Primary Mentor: Marcelo Sztein
Laura E. Carreto-Binaghi is an MD specializing in pediatric infectious diseases and obtained a PhD in Immunology at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM). Her research has been focused on the immunology of human intracellular pathogens (H. capsulatum, M. tuberculosis) and, recently, vaccine-induced immunity.
Laura joined CVD as a Postdoctoral Fellow in April 2023 and is currently developing a project on the long-term immunity induced by an oral Salmonella vaccine.
Primary Mentor: Marcela Pasetti
Amanda Caufield is a post-doctoral fellow who joined the CVD in September 2022. She has expertise in mucosal immune responses to infection and vaccination in the respiratory tract. Amanda is researching immune responses to vaccination against influenza, pertussis, diphtheria, and tetanus in pregnant and non-pregnant clinical cohorts using flow cytometry and systems serology approaches.
Primary Mentor: Karen Kotloff
Sumanth Cherukumilli joined our pediatric infectious diseases fellowship in July of 2022. Cherukumilli obtained his MD from the American University of Antigua in 2018 and completed his residency in pediatrics at the Marshfield Clinic in Marshfield, WI. While in Marshfield, Cherukumilli co-authored guidelines used by the pediatric hospital to treat COVID-19 in children. His areas of research interest include mortality reduction in sepsis in LMIC and screening for Chagas disease in pregnant Hispanic females.
Primary Mentor: Justin Ortiz
Andrew Gilmore is a pulmonary and critical fellow at the University of Maryland Medical Center. He joined CVD as a research fellow in July 2023 and is currently collaborating with Dr. Justin Ortiz on Influenza Challenge studies and evaluating the benefits of Influenza Immunization. He is a Fellow Member of the American Thoracic Society Vaccine Advisory Panel. He hopes that his work will allow for a better understanding of how influenza affects populations while also working toward improving vaccination rates, particularly among those with underlying lung disease.
Andrew attended the Pennsylvania State University, where he completed a dual BS in Immunology and Infectious Disease and Toxicology. He received his MD from the Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine while completing his MPH at East Stroudsburg University. Before coming to UMMC, he completed Internal Medicine Residency at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Primary Mentor: Marcelo Sztein
Shana Gregory received her Ph.D. in Immunology from Northwestern University in 2022, where she studied cancer immunology. She Joined the CVD as a postdoctoral fellow in April 2023 under the mentorship of Dr. Marcelo Sztein. Her current research project studies the long-term immune response in children vaccinated with the licensed live oral typhoid vaccine, Ty21a.
Primary Mentor: Kathleen Neuzil, MD, MPH, FIDSA
Laura Hobbs is an MD and General Surgery Resident at the University of Maryland Medical Center. She joined CVD as a Research Fellow in July 2023, and her research interests include typhoid intestinal perforation and shigella controlled human infection trials.
Laura attended the University of Rochester, where she completed a dual BS in Biomedical Engineering and BA in Studio Arts. She then completed an MS in Biomedical Engineering focused on medical device design and worked at Baush+Lomb in contact lens design prior to receiving her MD from Albany Medical College in 2021.
Primary Mentor: Mark Travassos
Emily Stucke is a postdoctoral fellow in the Malaria Research Program at the CVD. She studies the var gene family of Plasmodium falciparum, the malaria parasite responsible for the most malaria deaths. Var genes encode antigens that mediate cytoadhesion to host cells and play a critical role in immune evasion. She is interested in how the expression of var genes is associated with severe malaria. Identifying antigens associated with developing severe disease will determine potential vaccine targets and inform the treatment of severe disease.
Emily received her BA in Microbiology and Minor in Molecular Biology from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She worked as a research assistant at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center before beginning the Epidemiology and Human Genetics Graduate Program at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where she completed her PhD in Epidemiology.
Primary Mentor: Kathy Neuzil
Leah is a general surgery resident at the University of Maryland Medical Center who has joined the CVD as a research fellow in July 2022. Her research will focus on typhoid under the mentorship of Dr. Kathleen Neuzil. Leah is particularly interested in understanding the prevalence and pathophysiology of typhoid intestinal perforation. She hopes that her research will help facilitate the distribution of typhoid vaccines in areas with a high prevalence of typhoid.
Leah is from Maryland and graduated with a dual BS in Psychology and Neurobiology & Physiology from the University of Maryland, College Park. She received her MD from the University of Maryland Medical School.
Primary Mentor: Marcella Pasetti
Chitradevi is a post-doctoral fellow with expertise in studying immunogenicity and protective efficacy of recombinant vaccines against Shigella and other enteric pathogens. She has hands-on experience performing serological functional assays (SBA and OPKA) to measure the Shigella-specific antibodies in human samples, immunology, and microbiology assays. She has also successfully cloned, expressed, and purified various Shigella virulence proteins, which will be used to develop novel Shigella vaccines.
Primary Mentor: Dr. Pasetti
Girmay is an immunologist with good experience in immunological techniques, in vitro culture, and immune functional assays. In addition, he completed a post-graduate vaccinology course at the Pasteur Institute. He has studied mucosal immunology and infectious diseases such as TB and HIV. Currently, Girmay is researching a shigella vaccine, and his area of interest is studying the immunogenicity and antigenicity of a novel Shigella Vaccine and its protection efficacy.
Primary Mentor: Marcella Pasetti
Brianna Tate joined the CVD as a Postdoctoral Fellow in July 2022. As a T32 training fellow, she will research how breastmilk composition affects infant immunity transmitted via ingestion of maternal milk and how maternal vaccination status heightens host defenses in the pediatric gut.
Brianna graduated with her PhD in Animal Science from Cornell University, exploring the effects of lysolecithin administration on dairy calf health and immunity. Brianna received her Master of Science in Cell & Molecular Biology and her Bachelor of Arts in Biology with a minor in Chemistry from Appalachian State University.