Annals of Public Health Reports

Prof. Jan Ricks Jennings is actively teaching as a Professor for the Graduate School of Public Health-University of Pittsburgh, has taught at the Kellogg School of Management-Northwestern University and the Jacobs School of Management-University of Buffalo. For ten years Prof. Jennings lectured for the American College of Healthcare Executives, lectured throughout the Peoples Republic of China and twice throughout the United Kingdom. Prof. Jennings has a MHA from the Graduate School of Public Health-University of Pittsburgh, a B.S. in business administration from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and an Associate's Degree in accounting from Robert Morris University. He is the first CEO position was at St. Luke's Memorial Medical Center in Utica, New York from 1980 through 1983. The organization was 336 beds and an attached 76 bed skilled nursing facility. From 1883 to 1993 Prof. Jennings served as President and CEO of the Millard Fillmore Healthcare System. From 1993 to 1997 Prof. Jennings served as President and CEO of the Children's Memorial Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. In 1999 Prof. Jennings was invited to be President and CEO of the Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 2004 Prof. Jennings capitalized a Pittsburgh based healthcare consulting firm, American Healthcare Solutions, LLC. Prof. Jennings has become a national leader in healthcare administration and academic affairs associated with healthcare administration.

Dr. Steven H Lamm is working as President and Chief Scientist at Consultants in Epidemiology & Occupational Health, Washington. Dr. Lamm is a physician-epidemiologist from the United States, board certified in Pediatrics, Preventive Medicine, and Occupational Medicine. He is on the adjunct faculties of Johns Hopkins University-Bloomberg School of Public Health (Department of Health Policy and Management) and Georgetown University School of Medicine (Department of Pediatrics [Epidemiology]). He has served as an epidemiologist for both the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institute of Child Health and Human development of the National Institutes of Health. He has been in the private practice of medical epidemiology for thirty years and has over 130 publications. His work has focused primarily on assessing health risks (e.g., cancers and birth defects) from chemical exposures in the workplace, in the environment, and from pharmaceuticals. His two major areas of interest are the dose-response relationship for environmental exposures and cancers and the assessment of risk from in-utero exposures. Cancer risks from arsenic exposure and leukemia risks from benzene exposure have been of particular interest to him with publication histories of over 30 years. He is particularly interesting in risk assignment in a multi-exposure environment. He has analyzed the arsenic cancer epidemiology data from SW Taiwan, Inner Mongolia, and the United States and will speak today on the cancer risk analysis of low-exposure in the SW Taiwan study. He has examined the data on birth defects and maternal exposures to specific drugs and on small-for-gestational age infants and various risk factors. He is an advisor on research on the assessment of teratological risk from pharmaceutical exposures.

Dr. Richard J Jurevic is Chair in the Department of Diagnostic Services (Oral Diagnostics). He received his undergraduate and dental degrees from The Ohio State University. At the University of Washington, he completed speciality training in Oral Medicine and Radiology and fellowship in Special Care Dentistry, and his PhD in Oral Biology. Dr. Jurevic was the recipient of the NIH/NIDCR Ruth Kirschstein National Research Service Award, the NIH/NIDCR Dental Scientist Award (K16 Grant, U.Washington; 1998-2003), the Warren B. Magnusson Biomedical Research Award (U.Washington; 2000), and the Edward Wach Research Award (University of Illinois at Chicago; 2005). Dr. Jurevic was a recipient of a K23 mentored patient oriented clinical research grant entitled 'Defensin gene cluster variation and Candida carriage' for 5 years through the NIH/NIDCR. Dr. Jurevic recently completed a R01 grant as part of a program project, investigating the association of genetic variations in innate immune genes with oral manifestations of HIV /AIDS. Dr. Jurevic was also a member of the UH/Cleveland Center for AIDS Research (CFAR). He is also an oral medicine specialist and co-investigator with the ACTG (AIDS Clinical Trials Group) Oral HIV AIDS Research Alliance (OHARA) investigating oral candidiasis and new treatment modalities for underserved populations. The CASE OHARA group is also investigating the complex inter-relationships that occur in the oral cavity of the immune compromised host utilizing mycobiomic, microbiomic, and metabolomic methods to assess disease progression and associated coinfections. His work has extended into a Phase 3 clinical trial investigating the efficacy of gentian violet for the treatment of oral candidiasis in immune compromised patients. Currently Dr. Jurevic is a CTSI funded Clinical Researcher for the School of Dentistry, a member of the WVU Cancer Center, and member of the WVU Institutional Review Board. Dr. Jurevic is also responsible for managing the Oral Medicine Clinics and Oral Radiology Service for the WVU School of Dentistry. Dr. Jurevic's research interests focus on the genetic basis of oral disease. The focus of his studies is investigating the association of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and copy number variations (CNVs) in the epithelial expressed antimicrobial peptide family known as Defensins. Dr. Jurevic has developed high-throughput genetic assays to study the association of these variations on susceptibility for oral diseases such as candidiasis in high risk populations for clinical application. He is currently investigating the relationship of defensin peptide expression patterns in patients undergoing cytotoxic chemotherapies and assessing the relationship of genetic variation and expression of peptide with development and severity of oral mucositis associated with cytotoxic cancer chemotherapies. He is also collaborating with the Department of Orthopedic Surgery studying the relationship and species characterization of complex oral biofilms and development of biofilms on implantable knee prostheses by pyrosequncing technologies. His lab is also developing point of care assays to monitor dental implant failure by evaluating changes in chemokine and cytokine profiles longitudinally by electromagnetic ELISA methods. The translational aspects of his research will facilitate the development of clinically applicable assessment tools for future patient care.

Dr. Mustafa Z Younis is Professor from Department of Health Policy & Management at Jackson State University, Mississippi. Dr. Younis is an internationally recognized scholar and was a member of the Executive Committee of the International Society for Research of Healthcare Financial Management. Dr. Younis has collaborated with faculties from the School of Medicine at Jena University (Jena, Germany), as well as those from Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. He served with the American University of Beirut (Beirut, Lebanon) and the World Bank training workshops for health sector reforms in the Middle East, which involved training health administrators from several Middle Eastern countries. His present and future research activities focus on issues related to disparities and access in healthcare, cancer centers, long-term care and nursing homes; capital structure and debt financing for hospitals and healthcare organizations; examination of quality and efficiency in the healthcare sector; hospital mergers, conversions and changes of ownership; and hospital profitability. Dr. Younis has administrative experience as Chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management at Florida International University (FL, USA) where he led the accreditation efforts for the Healthcare Management Program. He has strong research expertise in working with hospital and nursing home data to measure economic and financial performance.

Dr. Uwe Siebert is the Chair of the Department of Public Health, Medical Decision Making and Health Technology Assessment (HTA) at UMIT in Austria and Director of the Division for Health Technology Assessment and Bioinformatics in the ONCOTYROL – Center for Personalized Cancer Medicine in Austria. He is also Adjunct Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health and Director of the Cardiovascular Research Program at the Institute for Technology Assessment, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Siebert is a member of the Latin America Consortium Advisory Committee of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR), a member of the 'National HTA Strategy' Expert Group of the Federal Ministry of Health in Austria, a member of the Austrian Cochrane Collaboration Branch and a member of several Director Boards (Society of Medical Decision Making, German Network of EbM, German Association of Health Economics). He has served as Vice President of the Society of Medical Decision Making (SMDM), been a member of the ISPOR Board of Directors, and a member of the International Expert Committee Advising the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) on Methods for Economic Evaluations. His research interests include applying evidence-based quantitative and translational methods from public health, epidemiology, comparative effectiveness, economic evaluation, and decision science in the framework of health technology assessments (HTA) as well as in the clinical context of routine health care. His current substantive research focuses on cancer, cardiovascular disease, hepatitis C and other diseases. His methodological research is focused on evaluations of public health interventions, diagnostic imaging procedures, personalized medicine as well as causal modelling. He teaches courses in decision analysis, HTA, and advanced epidemiologic methods at several universities and for industry in Europe, US, South America and Asia. He is Clinical Guideline Commissioner for the Association of the Scientific Medical Societies in Germany (AWMF) of the German Society for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology (GMDS), Co-Chair of the ISPOR-SMDM Modelling Good Research Practices Task Force, Co-Chair of the 'Issues in Methodology Section' of the SMDM Policy Initiative, and a Leadership Member of the ISPOR Personalized Medicine Special Interest Group. He has worked with several HTA and Government Agencies. He has authored more than 300 publications and is Associate Editor of the International Journal of Public Health as well as editorial board member of several scientific journals.

Dr. Solomon Ike Okosun is currently an Associate Professor of Epidemiology in Georgia State University School of Public Health. Dr. Okosun holds MPH in Biostatistics from the University of Oklahoma College of Public Health. He received his doctorate from The University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, and has over 25 years of experience in public health. Dr. Okosun is trained in Chronic Disease Epidemiology and Biostatistics. He specialized in the epidemiology of metabolic syndromes, including diabetes, hypertension, obesity and dyslipidemias in populations of African origin. Dr. Okosun is a Fellow of the Obesity Society and the American College of Epidemiology. He is also a member of many scientific organizations including, American Public Health Association, Society for Epidemiologic Research, North American Association for the study of Obesity, International Society for the Study of Hypertension in Blacks and the American College of Epidemiology. He is the Director (Chair) of the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in Georgia State University School of Public Health.

Dr. Carlo Antonio Liverani is Chief of Preventive Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico in Italy. Dr. Liverani is Obstetrician Gynecologist from Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the 'Regina Elena' Hospital in Milano. He worked as Obstetrician Gynecologist from Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the Civil Hospital of Sondrio. He worked as Obstetrician-Gynecologist from Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the Hospital 'Vittore Buzzi' in Milano and from 1991-1993 he worked as Obstetrician-Gynecologist from Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the Hospital 'Sesto S. Giovanni' in Milano. Dr. Liverani is having more than 180 publications. His research interests include Lower genital tract pathology; Colposcopy; Gynecologic Oncology; HPV Vaccines; HPV related pathology. He is also member for Northern Italy Obstetrics & Gynecologic Society (S.L.O.G.), Italian Society of Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology (S.I.C.P.C.V.), Association of Italian Hospital Obstetricians & Gynecologists (A.O.G.O.I.), Board 'Project HPV' Giovanni Lorenzini, Medical Science Foundation, Master of the Court of Milano (C.T.U. n.12159).

Dr. Peter J Tonellato earned his Phd in applied mathematics from the University of Arizona following study at both the University of Oxford and Hiroshima University. Past positions include Founding Director, Bioinformatics Research Center, Medical College of Wisconsin and Founder and CEO, of Pointone Systems, LLC, . the first personalized medicine software company that provided genetic enabled 'best practice' clinical decision support systems to hospitals and health care facilities. Previous work includes the creation of the Rat Genome Database (rgd.mcw.edu), the first disease-centric repository of phenotype and genetic data and the Program in Genomic Applications (pga.mcw.edu) data mining system for a heterogeneous collection of phenotypes, microarray expression and genotypes. Currently, Professor Tonellato has joint appointment with Harvard Medical School as director of the Laboratory for Personalized Medicine (LPM) in the Department of Biomedical Informatics (lpm.hms.harvard.edu) and the Zilber School of Public Health, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee where he directs the Laboratory for Public Health Informatics and Genomics (LPHIG) and Professor of Computer Science in the College of Engineering and Applied Science and of Health Informatics in the College of Health Sciences. Dr. Tonellato and his labs develop strategies, methods, bioinformatic tools, and analyses to study and test the accuracy and clinical efficacy of genetic discoveries and accelerate their translation to practical clinical use. LPM and LPHIG design and execute insilico experiments to explore and solve barriers to translation from discovery to clinical use to public health.

Dr. Jon Ver Halen is Program Director for Microvascular Surgery Fellowship in Texas. Dr. Halen holds appointments as a Research Member of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, and is an Adjunct Clinical Faculty at St. Jude Childrens' Research Hospital. His clinical expertise is in oncologic reconstruction, and microsurgery. He is originally from southern California, where he attended the University of California at Los Angeles for his undergraduate career. He attended the Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology program in Health Science and Technology for his medical degree; the University of Washington in Seattle for his plastic surgery training; and the MD Anderson Cancer Center for specialization in microvascular surgery. He is an Active Member of Plastic Surgery Research Council, American Council of Academic Plastic Surgeons, North American Skull-Based Society. He awarded Sigma Tau Delta from National English Honor Society and Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude from College Honors. His research interests are Plastic Surgery, Reconstructive Microsurgery, Microvascular Surgery, Post-mastectomy reconstruction.

Dr. Rui-Ping Xia received her bachelor's and master's degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Tianjin University (China) and her Ph.D. in Physiology from the University of Bristol (U.K.). Upon completing her doctoral study, Dr. Xia worked as a research scientist at the Institute of Neurology, University of London (U.K.). She also completed post-doctoral research fellowship in neurological rehabilitation at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. Dr. Xia has been a core faculty in physical therapy programs since 2003. Her current and previous teaching activities in physical therapy curriculum include motor control and motor learning, neuroscience, critical inquiry and evidence-based practice, and expertise practice in physical therapy. In addition to teaching, She has mentored physical therapy students, research associates and post-doctoral fellows through their research projects. She has been an active member of the Society for Neuroscience since 1997.She currently serves as an editorial board member of the Open Journal of Molecular and Integrative Physiology. Her research interests focus on motor control, sensorimotor integration, neural rehabilitation, community-based participatory research, and Parkinson's disease. She is also interested in research on scholarship of teaching and learning. Her research has generated numerouspeer-reviewed articles published in prestigious journals such as Clinical Neurophysiology, Experimental Brain Research, Journal of Physiology (London), and Physical Therapy. Her publications are widely cited by investigators worldwide. She also served as the principal investigator of several funded projects-including a few sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. She is the recipient of several Research Awards and Fellowships. Dr. Xia has been an active member of the Society for Neuroscience since 1997. She currently serves as an editorial board member of the Open Journal of Molecular and Integrative Physiology.

Dr. Tian Yang is working as an Associate Professor and Physician for Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Shanghai. Dr. Yang worked as Visiting Physician in Solid Organ Transplanation and Hepatic Surgery, Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. He finished his Doctorate in General Surgery at the Second Military Medical University of Shanghai in 2013. He has completed an Academic Program in the medical specialties in Solid Organ Trasplanation and Hepatic Surgery at the Mount Sinai Hospital of New York. Dr. Yang devoted himself to clinical work for patients with primary liver cancer, as well as clinical and basic researches on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). His Research Interests include: Hepatobiliary Surgery; Hepatocellular Carcinoma; Intrahpeatic Cholangiocarcinoma.

Dr. Guanjie Chen is working as Staff Scientist at CRGGH/NHGRI/NIH in Maryland. Dr. Chen received his M.D. from Wuhan University, China, in 1985, and M.S. in Statistics from the University of Memphis, Tennessee in 1999. During his Master's study, he was a research assistant in the Bureau of Business & Economics research at the University of Memphis. Dr. Chen then joined the Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology at Loyola University, Chicago, as a analyst and programmer, a biostatistician and a research instructor from 1999 to 2001. From 2001 to 2008, he was a research associate (2000-2002) and an assistant professor (2002-2008) in the Division of Genetic Epidemiology, Department of Community Medicine, Howard University College of Medicine. In 2008, he joined Center for Research on Genomics and Global Health (CRGGH), National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health as a senior research fellow. His research interests include Genetic epidemiology in complex disease (Obesity, Hypertension, Diabetes), genetic statistics, and statistical computation and simulation.