Victor Davila-Roman, MD (Director)
Dr. Davila-Roman is Professor of Medicine, Anesthesiology, and Radiology at Washington University Medical Center in St. Louis and a cardiologist in the Cardiovascular Division. He is Medical Director, Cardiovascular Imaging and Clinical Research Core Laboratory, and Associate Director of the Nutrition Obesity Research Center Clinical Science Research Core, in the Center for Human Nutrition, both at WUMC. Dr. Davila-Roman received a doctor of medicine degree from the University of Puerto Rico, then completed a residence in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Adult Cardiovascular Diseases at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, WUSM.
Allison King, MD, MPH, PhD (Co-Director)
Dr. King is a pediatric and young adult hematologist investigating cognitive function and educational attainment of individuals with sickle cell disease. Much of her work has focused on identifying modifiable risk factors associated with cognitive function of children with sickle cell disease. Some of these measures include the home environment, parenting skills of the child’s caregivehe founded and directed the transition program within St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Barnes Hospital at Washington University School of Medicine, and has been active in both research and clinical programming and education r, hemoglobin level and oxygen saturation. Dr. King began to use methods of implementation science to increase the use of evidence based interventions to target these risk factors. Saround the transition of care for adolescents with sickle cell disease. Dr. King has been both a Principal Investigator and collaborator on studies involving the measurement of cognition, academic attainment and academic achievement of students with sickle cell disease. Her training in clinical investigation, public health including dissemination and implementation science research is a unique combination and allows her to engage in impactful research that bridges the health system with schools and communities to improve the lives of these vulnerable children.
Mario Castro, MD, MPH (Co-Director)
Dr. Castro is the Chief of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at the University of Kansas, School of Medicine. He has extensive D&I expertise in asthma management, tobacco control, community engagement, global health, multicenter trials, and research networks. He is the author of over 30 chapters/books and over 300 peer-reviewed articles. He has been a leader of the CDC Controlling Asthma in American Cities, American Lung Association Airway Clinical Research Centers, and NHLBI Asthma Clinical Research Network, Severe Asthma Research Program, AsthmaNet and PrecISE research networks. He is widely recognized as an expert clinician, an excellent mentor, and skilled educator with a significant commitment to the recruitment and retention of URM trainees. Dr. Castro also serves as the Vice Chair for Clinical and Translational Research and the Director of the Rainbow Clinical Trails Science Unit, Frontiers.
Ross Brownson, PhD (Co-Director)
Dr. Brownson is the Bernard Becker Professor of Public Health at the Brown School and the Medical School. He is involved in numerous community-level studies designed to understand and reduce modifiable cancer risk factors such as physical inactivity, obesity, and tobacco use. In particular, he is interested in the impacts of environmental and policy interventions on health behaviors and he conducts research on D&I of evidence-based interventions. He is the author of 9 books and over 450 peer-reviewed articles. His books include Chronic Disease Epidemiology and Control, Applied Epidemiology, Handbook of Obesity Prevention, Communicating Public Health Information Effectively: A Guide for Practitioners, and Evidence-Based Public Health. His book (co-edited by Drs. Colditz and Proctor), Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health: Translating Science to Practice, was published early 2012 and is highly relevant for this K12 program. He is associate editor of the Annual Review of Public Health, and on the editorial board of four other journals. He is a former and founding member of the 15-person CDC Task Force developing the Guide to Community Preventive Services. Dr. Brownson is the recipient of the Award for Excellence in Prevention Research and Research Translation in Chronic Disease (2000, from CDC) and the Abraham Lilienfeld Award for outstanding contributions in teaching and mentoring (2003, from APHA). He is currently the PI of a five year NCI funded R25 grant providing training to a national cohort of early career implementation researchers in cancer prevention.
Elvin Geng, MD, MPH (Co-Director)
Elvin H. Geng earned MD and MPH degrees from Columbia University and subsequently completed post-doctoral training through the Aaron Diamond AIDS Institute (posted in Kunming, China) as well as fellowship training in infectious diseases at the University of California in San Francisco. Since 2009, he has been a faculty member in the Department of Medicine, Division of HIV/AIDS, Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine at University of California at San Francisco, where he is currently Associate Professor of Medicine. Using the lens of implementation science, he conducts research to optimize the use of evidence-based interventions in the public health response to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Currently, through diverse collaborations in Kenya, Zambia, Uganda, as well as in safety net setting in the United States, he is leading work to advance strategies for HIV treatment success. This work includes assessing the comparative implementability and effectiveness of community-based and other innovative models for HIV treatment, testing adaptive strategies for engagement in HIV treatment, and using the patient experience to drive health systems improvement. Dr. Geng’s work makes use of a range of methods, including stepped-wedge cluster randomized trials, sequential multiple assignment randomized trials, choice experiments, as well observational and qualitative methods. His work is sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. He serves in an advisory capacity for the World Health Organization, non-governmental organizations, and professional organizations. He is the author of over 125 peer-reviewed papers and is an academic editor at PLOS Medicine, a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome and editor for implementation science at Current HIV/AIDS Reports.