the WHO, CDC, FDA, Children's National Medical Center, and other agencies, organizations, and academic institutions, and has published over 50 peer-reviewed manuscripts including papers in The Lancet, Clinical Infectious Diseases, Biometrics, and Microbiome.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Managing Director With Merchant Medicine LLC
- Urgent Care Advisor
Dr. Glenn Harnett is a Managing Director with Merchant Medicine LLC. He provides executive-level guidance for administrative clinical management, workflow and productivity process engineering, physician documentation and coding benchmarking and coaching, clinical technology selection and design optimization for electronic health record systems, and assists with clinical team training and quality assurance development. Most recently Dr. Harnett was Chief Medical Officer for American Family Care (AFC; including the former Doctors Express), growing it from 24 to 170+ clinics to become the second largest private urgent care operator in the U.S. He managed operational and physician oversight including supervision of 500+ physicians and was instrumental in the selection, design and rollout of a new electronic health record and practice management system. His role included oversight for Joint Venture designs, Laboratory operations, Risk Management, Quality Assurance, Physician Scheduling, Physician Recruitment, Physician Liaison, Patient Advocate, Chief Nursing Officer, and Credentialing Departments. Prior to AFC he was an Emergency Department and Urgent Care Medical Director for Georgia Emergency Associates.
Edward Sung is a developing bioinformatician, providing bioinformatic support for the ARAC lab by designing and integrating the latest software tools and pipelines for genomic discovery and analysis by utilizing high-performance computing, along with expanding laboratory automation using Hamilton Robotics. He received his BS in biotechnology with an emphasis on microbiology and bioinformatics from the University of California, Davis in 2016, as well as a Data Science certificate from Springboard in 2022. He is currently taking classes at GWU, pursing a masters degree in health data science, to further contribute to the fight against antibiotic resistance.
Eesha Madan is an undergraduate student at GW. Currently in her first-year, she is pursuing a BS in Public Health with a minor in Bioinformatics. Her recent work includes research on the top ten attributes of COVID-19 dashboards, contributing valuable insights into data visualization and user interaction. Eesha is interested in merging research methods with data analysis to enhance healthcare outcomes and informatics.
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Elaine Fekadu is an undergraduate research assistant at ARAC. She is a fourth-year student currently pursuing a BS in Management Information Systems and Business Analytics. She has previous experience in analytics and has an interest in antibiotic resistance in relation to data science and management.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Accountability in Antibiotics Advisor
- Advisor to
Kathy Lawrence serves as advisor to ARAC on market-based approaches to responsible antibiotic use. Previously, Kathy was the Co-Founder and Senior Director of School Food Focus, where she provided strategic vision for multi-district procurement initiatives and national alliances that fostered collaboration to increase the production of healthy, affordable school food. While at Focus, Kathy also spearheaded development and adoption of the Certified Responsible Antibiotic Use standard now managed by ARAC.
Job Titles:
- Co - Director
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Professor at the George Washington University 's Milken Institute School of Public
Lance Price is a Professor at the George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health and the Founding Director of GW's Antibiotic Resistance Action Center. Dr. Price works at the interface between science and policy to address the growing crisis of antibiotic resistance. His research, retracing the ecology, evolution and epidemiology of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, has been published in top peer-reviewed journals and covered in media outlets around the world.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Investigator
- Stewardship Advisor
Larissa May, MD, MSPH, MSHS, is Professor of Emergency Medicine and Director of Emergency Department and Outpatient Antibiotic Stewardship at the University of California-Davis. She is a national expert in antibiotic stewardship in the emergency department (ED). Dr. May received her M.D., her MSPH in Public Health Microbiology and Emerging Infectious Diseases, and her MSHS in Clinical and Translational Research from The George Washington University. Dr. May's research interests center on clinical infectious disease epidemiology and management, with a particular focus on the application of rapid molecular diagnostic assays, behavioral economics and clinical guidelines to improve antibiotic stewardship in acute care ambulatory settings.
Dr. May has served as an investigator on multiple federally-funded and industry-funded trials evaluating antimicrobial stewardship strategies in the ED and urgent care setting. She has published over 60 peer-reviewed articles in her field. She has also served on numerous committees and task forces focused on antibiotic stewardship, emergency preparedness, and infectious diseases surveillance for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and professional organizations including the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America.
Job Titles:
- Research Scientist
- Researcher
Maliha Aziz is a researcher for ARAC where she designs efficient bioinformatics solutions for genomic epidemiology and microbiomics projects, including studies on the evolution of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. She analyses next generation sequencing data using computational techniques in a high-performance computing environment. She previously worked for the Translational Genomics Institute (TGen) in Arizona. Maliha is from Karachi, a metropolitan city along the coast of Pakistan. She came to the United States in 2006 to pursue a master's in Computational Biosciences at Arizona State University. While at Arizona State, she received an internship at Translational Genomics Research Institute where she met Dr. Price, who she has worked with since November 2012.
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Matthew Wiechmann is an undergraduate research assistant at ARAC. He is a dual degree student pursuing an MPH in Epidemiology and a B.S. in Public Health and Disaster Management. He is a member of the U.S. Air Force's Chemical and Biological Emergency Response Force Package (CERFP) based in Minneapolis, MN.
Job Titles:
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Megan Spyers-Duran is an Undergraduate Research Assistant at the ARAC. She is a third-year student completing a BS in Public Health with a Pre-Medical concentration and minors in Chemistry and Biology. She also works as a medical assistant and is interested in how research influences clinical decision-making. Her work at the ARAC surrounds microbiomics and disease immunity, specifically within anaerobic microbes.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Assistant
- Associate Professor
- Social and Behavioral Scientist
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant
- Research Associate
Nathan is a research assistant at ARAC, working on numerous projects including characterizing the nasal microbiome. He received his bachelors in Biological Physics and Biology from Brandeis University. His previous research includes studying functions in halophilic archaea and yeast transcription. Nathan's interests are in exploring microbial functions, particularly within exotic microbial communities.
Job Titles:
- Graduate Research Assistant
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Stewardship Advisor
Rana Hamdy serves as the Stewardship Advisor for ARAC. She is a pediatric infectious diseases physician at Children's National Health System (CNHS) and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She serves as Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at CNHS, a multifaceted program that aims to optimize antibiotic use in children.Her academic work focuses on the epidemiology and outcomes of antimicrobial use in children with the goal of improving clinical outcomes while limiting the emergence of antimicrobial resistance. This includes identifying antimicrobial stewardship practices most effective at improving antimicrobial prescribing, as well as comparative effectiveness studies to identify the optimal drug regimen, dose, route, and duration for infections in children.
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Skylar Adderley is an undergraduate research assistant at the ARAC. She is a fourth year student pursuing a BS in biology with a concentration in cellular and molecular biology with minors in psychology and chemistry. She is currently working on the LAIV FluMist study and had previously worked for the GWU Public Health Lab working in the COVID lab. My interests include the interaction between clinical medicine and laboratory research.
Job Titles:
- Graduate Research Assistant ( PhD Student )