Professor of Pediatrics, Chief of Pediatric Endocrinology
Dr. Alemzadeh specializes in Pediatric Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism. As a clinical endocrinologist and research scientist, he has participated in designing and implementing a number of research projects examining insulin pump technology, glucose sensor technology and behavior health-related issues affecting children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1D). In addition, he has had longstanding research interests and activities in both clinical and experimental models of obesity, cardiometabolic syndrome, vitamin D deficiency, metabolic spectrum of polycystic ovary syndrome and T1D and T2D. He has authored and co-authored numerous peer-reviewed scientific clinical and experimental articles and book chapters including the Diabetes Chapter for "Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics" and Obesity Chapter for "Lifshitz Textbook of Pediatric Endocrinology".
Dr. William T. Beck
Professor and Department Head, College of PharmacyAssociate Dean for Research and Graduate Education, College of Pharmacy
Dr. Beck’s laboratory focuses on the molecular and genetic bases of tumor cell resistance to anticancer drugs, pharmacologic means to circumvent such resistance, splicing factors as novel therapeutic targets, and a translational emphasis to detect and circumvent drug resistance mechanisms in tumors. Dr. Beck has always had a translational focus with the goal of applying laboratory findings to the clinic.
Dr. Judy Bolton
Professor, College of Pharmacy
Dr. Bolton’s research interests involve the study of the oxidative metabolism of catechols and phenols to genotoxic and/or cytotoxic metabolites and the mechanisms by which phenols and catechols exert their biological effects. The major focus of her work is to explore carcinogenic metabolites formed from antiestrogens and the bioactivation of estrogens to carcinogenic quinoids. Dr. Bolton’s work also examines in vitro and in vivo evaluation of the active components for the major dietary supplements by investigating the mechanism of action of these dietary supplements; specifically, botanicals with health benefits for menopausal women.
Dr. C. Sue Carter
Co-Director, The Brain Body Center
Professor of Psychiatry, College of Medicine
Dr. Carter studies the neural and behavioral biology of sexually-dimorphic hormones, including oxytocin, vasopressin, and estrogen. Her research created the basic paradigms used for the analysis of the biological basis of monogamy, and established the prairie vole as the major model for examining the neurobiology of adult social bonds. She has also discovered that oxytocin and vasopressin can program the developing nervous system with life-long consequences for brain and behavior. She is currently investigating the neuroprotective role of oxytocin, including translation studies of the role of this neuropeptide in sexually-dimorphic disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, as well as postpartum depression. Dr. Carter edited “Attachment and Bonding: A New Synthesis” (MIT Press), and “The Integrative Neurobiology of Affiliation” (New York Academy of Sciences, MIT Press) and.4 other volumes. She has authored or coauthored over 250 research articles and chapters. She has a career long history of research funding from NSF and NIH, including an NIH Research Career Scientist Award. Prior to moving to UIC in 2001, Dr. Carter held academic positions at the University of Maryland were she was a Distinguished University Professor in Biology, and at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Professor were she was Professor of Psychology, and Ecology, Ethology and Evolution. She is past president of the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society, and in 2009 was recipient of the Wayner-NNOXe Pharmaceutical Award for Outstanding Scientific Research.
Dr. Karen Colley
Professor, College of Medicine
Associate Dean for Graduate Research and Education, College of Medicine
Dr. Karen Colley is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics and serves as the Associate Dean for Graduate Research and Education in the College of Medicine. Her research involves elucidating the signals and mechanisms of protein subcellular localization and modification. She has published extensively on protein Golgi localization and is currently working to understand the process of protein polysialylation. Polysialic acid is an anti-adhesive sugar polymer that is required for brain development, learning and memory, and promotes the growth and invasiveness of cancer cells. Dr. Colley is currently funded by the NIH to evaluate the sequence requirements for substrate recognition by the polysialyltransferases with the ultimate goal of developing approaches to block polysialylation of proteins expressed by cancer cells.
Dr. Barbara Dancy
Professor, College of Nursing
Dr. Dancy has published extensively about reducing the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic among African American adolescent girls from single-mother homes, reducing health disparities in African American women, and aspects of African American family functioning. One of her currently funded NIH projects is to examine, over a two-year period, the effectiveness of a mother-daughter HIV risk-reduction intervention in increasing the daughter’s self-reported HIV risk-reduction behavior. She is also currently the PI of a T32 training grant for reducing health disparities in the College of Nursing.
Dr. Faith Davis
Associate Dean for Research, School of Public Health
Professor, Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health
Dr. Faith Davis, Associate Dean for Research at the UIC School of Public Health, received her Ph.D. in Chronic Disease Epidemiology from Yale University in 1984. She is a Professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Davis has 25 years of experience in conducting epidemiology research, has published over 80 peer reviewed manuscripts, served on local, regional and national review and advisory committees and developed a surveillance structure to improve the quality of brain tumor statistics which is now being adopted nationally and internationally. Dr. Davis was instrumental in the development of the data core for the Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States (CBTRUS). Dr. Davis is currently Principal Investigator on a Department of Energy funded study evaluating the carcinogenic risks of environmental exposures experienced by Techa River residents in the Southern Urals of Russia and directs a gene-environmental case-control study of neurocarcinogen exposures and brain tumor as part of and NCI funded Brain Tumor Spore program at Duke University Medical Center. She also serves on the radiation advisory board of the scientific advisory committee for the Environmental Protection Agency. Dr. Davis directs two training grants and two training cores within Centers of Health Disparities at UIC. She is also President Elect of the American College of Epidemiology.
Dr. Luisa A. DiPietro
Professor, College of Dentistry
Director and Founder, Center for Wound Repair & Regeneration
Dr. DiPietro’s research goal is to understand the tissue repair process, with a particular emphasis on how inflammation and blood vessel growth influence healing outcomes. A large portion of her research program is directed at understanding the mechanisms that regulate and modify scar formation in wounds and other fibrotic conditions. She is currently the PI of one of just four NIH sponsored national Centers for Innovative Wound Healing Research.
Geri Donenberg, Ph.D.
Associate Dean of Research, School of Public Health
Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry
Director, Community Outreach Intervention Projects
Director, Healthy Youths Program
Dr. Donenberg has been involved in adolescent HIV-related research for 15 years, with continuous NIH funding since 1999. Her research focuses on the individual, peer, partner, and family mechanisms associated with risky sexual behavior and substance use among high-risk youth, and adapting and designing specially targeted interventions to prevent HIV transmission. She has been the Principal Investigator and Co-investigator on over 20 NIH-funded basic research and prevention trials for families, young men who have sex with men, injection drug users, youth with mental health problems, juvenile offenders, and African American women and their daughters. Dr. Donenberg also conducts federally-funded research in South Africa and Indonesia. In addition to her research activities, Dr. Donenberg completed a Fulbright Scholarship in South Africa to build research capacity, mentors psychology interns, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty, and has been a member of several national initiatives to mentor traditionally underrepresented minority scholars.
Dr. James H. Fischer
Associate Professor and Assistant Department Head, College of Pharmacy
Director, Office for the Protection of Research Subjects
Dr. Fischer's research focuses on clinical studies of the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs in patients with epilepsy and during pregnancy. The aim of these studies is to better understand factors influencing drug disposition and response in these populations and their relevance to drug administration in these individuals.
Dr. Marian Fitzgibbon
Professor, College of Medicine & School of Public Health
Adjunct Professor, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine
Associate Director, Center for Management of Complex Chronic Care, Jesse Brown VA Medical Center
Dr. Fitzgibbon’s work has focused predominantly on health risk reduction interventions in minority populations. She has received grants from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to conduct randomized clinical trails in obesity prevention in children and obesity treatment in adults. Through her NHLBI funding, she developed Hip Hop to Health, Jr., an obesity prevention intervention with minority preschool children. Published results from this efficacy trial indicated significant differences between treatment and control children measured by body mass index at two-years post intervention. She is now expanding on the success of the trial through an NHLBI-funded effectiveness trial that will investigate whether classroom teachers can be trained to deliver the intervention and achieve similar results. Dr. Fitzgibbon has also conducted combined interventions that address nutrition, weight loss and breast health with Latino and African-American women and is currently conducting an NCI-funded randomized trial with African-American women that will test the efficacy of adding a one-year maintenance intervention to a successful culturally competent weight loss intervention. Dr. Fitzgibbon has also served as a co-investigator and behaviorist on the Diabetes Prevention Program funded through NIDDK and the Nutrition Academic Award funded through NHLBI.
Dr. Geula Gibori
Distinguished University Professor, College of MedicineDr. Gibori's laboratory research is aimed at defining the action and interaction of cytokines and estradiol on key ovarian and decidual genes whose expressions are essential for the normal progress of pregnancy. Members of her laboratory have cloned several genes that play an essential role in the production of progesterone and estradiol. They are investigating their transcriptional regulation and have generated mice null in these genes. Deletion of one gene has revealed its importance in fetal brain development. They have recently generated mice expressing only one subtype of the prolactin receptor and have discovered that prolactin signaling through the short form of its cognate receptor (PRLRS) has a severe impact on ovarian follicular development and leads to premature ovarian failure and infertility. The cause of this pathology and the signaling mechanism of prolactin through PRLRS are under investigation. Another aspect of Dr. Gibori research activity is focused in defining the interaction and function of decidua-derived proteins in the normal development of the decidual tissue and the survival of fetuses.
Dr. Arden Handler
Professor, School of Public Health
Co-Director, Maternal and Child Health Program
Director, Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology Program
Dr. Handler's research has traditionally focused on factors associated with adverse pregnancy and perinatal outcomes, with a particular emphasis on access to, satisfaction with, and utilization of prenatal care. She has a solid background in the use of epidemiologic methods for the evaluation of public health programs and has been a leader in developing a conceptual framework for the study of the public health care delivery system. She has recently completed several evaluation research projects focused on improving the health of women and infants on the West and South Sides of Chicago, including "Closing the Gap" (study of the quality of prenatal care in four Chicago communities) and "Healthy Births for Healthy Communities" (an infant mortality reduction project with outreach and interconceptional care foci in two Chicago communities). She is currently involved in an MCHB funded study of "Centering Pregnancy" (a group model of prenatal care) and is the UIC PI for the Greater Chicago Study Center National Children's Study site, a longitudinal cohort study of the effects of environmental influences on 100,000 children nationwide; their mothers will be recruited prior to pregnancy and they will be followed from birth through early adulthood. UIC is partnering with Northwestern University (Lead PI) and the University of Chicago in this study.
Dr. Ronald C. Hershow
Associate Professor, School of Public Health
Clinical Associate Professor, College of Medicine
Dr. Hershow has engaged in epidemiologic research that mainly deals with human immunodeficiency virus in women, hepatitis C virus infection, and nosocomial infections. Specific areas of focus include investigation of viral coinfections and other cofactors that may influence HIV disease progression, the early natural history of hepatitis C virus infection, prevention of infectious disease morbidity in substance users, and the epidemiology of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms in hospitals. Since 1989 he has maintained continuous NIH and CDC funding. Recently, Dr. Hershow received funding from NIH to investigate the best ways to promote successful antiretroviral therapy use among HIV-infected injection drug users in Indonesia. He plans to develop interventions designed to advance more effective use of anti-retroviral therapy among hard-to-reach populations in resource-poor areas.
Judith U. Hibbard
Professor, College of Medicine
Judith U. Hibbard, M.D., does clinical research on medical conditions in pregnancy such as cardiac and hypertensive disease, as well as prenatal diagnosis and ultrasound. She is currently a co-PI for the NICHD Consortium on Safe Labor, a twelve-site collaboration to construct and utilize an electronic data base of over 220,000 deliveries to assess the normal and abnormal progress of labor. Additional work currently in progress using this database has focused on late preterm birth, and hypertensive diseases in pregnancy. Dr. Hibbard participated in an investigation of Soluble fms-like tyrosine-1 (sFlt-1) and Placental Growth Factor (PIGF) levels as predictors of Preeclampsia with Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, Inc., a prospective longitudinal trial of pregnant women who are at high risk of developing preeclampsia. She is also a co-investigator for NIH-NICHD National Children’s Study: Greater Chicago Study Center since the inception of this Chicago collaboration among Northwestern University, University of Chicago and University of Illinois at Chicago; enrollment will include Cook, DuPage and Will counties, with work to date being preparatory for enrollment beginning in late 2010.
Dr. Linda Kaste
Associate Professor, College of DentistryAffiliate Associate Professor, School of Public Health
Linda M. Kaste, DDS, MS, PhD attended dental school at the University of Maryland, and holds graduate degrees in Epidemiology from Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She completed a dental public health residency at Harvard University and is an American Board of Dental Public Health Diplomat. Dr. Kaste was previously a Senior Staff Fellow at the National Institute for Dental and Craniofacial Research where her research activities included participation in the publication of the dental data from the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, and has held academic appointments at Harvard University and the University of South Carolina. She has produced over 25 peer reviewed publications and 80 meeting abstracts and presentations on topics including early childhood caries, dental workforce issues and health disparities. Her current research activities include state-level dental workforce assessment; the roles of the dental workforce in access to care, delay in detection for oral cancer, and oral health for populations with limited access to dental care; and women's health related to dentistry particularly concerning the composition and education of the dental workforce. Dr. Kaste has provided dental clinical care in community health centers in Boston and in volunteer projects in the Dominican Republic and Mexico. She is on the IFLOSS (Coalition of Communities Working Together to Improve Oral Health in Illinois) Board of Directors and the NIH Advisory Committee on Research on Women's Health.
Dr. Karen Kavanaugh
Professor, College of Nursing
Dr. Kavanaugh is the Co-Director of the Center for End-of-Life Transition Research, which is funded by the National Institute for Nursing Research at NIH to advance the science of care for people facing the end-of-life transition across the life span. Dr. Kavanaugh has extensive expertise in parent response to pregnancy loss and newborn death, and has completed several NIH funded studies in this area. She is one of a handful of investigators to include minority populations in this research. Her findings include a description of gender differences to loss, including that fathers tend to have an instrumental style of grieving (cognitive-focused), where mothers tend to be intuitive grievers (emotion-focused). She is currently the principal investigator for a multi-site, NIH funded study that examines and compares parent, nurse, and physician perceptions of how parents are involved in life support decisions for their extremely premature infants.
Dr. Pauline M. Maki
Associate Professor, College of Medicine and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Dr. Maki serves as Director of the Women’s Mental Health Research Program at UIC. Her research focuses on the effects of sex hormones on cognition, mood, and brain function. Her research program comprises a series of observational studies and clinical trials focusing on neuropsychological and neuroimaging outcomes. Her brain imaging research led to novel insights into the neural targets of hormone therapy in postmenopausal women. Dr. Maki received her Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of Minnesota in 1994. She received post-graduate training at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the dementias of aging and at the National Institute on Aging in neuroimaging. In 1999, she joined the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute on Aging, where she became a co-developer and Co-Principal Investigator in the Women's Health Initiative Study of Cognitive Aging (WHISCA) and Cognition in the Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene (Co-STAR). In 2002, she joined the UIC faculty in the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, where she carries out randomized clinical trials comparing hormone therapy to alternative botanical therapies. Dr. Maki is also the Director of the Neurocognitive Working Group of the Women's Interagency HIV Study. She has numerous publications on hormones and cognitive function, has won a number of NIH awards for her research and service, serves on executive committees for several women's health advisory boards, and is a frequent international and national speaker on women's mental health.
Dr. Alicia Matthews
Associate Professor, Health Sciences SystemAlicia Matthews, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and a Principal Investigator at the Howard Brown Health Center. Dr. Matthews is a licensed clinical psychologist with nationally recognized expertise in the use of quantitative and qualitative approaches to understanding socio-cultural determinants of health disparities in underserved populations. She has conducted NIH funded research to examine a range of factors associated with health disparities among racial/ethnic minorities and members of the LGBT communities. Current funded research includes a grant from the National Institutes of Drug Abuse to evaluate a culturally targeted smoking cessation treatment program for LGBT smokers. Dr. Matthews earned a Ph.D. and M.A. in Clinical Psychology at Binghamton University and a Bachelors of Science in Psychology at Muskingum College in Ohio.
Dr. Robin Mermelstein
Professor, Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Director, Center for Health Behavior Research & Deputy Director, Institute for Health Research and Policy
Dr. Mermelstein has been active in cancer prevention and control and tobacco-related research for over 20 years, with continuous NIH funding as a Principal Investigator since1986. Her smoking cessation research has included developing and evaluating interventions for both adults and adolescents, ranging from intensive clinic-based approaches to more self-help, media based programs, and programs with telephone and internet adjuncts. Dr. Mermelstein is currently the PI on a NCI-funded program project grant, "Social and Emotional Contexts of Adolescent Smoking Patterns," which will provide an in-depth, multi-level study of the patterns and predictors of adolescent smoking and the development of dependence in a cohort of over 1200 adolescents at high risk for the development of smoking dependence. In addition to her NIH funding, Dr. Mermelstein was the Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Program Office, "Partners with Tobacco Use Research Centers: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Advancing Science and Policy Studies." As part of this program, the RWJF has collaborated with NIH in funding the Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Centers, and in helping to promote policy-related research within the funded centers. Dr. Mermelstein has chaired several national working groups addressing methodological issues in adolescent tobacco use, and has served on several national-level work groups addressing youth smoking. In 2006, Dr. Mermelstein received the Society of Behavioral Medicine's Clinical Mentor Award.
Dr. Nadine Peacock
Associate Professor, School of Public Health
Dr. Peacock has a PhD in anthropology as well as postdoctoral training in public health and reproductive endocrinology. She has broad research interests in social and cultural components of and influences on women's reproductive health and health disparities. She is currently conducting a mixed-methods investigation of unintended pregnancy among young African American women in Chicago. Other recent research activities have included qualitative studies of transactional sex and HIV risk in Kenya, stress and pregnancy in African American women in Los Angeles, and prenatal care utilization among low-income women in Chicago. Dr. Peacock teaches graduate courses in qualitative research methods and in reproductive and perinatal health at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has particular expertise in computer-assisted analysis of qualitative data, community participatory research, and the bridging of qualitative and quantitative research techniques.
Dr. Mariann Piano
Associate Professor, College of Nursing
Dr. Piano's research program is directed at understanding the mechanisms that underlie the adverse effects of long-term heavy and binge/bender alcohol consumption on the myocardium. In both men and women, long-term heavy ethanol use is a prevalent toxic cause of a dilated cardiomyopathy, also referred to as alcoholic cardiomyopathy (ACM). A major aim of Dr. Piano's research program has been to examine pathophysiologic mechanisms that are involved in the initiation and progression of ACM. Her current program of research funded by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIH), is designed to examine the cardiovascular effects of binge drinking and cigarette smoke exposure. Pathophysiologic mechanisms investigated by her laboratory include activation mitogen-activated protein kinases, mitochondrial injury and oxidative stress. Similar to other types of cardiovascular diseases, sex disparities exist in the occurrence, manifestations, and outcomes of alcohol-related diseases. In terms of alcohol-induced cardiomyopathy, some research suggests women are more vulnerable to the toxic effects of alcohol. Therefore another major aim of Dr. Piano's research has been to examine how the presence of ovarian hormones or female sex might modulate the effects of alcohol.
Dr. Alan Schwartz
Associate Professor and Director of Research, College of Medicine
Alan Schwartz, PhD is an Associate Professor and Director of Research in the Department of Medical Education. He holds a joint appointment in the Department of Pediatrics. His education includes a BA in Cognitive Science and Women's Studies, an MS in organizational behavior, and a PhD in Cognitive Psychology. Dr. Schwartz's research focuses on medical decision making by patients and physicians; he teaches decision making, leadership, and quantitative data analysis to health professions faculty. He serves on the editorial board of the journal Medical Decision Making,and has served on the executive boards of the Society for Medical Decision Making and the Society for Judgment and Decision Making.
Dr. Steven M. Swanson
Associate Professor of Pharmacognosy, College of Pharmacy
Associate Professor of Surgical Oncology, College of Medicine
Dr. Swanson has two areas of research. One is the biological testing of natural products for anticancer activity where molecular targeted approaches are used to guide the isolation and characterization of novel agents from natural sources such as plants and marine organisms. Another area of focus is the hormonal control of cancers. Recent research in the Swanson laboratory has shown that the growth hormone/insulin-like growth factor axis is critical for the progression of breast and prostate cancers. One of the current projects employs cellular and animal models to characterize the signaling pathways involved in maintaining tumor cell viability and tumor growth.
Dr. Debra A. Tonetti
Associate Professor, College of Pharmacy
Dr. Tonetti's research is focused on several aspects of the treatment and development of breast cancer; 1) the mechanism of hormone resistant breast cancer, 2) identification of prognostic markers and new drug targets for treatment, 3) the role of post-lactational involution in the development of pregnancy associated breast cancer, 4) racial disparity in breast cancer.
Dr. Jacob T. Wilensky
Professor of Ophthalmology, College of Medicine
Director, Glaucoma Service
Dr. Wilensky is a clinical investigator who has focused on the role of various diagnostic procedures in the evaluation of glaucoma patients and on the use of various treatment modalities in therapy of glaucoma patients. He was the site P.I. for three multicenter clinical trials of glaucoma treatment protocols and has participated in numerous phase III trials of investigational new drugs.
Dr. JoEllen Wilbur
Professor & Independence Foundation Chair in Nursing, Rush University
Dr. Wilbur’s work has focused on midlife women’s symptoms, cardiovascular health, and physical activity. Her research examines physical measures originally developed for men and extended to women’s activity and exercise as a natural alternative to hormone replacement therapy in managing menopausal symptoms. She has a program of research that has been funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research, NIH, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Active Living Research to examine determinants of physical activity and test interventions to increase adherence to physical activity in African American women.
