Staff
Andrea Douthard has recently joined the PDP team as the Recruiting and Admissions Specialist. In this role, she manages prospects throughout the entire enrollment process and leads the planning and execution of all recruitment activities and events. Additionally, she coordinates recruitment materials with Marketing and collaborates with the Director of Corporate Partnerships to develop leads and recruitment events.
Prior to joining the Graham School, Andrea worked in sales and higher education. For 6 years, she was an Admissions Recruiter at DeVry University where she enjoyed helping students from various backgrounds identify new career opportunities and assisting them with program selection and enrollment. She also has extensive experience in account management, sales and marketing, and client services.
Andrea holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Keller Graduate School of Management and a Bachelor’s in Business Administration with a focus in Sales in Marketing from the University of Mississippi.
In her down time, Andrea enjoys volunteering for different nonprofit organizations, mentoring young girls with challenging life choices, and being with her family and friends.
Instructors
Clinical Trials Management:
Melissa Byrn, MBE, Director of Research Operations and Conduct for the Office of Clinical Research at the University of Chicago Medicine. Melissa has ten years of experience in research operations and oversight, including financial and administrative management, regulatory compliance, research workforce development, and compliance program enhancement. Melissa brings both industry and an academic research perspective to her work and her areas of expertise include FDA law, ICH Good Clinical Practice, medical device research, biomedical ethics, quality assurance auditing, and research process improvement analysis. Melissa obtained a master’s degree in Medical Ethics and Health Policy from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Melvin Munsaka PhD, MSc, MEd, is currently a Director in the Safety Statistics and Risk-Based Analytics Group within the Data Science Institute at Takeda Development Center Americas, Inc. in Deerfield, Illinois. He received his PhD in Mathematical Statistics from Queen’s University in Canada and also holds an MSc in Mathematical Statistics and MEd in Mathematics, both from McGill University in Canada. He has been in the pharmaceutical industry for more than 20 years and has participated in several global drug submissions. He is also involved in some initiatives of the Drug Information Association Bayesian Scientific Work Group and the American Statistical Association of the Biopharmaceutical Section. He has been the Publicity Chair of Midwest Biopharmaceutical Statistical Workshop since 2005. He has also held positions of President, Program Chair, and Chapter Representative of the Northeast Illinois Chapter of the American Statistical Association.
Sheri Smith, MS, has over 25 years of clinical trial experience in the pharmaceutical and medical device industry. Sheri currently serves as president of Courante Oncology, a specialty consulting company that provides customized clinical research consulting and services to companies that are developing new products for the treatment of patients with cancer. Her previous positions include clinical operations, project management, clinical research associate and clinical statistician so she brings a broad range of experience in the conduct/execution of clinical trials, as well as the associated data collection and analysis. She has been intricately involved with numerous IND/NDA/PMA submissions and has been a clinical reviewer on product due diligence teams for multiple companies. Sheri has an undergraduate degree in biology and a Master’s degree in statistics.
Lauren Wall, MS, Director of Clinical Research Operations in Department of Medicine, Section of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Chicago Biological Sciences. Lauren has over 10 years of experience in Hematology/Oncology clinical research operations spanning industry and academic healthcare. Lauren currently oversees the clinical research operations in the section of Hematology Oncology at the University of Chicago. Her primary responsibilities include planning, organizing, directing, and overseeing daily clinical research operations for over 300+ clinical trials. Prior to taking her role in the academic setting, Lauren worked at an Oncology CRO where she gained experience in clinical trial monitoring and project management. In addition, Lauren traveled to several NCI designated cancer centers to conduct site visit audits. Lauren holds an MSc degree in Clinical Research Administration from the George Washington University. Lauren has a strong passion for teaching and mentoring others about the exciting career opportunities in the field of clinical research.
EDITING:
Patrick Casey, JD, MA, has taught college composition and grammar for 17 years in addition to having worked as an editor for the Chicago-Kent Law Review and Pearson Publishing. Patrick is also a practicing attorney who advises small business owners and individuals on licensing, employment, compliance issues and general legal needs.
MEDICAL WRITING AND EDITING:
Kim Garber, MALS, is Senior Information Specialist at the American Hospital Association (AHA) Resource Center in Chicago. She has been a professional librarian working in health care-related libraries for her entire career of over 30 years. After receiving her bachelor’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, she became the sole librarian for the hospital consulting firm of Herman Smith Associates and went on to similar positions in the specialty health care libraries at Coopers & Lybrand and later PricewaterhouseCoopers in Chicago. During her early career, she earned a master’s degree in library science from Rosary College, now Dominican University, in River Forest, Ill. Her primary responsibility in all of these positions has been conducting information searches. She has also edited a book for the American Hospital Association and is currently the project manager, interviewer and editor for a multi-year oral history project at AHA.
Barbara Gastel, MD, MPH, is professor of integrative biosciences and of medical humanities at Texas A&M University, where she coordinates the graduate program in science communication. She also plays lead roles in the international project AuthorAID, and for a decade she edited the Council of Science Editors periodical, Science Editor. She is first author of the current edition of How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper and has published three other books. Her honors include a teaching award from the American Medical Writers Association and designation as an Honored Editor in the Life Sciences. Her MD and MPH are from Johns Hopkins.
Genevieve Long, PhD, is a freelance medical writer and editor specializing in patient education, plain language, health literacy and marketing communications. She began her medical writing career as a manuscript editor at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Ore. Dr. Long has been active in the American Medical Writers Association since 2002 and is past president of AMWA-Northwest. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Oregon.
Agenda
Karine’s Note
2016-2017 Career Services Update
New PDP Team Members
New PDP Programs
Student Profile: Katrina Malone
Faculty Interview: Meet Mary Elizabeth
Meet the Graham Staff: 10 Facts about Bonni Van Eck
