Caring for the Human Condition

Central to UMB’s mission is addressing important diseases and conditions impacting the most vulnerable communities. Our research and expertise focus on a broad range of areas including addiction disorder, behavioral health, women’s health, poison control, workplace wellness and health, and palliative care.

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Richard P. Barth, PhD, MSW

Social Work Education

Adoption

Foster Care

The author of 12 books and more than 200 scholarly articles, Dr. Barth is recognized as a leading expert on several social topics including social work education, adoption, foster care, and child welfare. Dr. Barth, who is the former dean of the School of Social Work and past president of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, speaks across the globe on important social work topics and ways social work helps improve communities and the human condition.

Maureen M. Black, PhD

Global child development

Nutrition and child development

Health disparities

Dr. Black is a pediatric psychologist who has made significant contributions to the intersection of child development and nutrition. Dr. Black’s training is in developmental science and pediatric psychology. She is a licensed psychologist, chaired the Division of Growth and Nutrition in the Department of Pediatrics from 2003-2021, and directed an interdisciplinary Growth and Nutrition Practice for children with growth and /or feeding problems for 25 years. She spearheaded advances in child development by co-authoring three series of papers on early child development, published in The Lancet (2007, 2011, and 2017), including leading the first paper of the 2017 Lancet series, Advancing Early Childhood Development: from Science to Scale. That paper provided the scientific basis for the Nurturing Care Framework, which has been adopted by the World Health Assembly (2018) and advanced globally by WHO, UNICEF, and the World Bank Group. In recent work, she demonstrated that the principles of Nurturing Care apply from pre-conception through adolescence. Dr. Black has been instrumental in the development of the Global Scales for Early Development (GSED), a WHO-led, population-based scale to evaluate children’s development globally.

Rebecca M. Brotman, PhD, MPH

Infectious Diseases Epidemiology

Vaginal Microbiome

Dr. Brotman is an infectious diseases epidemiologist who has developed a research career in various aspects of the human microbiome with an emphasis on urogenital health. Her research has ranged between the role of the vaginal microbiome in the genitourinary syndrome of menopause, susceptibility to sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and the behavioral and biological factors associated with the development of bacterial vaginosis (BV).

Andrew Coop, PhD

Drug Design

Dr. Coop received his PhD from the University of Bristol (England) in the area of chemistry of drugs of abuse, followed by a Fogarty postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He has been a School of Pharmacy faculty member since 1999, serving as a department chair from 2007 to 2015. His NIH-funded research focuses on the design and synthesis of new opioid analgesics with reduced tolerance and the development of novel antidepressants. He has developed the compound UMB 425 preclinically as an opioid analgesic with attenuated tolerance development. He has published 130 manuscripts and was the recipient of the 2003 Joseph Cochin Young Investigator Award from the College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD). In 2014, he was named a fellow of CPDD and presented CPDD’s President’s Lecture. In 2014, he received the inaugural Dr. James E. Wynn Memorial Award from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy’s Chemistry Section.

Steven J. Czinn, MD

Child Health

Infant Health

Pediatric Vaccinations

I have been the Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Maryland for the last 17 years. In addition to a very robust Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiative, my Department has developed creative programs to provide our local community with access to medical care. Examples include two mobile units providing free asthma care to children at their public schools of Baltimore, and the second provides counseling, testing and treatment for STI’s and HIV for teenage population. We also provide healthcare and immunizations in a newly created community Center in Baltimore. To address the mental health crisis in children, I am a member of the Mayor’s “Trauma informed Taskforce” and we have also just completed an expansion of an adolescent inpatient treatment center for adolescents. The progress we are making in Baltimore with creative programming may stimulate similar efforts on a national scale.

Bethany DiPaula, PharmD, BCPP

Mental Health

Substance Abuse

Dr. Bethany DiPaula received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree and completed a psychiatric pharmacy specialty residency at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. Her research and teaching focus involves psychiatry and substance abuse. She serves as director of the University of Maryland Psychiatric Pharmacy Residency Program and is a board certified psychiatric pharmacist with inpatient and outpatient psychiatric and substance abuse practices. In addition, she has worked as the Director of Pharmacy at two Maryland State Psychiatric hospitals. Dr. DiPaula has presented and published research related to psychiatry, substance abuse, and academics. She is specifically interested in comorbidity of psychiatry and substance abuse.

Kelly Doran, PhD, RN, FAAN

Nurse-Led Interventions to Improve Social Needs and Health Disparities

Worksite Wellness

Cardiovascular Health

Dr. Doran runs the health suite at the UMB Community Engagement Center (CEC), which has been serving West Baltimore residents for two years. Dr. Doran and other School of Nursing faculty serve as clinical instructors and preceptors to graduate and undergraduate nursing students who are joined by medical, social work, and pharmacy students in the CEC’s health suite. Students gain community-based experience and opportunities to interact with neighbors outside the hospital. Dr. Doran’s expertise is in interprofessional education and nurse-run clinics to improve social determinants of health and health outcomes with underserved populations. Her research focuses on worksite wellness programs with health care workers to reduce work stress/burnout, health promotion interventions to improve cardiovascular health, and interventions to improve health outcomes.

Susan dosReis, BSPharm, PhD

Pediatric Mental Health

Pharmacoepidemiology

Dr. dosReis is professor and co-vice chair for research in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. She received a bachelor of science in pharmacy from the University of Rhode Island School of Pharmacy and a doctorate in pharmacoepidemiology from the University of Maryland Graduate School. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in child mental health services from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She was previously on faculty at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Dr. dosReis works closely with the state Mental Hygiene Administration on policies and programs that impact child mental health services. She is a core faculty of the Maryland Child Mental Health Advisory group within the Center for Child Mental Health Innovations at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. In this role, she advises the state on child psychopharmacologic treatment of youth in the public mental health system with a specific focus on psychotropic medication use among youth in the child welfare system. Through several federally-funded research grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Dr. dosReis has developed a profile of research on psychotropic medication use among children and adolescents, examining disparities in psychotropic use by age, race, and foster care involvement, characterizing psychotropic treatment by combined use with psychotherapy for ADHD, and use of multiple psychotropic medications, and assessing longitudinal patterns in antipsychotic treatment for adults with schizophrenia. She developed two surveys - the ASK-ME survey, which assesses parental perceptions of stimulant treatment for their child’s ADHD, and a survey to assess pediatricians’ identification and screening of autism spectrum disorders in young children. Using qualitative research methods, she has investigated parental perspectives of their child’s ADHD and developed a conceptual model of how parents approach mental health care for their children.

Natalie D. Eddington, PhD, FAAPS, FCP

Entrepreneurism

Medical Cannabis Education

Regulatory Affairs

Dr. Eddington became dean of the School of Pharmacy (SOP) in August 2007. An alumna of the school, she was formerly chair of its Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Dr. Eddington graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from Howard University. She later earned her PhD from SOP and, after working as assistant director of new drug development at Pfizer Inc., joined the faculty in 1991. She was appointed director of SOP’s Pharmacokinetics/Biopharmaceutics Laboratory in 1999 and became chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2003. As chair, she guided the launch of the Bio- and Nano-Technology Center, which brings together scientists to find new and better ways of providing pharmaceutical treatment. It was SOP’s first organized research center. Dr. Eddington is a nationally known expert in drug delivery and pharmacokinetics, the movement of drugs in the body. Her research focuses on cancer therapy and treatments for disorders of the central nervous system. Her work has been supported by funding from the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the pharmaceutical industry. In 2014, she was named executive director of University Regional Partnerships at UMB, a position she assumes while maintaining her leadership of SOP. In this role, Dr. Eddington assists UMB’s senior leadership, working collaboratively with the deans on issues related to the expansion of the University’s academic and research programs in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. In 2017, she was appointed co-decanal lead of the Center for Addiction Research, Education, and Service (CARES), UMB’s interprofessional effort to address the adverse impact of addiction on individuals, families, communities, and society. Under Dr. Eddington’s leadership, SOP has established a number of centers and programs including the Center for Innovative Pharmacy Solutions; the Patients, Pharmacists, Partnerships (P3) Program; the Patient-centered Involvement in Evaluating the effectiveness of Treatment (PATIENTS) Program; the Bio- and Nano-Technology Center; the Center for Translational Medicine; the Mass Spectrometry Center; and the FDA-supported Maryland Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation, a collaborative agreement with the FDA to promote innovation in support of the development and evaluation of safe and effective products. She also has envisioned and launched a transformational pharmapreneurism initiative, which seeks to position the school’s world-class faculty, wonderful students, and exceptional staff to achieve their career aspirations and address our nation’s health care, research, policy, and societal needs.

Megan Ehret, PharmD, MS, BCPP

Psychiatric Psychopharmacology

Neurology

Substance Abuse

Dr. Ehret completed her BS and PharmD degrees at the University of Toledo. She then completed an ASHP-accredited residency in psychiatric pharmacotherapy at the Louis Stokes Veterans Affairs Medical Center, after which she completed a Psychopharmacology and Pharmacogenomics Fellowship at Nova Southeastern University. After training, she received her initial faculty appointment at the University of Connecticut and gained tenure there. While at the University of Connecticut, Dr. Ehret served as vice-chair of the Institutional Review Board, Director of Practices for the Center for Correctional Health Networks, and a faculty member for Project ECHO: Buprenorphine. Additionally, Dr. Ehret received her master's in Clinical and Translational Research from the University of Connecticut Health Center. Dr. Ehret is a board certified psychiatric pharmacist. She most recently practiced at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital as its behavioral health clinical pharmacy specialist. She has experience in treating the spectrum of mental illnesses and substance use disorders. Additionally, she is a past president of the College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacists (CPNP) and a senior editor on the Psychiatric Pharmacotherapy Review Course. Her research interests are precision medicine, including utilization of guideline based treatment and pharmacogenomics, utilization of long-acting injectables, psychotropic medication adherence, and the role of the psychiatric pharmacist on the treatment team

Jodi J. Frey, PhD, LCSW-C, CEAP

workplace

behavioral health

suicide prevention

Dr. Jodi J. Frey, PhD, LCSW-C, CEAP is a full Professor with tenure at University of Maryland, School of Social Work. She serves as Associate Dean for Research and chairs the Social Work in the Workplace & Employee Assistance Sub-specialization. She is the Founder and Faculty Executive Director of the Behavioral Health and Well-Being Lab (BHWell Lab). For 10 years (until 2022), she chaired the Financial Social Work Initiative. Dr. Frey’s research focuses on adult and emerging adult behavioral health and well-being with an emphasis on suicide prevention, mental health, substance use and the workplace. She has published over 100 articles, books and book chapters, in addition to presenting research at international conferences and receiving numerous awards for her research and teaching. Dr. Frey co-chairs the Workplace Suicide Prevention and Postvention Committee where she is working to disseminate the National Guidelines for Workplace Suicide Prevention.

Robyn Gilden, PhD, RN

Environmental Health

Climate Change

Dr. Gilden is an expert in pesticides and their health effects, including how seemingly safe household products can harm the immune, reproductive, and nervous systems. She is adept at translating scientific information into understandable language for health care providers and the public and in helping communities understand the health risks of contaminants in soil and water. Dr. Gilden is on the steering committee of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments and works to develop online resources that help nurses launch new studies in environmental health and create a network of nurse researchers, educators, and practitioners.

Karen Hopkins

Leadership development in the human services

Performance management in nonprofit human service organizations

Organizational capacity development and evaluation in nonprofit human services

Dr. Karen Hopkins is Professor and Co-Director of the Human Services Leadership Certificate at the School of Social Work, University of Maryland. She is the Academic Coordinator for the Graduate MSW/MBA dual degree and teaches courses in human service management and leadership and performance management. Her research with nonprofit and public agencies is related to supervision, management, and leadership practices and outcomes, performance management, workforce development, and organizational learning and capacity building. She is a national peer reviewer for the Standards of Excellence Institute certification for nonprofits. She has served on the Boards of the Network for Social Work Management, Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR), and the Association of Community Organization and Social Administration (ACOSA). She is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Human Services Organizations: Management, Leadership, and Governance journal. She received a PhD from the University of Chicago, MSW from the University of Pittsburgh, and a BS from the Pennsylvania State University.

Raya E. Kheirbek, MD, MPH, FGSA

Geriatrics

Hospice and Palliative Medicine

Internal Medicine

Dr. Kheirbek is a Professor of Medicine and the inaugural Division Head of Gerontology, Geriatrics, and Palliative Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Geriatric Medicine, and Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Her clinical work focuses on offering comprehensive care and support to individuals and their families facing serious and advanced illnesses. Her research centers on the oldest segment of the population, particularly centenarians as expert survivors. Dr. Kheirbek is an advocate for social justice and a writer who provides expert testimonies addressing the unique needs of marginalized and vulnerable individuals, including elders within the criminal justice system. Her work has been featured in academic journals as well as the Baltimore Sun, New York Times, Washington Post, and US World and News Report.

Wendy G. Lane, MD, MPH

Child Maltreatment

Maternal and Child Health

Preventive Medicine

Wendy Lane, MD, MPH is a clinician and researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She is board certified in General Pediatrics, Child Abuse Pediatrics, and Preventive Medicine. A Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health and the Department of Pediatrics, she serves as Medical Director for the Center for Hope/Baltimore Child Abuse Center (CFH/BCAC) and the Howard County Child Advocacy Center. She is a member of the Child Protection Team at the University of Maryland Medical Center, where she served as Chair from 2004-2011. In 2020, Dr. Lane became Director of the Maryland CHAMP (Child Abuse Medical Professionals) Program, which provides training and peer review to health care professionals throughout Maryland. She and her colleagues have been working to identify and train doctors and nurses to serve all Maryland counties, and to increase their participation in peer review. Since 2008, Dr. Lane has served as Chair of the Child Maltreatment and Foster Care Committee for the Maryland Chapter of the AAP (MDAAP). She collaborated with MDAAP on a national AAP grant to address health care services for children in foster care. Dr. Lane has continued this work as a member and now Chair of Maryland’s State Council on Child Abuse and Neglect (SCCAN), one of the three citizen panels mandated by CAPTA. Advocacy by SCCAN helped pass Maryland legislation to create a Medical Director for Child Welfare and to require an electronic health passport for children in foster care. In addition, SCCAN worked with legislators to pass two bills to reduce the likelihood of sexual abuse and misconduct in schools. In addition to her child maltreatment work, Dr. Lane also serves as Director of the Preventive Medicine Residency Program and the Principal Investigator for B’more for Healthy Babies Upton/Druid Heights (BHB-U/DH), a community-based and community-engaged intervention to improve birth outcomes. Since its inception 11 years ago, this predominantly low-income, Black community has seen a 75% decrease in infant mortality rates.

Mary Lynn McPherson, PharmD, PhD, BCPS

Pain and Palliative Care

Health Professions Education

Dr. McPherson has maintained a practice in both hospice and palliative care throughout her career. She teaches extensively in the School’s Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) program on pain management and end-of-life care, including didactic and experiential content. She also developed one of the first palliative care pharmacy residency programs in the United States and is executive program director of the School’s online graduate studies in palliative care, including a Master of Science, Doctor of Philosophy, and graduate certificates. Dr. McPherson currently serves as the first pharmacist selected for the board of the American Association of Hospice and Palliative Care and is a founding trustee and board member of the Society of Pain Management and Palliative Care Pharmacists. She has received many honors for her work, including the American Pharmacists Association Distinguished Achievement Award in Specialized Practice, the University System of Maryland Board of Regents Award for Excellence in Teaching, the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s Founders Week Teacher of the Year Award, the Maryland Society of Health-Systems Pharmacists W. Purdum Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Robert K. Chalmers Distinguished Pharmacy Educator Award from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. She has written five books, including the best-selling Demystifying Opioid Conversion Calculations, A Guide to Effective Dosing, 2nd ed.

Megan Meyer, PhD, MSW

Social Work Practice

Sociology

Political Science

Dr. Meyer has taught community organization and macro social work practice at the School of Social Work for 17 years. Dr. Meyer’s research and publications have been interdisciplinary, spanning the fields of social work, sociology, and political science. She has sought to examine the practices and challenges of building social capital and organizing for social change in economically distressed urban environments, barriers to and practices in facilitating collaboration among community-based organizations and associations, and effective practices for community-university partnerships. She received her PhD and MSW degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Jill Morgan, PharmD, BCPS, BCPPS, FNAP

Pediatrics

Dr. Jill A. Morgan is professor and chair of the Department of Practice, Sciences and Health Outcomes Research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.  She practices at the Interprofessional Pediatric GI Clinic at the University of Maryland Midtown in Baltimore.  She received her PharmD from the University of Illinois at Chicago and completed pharmacy practice and pediatric pharmacy specialty residencies at the University of Maryland Medical Center. For a number of years, Dr. Morgan has been teaching pediatric and neonatal pharmacotherapy to nursing and pharmacy students as well as medical residents. Dr. Morgan served as director for the PGY2 Pediatric Pharmacy Residency program for several years. She is also board certified in pharmacotherapy and pediatric pharmacy. In, 2017, Dr. Morgan became a fellow of the National Academies of Practice (NAP). Dr. Morgan has been involved with several professional organizations. She served as chair of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Administrative Services Section and the Student Services Special Interest Group, as president of the Maryland Society of Health System Pharmacists (MSHP), as chair of the Research Committee for the Pediatric Pharmacy Association (PPA), and chair of the NAP's Pharmacy Academy. Dr. Morgan serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Pediatric Pharmacology and Therapeutics. She is the co-advisor for the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy Pediatric Pharmacy Association.  Dr. Morgan received the AACP Administrative Services Section Award for Sustained Contribution to Administrative Practice in Pharmacy Education, the Excellence in Innovation Award and the Mentor of the Year Award from the Maryland Pharmacists Association, the Purdum Award from MSHP, and the University of Maryland Board of Regents’ Faculty Award for Mentoring. In 2021, Dr. Morgan received the State of Maryland Governor’s Citation for her teamwork in the University of Maryland, Baltimore's Community Mass Vaccination Site. Her research interests include asthma, constipation, care of pediatric patients in community pharmacy, taste and flavoring of liquid medications for children, nutrition, immunizations, pediatric dermatology, transitions of care for pediatric patients, and interprofessional education.

C. Daniel Mullins, PhD

Pharmacoeconomics

Comparative Effectiveness Research

Health Disparities

Dr. Mullins’ research and teaching focus on community-engaged, patient-centered comparative effectiveness research to advance health equity. He has received funding as principal investigator from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Food and Drug Administration (through its CERSI initiative), the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), various pharmaceutical manufacturers, patient advocacy organizations, and the insurance industry. In addition to his faculty appointment, Dr. Mullins is executive director of The PATIENTS Program at the School of Pharmacy and director of the Community & Collaboration Core for the UMB Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, as well as editor-in-chief for the journal Value in Health.

Ebere Onukwugha, MS, PhD

Pharmacoeconomics

Health Care Resource Utilization

Health Disparities

Dr. Onukwugha is a professor in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and executive director of the School's Pharmaceutical Research Computing center. She received a Bachelor of Science in economics and French from the University at Albany, State University of New York, a Master of Science in agricultural and applied economics, as well as a Doctor of Philosophy in economics (concentration: econometrics) from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). Dr. Onukwugha completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in pharmacoeconomics and health outcomes research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. Dr. Onukwugha’s research interests are in pharmacoeconomic analysis, health disparities, and medical decision-making by individuals and institutions. She examines the costs and health outcomes associated with health-related decisions as well as the institutional and environmental context framing individuals’ health-related decisions. The health-related decisions of interest include the decision to receive guideline-recommended treatment, self-care following a hospital discharge, and health care resource utilization in the oncology and cardiovascular disease settings. Her research on cost-effectiveness and regression modeling has received Contributed Research Awards at international conferences sponsored by the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research. Dr. Onukwugha’s research has been published in journals such as Cancer, Urologic Oncology: Seminars and Original Investigations, Journal of General Internal Medicine, JCO: Clinical Cancer Informatics, PharmacoEconomics, Journal of Geriatric Oncology, Value in Health, Ethnicity & Disease, Medical Care, Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy, Journal of Oncology Practice, and Medical Decision Making. She is an editorial board member for PharmacoEconomics and an associate editor for Ethnicity & Disease.

Lynn M. Oswald, PhD, RN

Addictions

Dr. Oswald conducts research on neurobiological factors that underlie interrelationships among stress, childhood trauma, impulsive behavior, and risks for substance use disorders.

Jenny Owens, ScD, MS

Health Equity

Technology-Assisted Community Support

Dr. Jenny Owens serves as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Associate Professor in the University of Maryland Graduate School. She has over a decade of experience in graduate education and further leads the Graduate Research Innovation District (The Grid), an innovation hub designed to support student entrepreneurial ventures through education, early-stage funding, and programming. Her background in health science, combined with coursework in leadership and business fundamentals and a doctorate with a focus in human centered design and user research gives her a unique perspective on designing innovative education for students in the health professions. Dr. Owens' research interests include health equity, medical housing as a health-related social need, and access to healthcare in healthcare deserts. She co-chairs the Advocacy and Awareness Committee of the Healthcare Hospitality Network, a national network of 140 medical housing organizations across the United States. She is a Warnock Social Innovation Fellow and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University Social Innovation Lab. She is also an alum of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Leader, a prestigious national leadership program that fosters collaboration—between people from all fields and professions that have an influence on people’s health—to build just and thriving communities.

Kristine Parbuoni, PharmD, BCPPS

Pediatrics

Dr. Parbuoni obtained her Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in 2005. She then completed a PGY-1 Pharmacy Residency and PGY-2 Pediatric Residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Following residency training, Dr. Parbuoni obtained a position as the clinical pharmacy specialist in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at the University of Maryland Children’s Hospital, where she later also took on administrative roles. Dr. Parbuoni then moved to California and joined the faculty at Loma Linda University School of Pharmacy as an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice. Dr. Parbuoni was also the Residency Program Director of the PGY2 Pediatric Residency Program at Loma Linda University. She was excited to return to her alma mater in 2018. Dr. Parbuoni is a Board Certified Pediatric Pharmacy Specialist. She has a clinical practice site at the University of Maryland Children’s Hospital. She is also the Residency Program Director of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy PGY2 Pediatric Residency. Dr. Parbuoni has been actively involved in professional organizations throughout her career. She served as president of the Maryland Society of Health-System Pharmacy from 2012 to 2013, and is currently on its Board of Directors. She was a delegate for the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), on ASHP’s Council on Education and Workforce Development, and the SCSS’s Preceptor Development SAG and Pediatrics SAG. Dr. Parbuoni served as chair of the Research Committee of the Pediatric Pharmacy Association from 2019 to 2020. Since becoming faculty, she has been a member of the American Academy of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), has served as a delegate to its House of Delegates, and is chair-elect of the AACP Pediatric Special Interest Group. Dr. Parbuoni’s research interests include clinical outcomes in pediatrics (infectious diseases, critical care), pediatric pharmacokinetics, educational methods and outcomes in simulation, and post-graduate training.

Judy L. Postmus, PhD, ACSW

Domestic Violence

Intimate Partner Violence

Dating Violence

Dean Postmus’ research has focused on the physical, sexual, and economic victimization of women. She was the founder and director (2007-2018) of the Rutgers University Center on Violence Against Women and Children, which works to eliminate physical, sexual, and other forms of violence against women and children — and the power imbalances that permit them — through multidisciplinary research, education, and community engagement. In 2016, Dean Postmus received a grant from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), within the U.S. Department of Justice, to create the Rutgers Violence Against Women Research Consortium. The consortium works collaboratively with interdisciplinary researchers and NIJ scientists to identify, implement, and disseminate research and evaluation projects that fill the gaps in our current knowledge of intimate partner violence, sexual violence, stalking, and teen dating violence.

Danya Qato, PhD, PharmD, MPH

High-Risk Medications in Vulnerable Populations

Health Disparities

Pharmacovigilance

Dr. Danya M. Qato is a practicing pharmacist, epidemiologist, and health services researcher. She holds a PhD in health and pharmaceutical services research from the Brown University School of Public Health, a PharmD from the University of Illinois, and a MPH with a concentration in international health and humanitarian studies from Harvard University. In 2020, she was selected as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Leader. Her research is currently funded by the National Institute on Aging, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research. At Brown, Dr. Qato was funded as an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and National Institutes of Health doctoral and postdoctoral research fellow in comparative effectiveness research. Dr. Qato’s substantive areas of research pertain to improving regulatory and policy tools to reduce use of high risk medications in vulnerable populations, substance use and women’s health, risk management and post-marketing surveillance, drug pricing and access to essential medicines, environmental and global health systems development, pharmacovigilance, and global health equity. She was previously a Schweitzer Fellow, a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow (for support of her MPH at Harvard), and a U.S. research fellow of the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC) and the Arab Council for the Social Sciences funded by the Swedish International Development Agency. In the 2015-2016 academic year, Dr. Qato was based at the Institute for Community and Public Health at Birzeit University in Palestine, where she was a Fulbright Scholar and served as an expert consultant to the World Health Organization. In addition to her role as an associate professor at the School of Pharmacy, Dr. Qato holds a secondary appointment in the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, is a faculty affiliate at the University of Maryland Institute for Global Health, and a faculty member of the joint UMB/UMBC PhD Program in Gerontology. She is former chair of the Drug Policy and Pharmaceutical Services Committee of the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association and is a member of the Public Health subcommittee of the Maryland State Taskforce on Reconciliation and Equity.

Jacques Ravel, PHD

Microbiome

Women’s Health

Bacterial Genomics

Over the past 18 years, he has developed a research program focused on applying modern genomics technologies and ecological principles to characterize the role and dynamics of the vaginal microbiome in women's health. He uses clinical genomics and systems biology approaches to develop improved strategies to manage gynecological and obstetrics conditions. His foundational research has led to the development of innovative live microbiome-based live biotherapeutic drugs to restore vaginal health, and treat conditions such as bacterial vaginosis and urinary tract infections. These interventions are being evaluated in several clinical trials in the US and Africa. He previously was an investigator at the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Md., where the first microbial genome was sequenced in 1995. He was elected to the American Academy of Microbiology in 2012 and was awarded the Blaise Pascal International Research Chair in 2015. He has published over 300 peer-reviewed publications and is among the most highly cited scientists worldwide. Dr. Ravel is the current and founding editor-in-chief of the journal Microbiome and an associate editor of the journal mBio. He received his PhD in environmental molecular microbiology and ecology from the University of Maryland, College Park, and performed his postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of Chemistry, working on microbial natural product chemistry.

Kristin Reavis, MD

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Dr. Reavis joined the School of Medicine (SOM) faculty in 2013 and practices a full scope of family medicine. She is the faculty advisor for SOM’s chapter of the Student National Medical Association, co-faculty advisor for the Student Diversity Council, and has been an advisor for SOM’s House Advisory System since its inception in 2016. Additionally, she serves on the Diversity Advisory Councils at UMB and SOM. As a leader for equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) efforts at SOM, she is working to establish an Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in an effort to centralize DEI efforts at the school. Dr. Reavis is an inaugural member of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine’s Anti-Racism Task Force and is working to integrate anti-racism policies into the strategic plan of the leading organization that supports family medicine educators, thus affecting the future of family medicine. Dr. Reavis serves as the director of maternal child health and is a family medicine obstetrics provider for the Department of Family and Community Medicine. Her academic and clinical interests include women’s health and social justice/health equity. She is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and was the 2019 recipient of the Dean’s Alumni Award for Diversity and Inclusion. Dr. Reavis completed her undergraduate education at Morgan State University before earning her Master of Biological Sciences degree at Drexel University. She earned her medical degree from UMSOM and completed her residency and fellowship training in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Paul Sacco, PhD

substance use

gambling

aging

Paul Sacco received his MSW from Arizona State University in 1995 and practiced for 10 years as a psychiatric social worker. In 2005, he returned to complete his PhD in Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis and joined the faculty of the School of Social Work in 2009. His research focuses primarily on behavioral health and addictions with a focus on life course development, alcohol use disorders, problem gambling, tobacco use, and behavioral health integration. Sacco combines his behavioral health research with an interest in the training of social work students in evidence-supported behavioral health interventions. He served as the Project Director of a SAMHSA-funded Screening and Brief Intervention and Referral for Treatment (SBIRT) Training program (2014-2017) and continues to provide training in this public health approach. He also directs the BHWISE-Lifespan Fellows Program, a HRSA-funded workforce development project focused on integrated behavioral health training. Sacco teaches in the foundation and clinical practice areas. He also teaches structural equation modeling in the PhD program. As an educator, he endeavors to support students in learning the latest from research while helping them to recognize the core elements of effective social work practice.

Leah Sera, PharmD, MA, BCPS

Palliative Care

Medical Cannabis

Dr. Sera received her PharmD from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in 2010. She completed a pharmacy practice residency at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Md., and a specialty residency in pain management and palliative care at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. She is a board-certified pharmacotherapy specialist. She earned a master’s in instructional systems development at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2017. Dr. Sera's clinical specialties are pain management and palliative care. Dr. Sera is co-director for the nation’s first MS in Medical Cannabis Science and Therapeutics (MCST) program at the School of Pharmacy. She teaches in several courses in the MCST program, including an introduction to medical cannabis history, culture, and policy; a course introducing students to patient care and the clinical uses of medical cannabis; she also mentors students in their capstone projects. In the Doctor of Pharmacy program, Dr. Sera teaches a variety of topics in required and elective courses. Additionally, she holds an associate faculty position at the University of Maryland Graduate School. Dr. Sera maintains an active clinical practice in the Transitional Care Center at the University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie, Md. Dr. Sera has been invited to speak on pain management, palliative medicine, and cannabis therapeutics topics at professional pharmacy conferences and at medical centers such as the National Institutes of Health. She received a Leader in Healthcare Award in the category of medical cannabis from the Baltimore Business Journal in 2020.

Wendy Shaia, MSW, EdD

Positive School Climate

Community Outreach

Wendy Shaia, Clinical Associate Professor and Executive Director of the Center for Restorative Change, is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Social Work. Wendy obtained her Doctor of Education in Human and Organizational Learning from The George Washington University. She has more than 20 years of experience developing, implementing, and leading organizations and programs. In New York, she developed and operated a shelter for homeless pregnant and parenting young women in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and built transitional and affordable housing in East New York, Brooklyn. She provided technical assistance to community organizations for the Enterprise Foundation, and conducted the summative evaluation of the Red Cross’ long-term recovery effort after hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. Most recently, Wendy worked as a strategic planner for the Department of Defense, where she led change management efforts, and developed strategies around Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity. Wendy is also the co-founder of the Positive Schools Center at the University of Maryland School of Social Work. Her work focuses on creating positive school climate and reducing the disproportionate suspensions and expulsions of children of color and children with disabilities from Maryland schools, particularly where children, families and school staff have experienced, complex, secondary and vicarious trauma. Wendy has been trained in restorative practices by the International Institute for Restorative Practices and in mindfulness by the Center for Mindful Awareness. She is passionate about issues related to poverty, social justice and oppression. Wendy is on the Board of Directors of the Community Law Center.

Terry V. Shaw, Ph.D., MSW, MPH

Child Welfare

Foster Care

Administrative Data

My background and interests focuses on leveraging existing administrative data systems to improve state policy and practice related to child and family health. I am particularly interested in examining the pathways into and through child serving systems focusing on opportunities for state systems to collaborate, understand service overlaps, improve overall service delivery and address the multiple needs of the children and families involved with these systems (including child, youth and family physical and mental health; surveillance of psychotropic medication use; pathways to permanency; educational access; interactions between the court and child welfare services, and child maltreatment prevention). I have over two decades of experience and expertise in developing the infrastructure, relationships and programming structure to successfully implement multi-agency data linking systems (having instituted data linking projects in South Carolina, California, and Maryland). I have expertise in advanced statistical methods and extensive experience utilizing longitudinal data systems to answer questions related to service outcomes to inform policy and practice.

Fadia Shaya, PhD, MPH

Pharmacoeconomics and Pharmacoepidemiology

Health Disparities and Social Determents of Health

Health Policy and Regulatory Science

Dr. Shaya directs the Informatics Core in the UMB Institute for Clinical and Translational Research and is executive director of the School of Pharmacy's Behavioral Health Research and Resource Team (BHRT). She serves on the Faculty Advisory Council of the Maryland Higher Education Commission and on the Board of AcademyHealth, and is the regional director of the Harvard Business School Healthcare Alumni Association. She is a member of HIMSS, AMIA, AcademyHealth, AACP, APHA, ISPE and ISPOR. Dr. Shaya’s work focuses on building strategic partnerships, taking into account the social determinants of health, to optimize the effectiveness and reduce the risk of prescription drugs and medical devices. Her implementation/dissemination research is based in human data science and uses artificial intelligence and machine learning methods. With multidisciplinary collaborations, she develops and applies new methods in pharmacoeconomics, pharmacoepidemiology, public health, and clinical informatics to inform practice and policy.

Corey Shdaimah, PhD, LLM, LLB

Sex Work

Foster Care

Child Care Policy

Dr. Shdaimah, who has degrees in law and social work, examines the impact of policy as it evolves through implementation, with a focus on child welfare, prostitution policy, and child care. She is an expert on alternative criminal justice responses to prostitution and street-based sex work and has consulted with jurisdictions across the country and internationally on development, implementation, and evaluation of such programs. In the field of child welfare, Dr. Shdaimah studies case processing. She advises the Maryland judiciary and has worked with the state’s Foster Care Improvement Program as well as a number of local jurisdictions on dependency court reforms and the involvement of stakeholders in the court process. She also is a leading voice on U.S. child care policy, speaking in academic venues and to the news media about the struggles faced by families and providers and the range of early education and child care policy responses to address them.

Alison Trinkoff, ScD, MPH, RN, FAAN

Musculoskeletal Injuries

Long-Term Care

Dr. Trinkoff’s longitudinal study of more than 2,600 registered nurses examined the relationship among long work hours, needlestick injuries, and musculoskeletal disorders. More recently, her research has focused on the implications of nurses’ work environments on patient outcomes. She has been studying long-term care settings, including certified nursing assistant preparation and training, nursing home leadership, and their impact on resident care outcomes.

Ester Villalonga Olives, PhD, MsC

Patient-Reported Outcomes

Social Epidemiology

Health Inequities

Dr. Villalonga-Olives is a social epidemiologist with a PhD in biomedicine, specializing in epidemiology and public health. She obtained her BsC and MsC in sociology and health from the University of Barcelona, with an international stint at the Università degli Study di Trieste in Italy. Her PhD, with International Doctor Distinction, was from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, and she completed stays at the London School of Economics in the UK and the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany. During her PhD, she conducted public health interventions for non-governmental organizations in India and Cuba. Currently an adjunct professor at New York University, she has also been a teaching and research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, guest lecturer at Yale School of Public Health and the University of Tarapacá, Chile, and a research scientist at the University Medical Center of the Georg-August-University of Goettingen in Germany. Dr. Villalonga-Olives is a member of the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center and the International Expert Group on Operationalizing Social Capital Interventions in Forced Displacement Situations led by the United Nations. She was part of the Early Investigators Advancement Program of the NIH, received a GLOBALtimore teaching fellowship, served on the board of the International Epidemiology Association for 10 years, and received an award from the Spanish Society of Epidemiology to train at the European Epidemiology Program in Florence (Italy). Her research focuses on the social determinants of health, emphasizing social capital, health inequalities, structural racism, and health intervention design. She has a background in psychometrics and works with patient-reported outcomes, particularly health-related quality of life, and developed a measure for assessing bridging social capital. She leads various projects, including an NIH R01 grant creating a measure of structural racism. In her research she is exploring social capital's link to health outcomes in underserved populations, adapting cancer knowledge tools for Hispanics/Latinos, studying racial Differential Item Functioning in social indicators, and implementing social capital interventions to boost cancer screening among Hispanic/Latino immigrants. She co-investigates two NIH R01 projects on social connectedness's impact on mental health in Black adults and creating a shared decision-making measure in maternity care. Her research methodologies encompass mixed methods, structural equation modeling, multilevel modeling, and Rasch analysis. Dr. Villalonga-Olives has received awards for multiple conference presentations, published in prestigious journals like the American Journal of Epidemiology, Social Science and Medicine, and the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. She serves on the editorial board of Frontiers in Public Health and actively contributes to scientific committees at international events.

Kathryn Walker, PharmD, BCPS, CPE

Pain and Palliative Care

Dr. Walker is an associate professor at the School of Pharmacy and assistant vice president for palliative care at MedStar Health, where she creates palliative care strategy, demonstrates its value within the health system, and leads and collaborates on interdisciplinary research focused on health services related to telehealth and appropriate medication use. She teaches in both the School’s PharmD program and its MS in Palliative Care program. She also serves as site director for the pain/palliative care residency program that is shared between the University of Maryland and MedStar Health. At MedStar, she serves as the clinical co-leader for the health system and oversees inpatient palliative care consultation teams at nine hospitals as well as the community-based Palliative Telehealth Connecting to Home (PATCH) program, which she started in 2015. Dr. Walker completed one of the only specialty residencies at the time in palliative care at University of Maryland after completing her Doctor of Pharmacy degree. She is the past president of the Maryland Pain Initiative (MPI) and served on the Board of Directors for MPI and the Maryland Society of Health System Pharmacists.

Roger J. Ward, EDD, JD, MSL, MPA

Institutional Effectiveness

Leadership and Organizational Behavior

Dr. Ward was named UMB provost and executive vice president in October 2021 after serving in interim roles since January 2020, when he also was named dean of the Graduate School. These are the latest in a series of upward moves for Dr. Ward at UMB. He was promoted to senior vice president for operations and institutional effectiveness in January 2018, serving as UMB’s chief operating officer and directing departments and initiatives that promote institutional effectiveness and assure accountability including human resources, strategic planning, enterprise risk management, and institutional accreditation. In addition, he oversaw areas that promote University compliance and transparency, including the offices of research integrity, conflict of interest, human research protections, and education and equal access. On the academic side, Dr. Ward is dean of the Graduate School after serving as vice dean, where he was responsible for building graduate programs that are self-sustaining and responsive to evolving needs of the health and human services workforce in the state. Dr. Ward joined UMB in March 2009 as the associate vice president for academic and student affairs. He served as chief academic officer and interim dean of the Graduate School during the 2011-2012 academic year. In June 2012, Dr. Ward was named UMB’s first chief accountability officer and was promoted to vice president for academic affairs in October 2013 and to vice president of operations and planning in June 2015. He served as interim chief human resources officer from October 2014 to November 2015. Before joining UMB, Dr. Ward served as assistant vice president for student affairs at the New School in New York and also held senior administrative positions in the City University of New York system. Dr. Ward holds an associate’s degree in data processing/computer programming from Kingsborough Community College, a bachelor’s degree in government and a master’s in public administration, both from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He holds a Doctor of Law degree from New York Law School and a Master of Science in Law (cybersecurity) from Maryland Carey Law. Dr. Ward also holds a Doctor of Education degree in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania. He has been teaching on-site, online, and in a blended environment since 2004 and has taught graduate courses in ethics, the history of higher education, leadership and organizational behavior, legal issues in higher education policy, and cybersecurity policy, among others.

Linda Wastila, BSPharm, MSPH, PhD

Health Services Research in Mental Health

Substance Use Disorders in Geriatrics

Dr. Linda Wastila is professor and Parke-Davis Chair in Geriatric Pharmacotherapy in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research and director of research for the Peter Lamy Center for Drug Therapy and Aging. For more than two decades, she has conducted research focusing on prescription drug policy, quality, and outcomes. She received her Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she also completed a Master of Science in Public Health. In 1993, she received her doctorate in health policy from Brandeis University, where she served as a Pew Health Policy Fellow. From 1994–2001, she served as senior scientist at the Schneider Institute for Health Policy and was a lecturer at Harvard Medical School. With a focus on older adults and other vulnerable populations, Dr. Wastila examines issues such as: prescription drug use, abuse, and diversion; intended and unintended policy impacts on prescription drug utilization and outcomes; psychopharmacological medication use, quality, and outcomes in community- and residential-residing older adults; innovative methods addressing multi-morbidity and poly-pharmacy; mental health disorders and impact on medication use, adherence, and outcomes; and medication quality and falls prevention. Dr. Wastila’s current research portfolio includes papers on psychopharmacological treatment and quality of treatment in long-term care beneficiaries, substance use disorders epidemiology, and co-morbidity of psychiatric and physical health conditions. She has received grants and contracts from the National Institute of Aging, National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Agency for Health Research and Quality, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Research Retirement Foundation, the Maryland Department of Health, and other sources.