Summer Assistantship Faculty Sponsor List Summer 2015
Below is a list of Brown faculty who have expressed an interest in working with medical students this summer. We urge you to contact them early in your application process to discuss potential collaborations. Please note that that you are not limited to faculty on this list – you may identify other faculty mentors independently.
Faculty were asked if they would be able to provide funding for student work outside of the Summer Assistantship process. Their answers are included below.
Esther Choo, MD MPH, Department of Emergency Medicine
55 Claverick Street, 2nd Floor
(401)444-8731
Title: A Web-Based Intervention for Drug-Using Women Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence
Brief Description: This project will test the acceptability and feasibility of an integrated web-based brief intervention for partner abuse and drug use among women in counseling for substance use.
Qualifications: Due to the nature of the project, only women RAs are eligible. Empathy and maturity and comfort with a diverse patient population with complex social, medical and psychological needs are necessary.
Funding: None.
Thomas Roberts
Professor
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Brown University
Biomed Center 205
401-863-3608
Project:
Determinants of passive force production in muscle.
Skeletal muscles can actively produce force when they contract, but they also produce force passively when stretched. Remarkably, there is no agreement among muscle physiologists what structures are responsible for this passive force. Many neuromuscular disorders involve a stiffening of passive muscle. There is an opportunity for students in the lab to use mechanical measurements of isolated muscles to test hypotheses about the source of force in passive muscle.
Qualifications/Previous experience:
Students should have good quantitative skills, an interest in physiology, and a willingness to work with animals.
Funding:
I have funding to support materials and supplies for this project but I don't anticipate having funding to cover a stipend.
Megan Ranney
Dept of Emergency Medicine
55 Claverick St, 2nd Flr
401-444-2557
Project: Digital Health Innovation in the ED
Description: The student's role on the project will depend on her or his particular interests, with the possibility of being involved in research and/or clinical QA and/or patient engagement ("e-patient") coordination. Regardless, the student will be part of a larger research and development team, and as such will benefit from extensive mentorship from gradaute-level students and research assistants. I organize a summer journal club each summer for SRA students to teach basic research methodology, and will engage the student in this weekly event. I will also meet with the student in person on at least a weekly basis (more frequently at the start of the summer) to discuss their questions and progress with the project. I will provide the student with tailored readings to enhance his or her own academic development. I will review weekly reflection papers and offer the student the opportunity to complete an independent sub-project as well.
Qualifications:
- Highly organized, outstanding attention to detail and ability to multi-task, self-motivated, ethical
- Able to think on feet
- Strong interpersonal skills: ability to interact well with patients in a clinical setting and quickly develop rapport
- Willingness to work weekend/evening hours as needed
Preferences:
- Interest and /or prior experience with digital health (mobile health, social media)
- Coursework in public health and psychology
- Interest and/or prior experience with mental health and/or high-risk adolescents
- Prior experience with qualitative methodology
- Comfort discussing sensitive topics
- Familiarity with citation software (e.g., EndNote), Stata or similar statistical software, and/or NVivo
Funding: Not clear at this time whether funding will be available
Alan Gordon MD
Associate Medical Director, Butler Hospital
Chief Clinical Addiction Services, Butler Hospital
Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior
Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior of Brown University
Telephone: (401)-455-6439
Fax: (401) 455-6689
Butler Hospital dual diagnosis partial is a site of very active training that includes BMS elective rotations, psychiatric residents, family medicine residents, PhD psychology interns. Student evaluations are universally very positive. There are many opportunities for clinical or research projects.
Funding: We do not provide funding.
Wael Assad MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery, Brown University Alpert Medical School
Member, Brown Institute for Breain Science & the Norman Prince Neurosciences Institute
Functional Neurosurgeon, Rhode Island Hospital
Office: (401) 793-9134
We employ electrophysiological recordings in awake patients undergoing deep brain stimulation surgery to understand the link between neural activity and cognitive / motor function. We aim to develop better methods of brain stimulation that are responsive to particular brain states in order to more precisely modulate neural circuits.
Able to sponsor a medical student for the summer, or for a full year through the Doris Duke Foundation.
No dedicated funds at this time.
Jack A. Elias MD
Dean of Medicine and Biologic Sciences
Frank L. Day Professor of Biology and Medicine
Brown University
Warren Alpert Medical School
Box G-A1, 97 Waterman Street
Providence, RI 02912
401-863-3336
No specific project information available at this time.
Barbara S. Stonestreet, M.D.
Department of Pediatrics
Women & Infants Hospital
101 Dudley Street
Providence, RI 02905
401- 274-1122 x47429
Inter-alpha Inhibitors in Hypoxic-Ischemic Brain Injury
Neonatal hypoxia-ischemia (HI) remains a major cause of acute perinatal brain injury, leading ultimately to neurologic dysfunction manifesting as cerebral palsy, mental retardation, and epilepsy. Cerebral oxygen deprivation and/or reduced blood flow due to umbilical cord occlusion, prolonged labor, and/or intracranial hemorrhage produce an inflammatory response contributing to neuronal cell death. Unfortunately, current treatment and prevention strategies in newborns are lacking and inadequate. There are no currently available therapies to prevent/treat and/or attenuate brain damage in premature infants and the only available therapeutic intervention for full term infants is hypothermia, which is only partially protective.
Inter-alpha Inhibitor Proteins (IAIP) are naturally derived molecules that have been shown to play an important role in modulating inflammatory response by down-regulating pro-inflammatory cytokines in several experimental models of newborn and adult systemic inflammation and in models of inflammation-induced premature labor. Moreover, decreased IAIP has been shown to accurately predict the development of sepsis in premature infants and decreases in IAIP have been detected following induced ischemia in the ovine fetus brains. Thus, exogenous treatment with IAIP is likely to attenuate inflammation-induced brain injury in neonatal incidences of cerebral ischemia. Our recent data strongly demonstrate the beneficial effects of early administration of IAIP in established models of HI injury in the ovine fetus, neonatal rats and adult mice. Not only does IAIP treatment reduce neuroanatomical injury in the brain of experimental animals, but long-term improvement on learning and memory tasks was achieved. The goal of this Phase I SBIR project is to confirm and obtain proof-of-concept of the neuroprotective effects of IAIP in newborn brain injuries. We hypothesize that IAIP treatment will reduce neuronal death and attenuate the development of ischemic-reperfusion injury in the brain. The Specific Aims of the study are to examine the therapeutic effects and long-term behavioral outcome of delayed IAIP treatment in neonatal rat hypoxic-ischemic brain injury model.
The proposed studies have significant translational potential to develop IAIP as a novel agent to prevent/attenuate brain damage in infants at risk for mental retardation.
Student should have a background in Neurobiology.
We are unable to provide funding for this.
Beatrice E. Lechner, MD
Neonatologist, Department of Pediatrics
Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
401-274-1122, ext. 47438
“Extracellular matrix mechanisms of preterm premature rupture of fetal membranes”
We will be working with biglycan-decorin double knockout mice to define the mechanisms of preterm premature rupture of membranes and thus preterm birth. We use the mouse model as well as cell culture models.
The ideal student would have basic lab skills including pipetting, running gels, PCR, possibly histochemistry and biochemistry.
I will not be able to provide funding.
Beatrice E. Lechner, MD
Neonatologist, Department of Pediatrics
Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
401-274-1122, ext. 47438
“Neonatal end of life care globally”
We will take a survey based approach to eliciting culturally and economically based differences in attitudes and practices in neonatal end of life care in a number of countries including the US, Europe and Asia.
The ideal student will have an interest in palliative care and a background in survey based research and/or palliative care.
We will not be able to provide funding.
Hilary F. Sweigart/Manager
Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME)
Visiting International Medical Student Program (VIMS)
The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
91 Waterman Street, Rm 210, Box G-A2
Providence, RI 02912
Tel: 401.863.9790
Summer Research Assistantship in Emergency Medicine
Application deadline is February 2, 2015
Summer Research Assistantships in Emergency Medicine are made available annually on a competitive basis to students enrolled in Alpert Medical School or the Program in Liberal Medical Education. This is an excellent opportunity to become engaged in a research project under the supervision and mentorship of a Brown faculty member [e.g. Instructor rank or above]. Students who are awarded an assistantship will carry out their research project at a Brown-affiliated hospital between June-August.
Support for a 10-week summer research assistantship to work with a faculty is $3,500. Other employment is usually not authorized during the defined work-week tenure of the assistantship, and academic credit cannot be obtained for work performed under this form of support.
Katherine M. Sharkey, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor
Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry & Human Behavior
EP Bradley Hospital Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory
300 Duncan Drive
Providence, RI 02906
tel: 401-421-9440
fax: 401-453-3578
I have projects in two research areas that would support a student summer project.
Title: Perinatal Sleep and Mood
We have two projects related to perinatal sleep and depressive and anxiety disorders. The first is a prospective study of the effects of sleep and genetics on mood during the perinatal period. Participants are women with a history of a mood disorder (major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder) who are studied during pregnancy and in the postpartum period. Sleep is recorded for one week using wrist actigraphy at several time points during the perinatal period. Participants provide DNA samples for genotyping and saliva samples for circadian phase assessment with melatonin. The second study is a pilot clinical trial of a sleep and circadian rhythm intervention to improve sleep and mood in pregnant women with depression. The student would participate in visits with participants, recruiting participants, scoring sleep data. There are several projects that could emanate from this data set.
Previous experience in sleep research or women's health would be ideal.
Funding through the lab may be available but student should still apply for SA funding.
There is also a second research area in collaboration with Dr. Richard Millman.
Title: Pilot Study of Phenotypic and Genotypic Predictors of Treatment Success and Recovery from Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome
This study is inspired by the clinical observation of significant variability in the responses both to disease and treatment among patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). The aims of the proposal are to begin to define unique OSA phenotypes that have different symptom and treatment trajectories and to investigate whether specific biomarkers, physiologic or psychologic features, or neurocognitive performance profiles can distinguish these subgroups. During this pilot study we will recruit patients presenting for evaluation for sleep-disordered breathing prospectively and obtain medical history, blood samples, psychological measures of stress, social support, attitudes about treatment with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), and neurobehavioral performance before OSA treatment. We will follow the patients for the first 3 months of treatment, and obtain a second blood sample, battery of neurobehavioral performance, and information about treatment compliance and symptom relief at 3 months.
No funding is available for this project.
Eli Y. Adashi, MD, MS, CPE, FACOG
Obstetrics and Gynecology, WIHRI
101 Dudley St
Providence, RI 02905
Phone: 401 863 9037
Email: .
Potential projects include but are not limited to: Violence in Healthcare Settings; The Quality Improvement Universe; The Medicare Advantage Conundrum; The "Doc Fix": Act 18; Assisted Suicide
No qualifications required. Familiarity with database management is helpful.
No funding available beyond SAs
GhadaBourjeily, MD
Biomed Medicine Department
Women's Medicine Collaborative
146 West River Street
Providence, RI
Phone: 401-444-8664
Title of project: Obstructive sleep apnea in patients with end stage renal disease
Description of project: This study aims at assessing patients with end stage renal disease for the prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea and the impact of fluid shifts before and after dialysis on the pathogenesis of sleep apnea. The study will evaluate subjects before and after dialysis with home sleep studies, ambulatory blood pressure monitor, and measure various anthropometric parameters including body fluid and fat composition.
Qualifications/ prior experience: An ideal candidate would be someone with some prior clinical research experience, data entry, consenting but our team is willing to train the student if such experience is not available.
Funding: Unfortunately we cannot provide funding as this is a pilot project and is departmentally funded.
Project PI: Maureen S. Hamel PGY4
Academic Supervisor: Brenna Hughes, MD
Associate Professor Obstetrics and Gynecology
Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine
Department of OBGYN
WIH Rhode Island
101 Dudley Street
Providence, RI 02905
Phone: (Maureen Hamel): 508-479-9190
Page: (Maureen Hamel): 401-452-0004
Title: Intrapartumvancomycin in GBS-positive women: The effect on vaginal group B streptococcus colony counts
Description: Antibiotics are given to laboring women to reduce the risk of perinatal GBS infection. While it is clear that antibiotics reduce infection rates, the mechanism by which these drugs prevent neonatal GBS is not well established. One theory is antibiotics work to reduce bacterial load in the birth canal. To our knowledge, the relationship between vancomycin and vaginal GBS colony counts has never been studied. In this prospective cohort study, our objective is to determine the relationship between intrapartum IV vancomycin and vaginal GBS colony counts. We also plan to determine whether or not infants are colonized with the bacteria.
Qualifications/Previous Experience: Ideal candidate will have had some experience with patient interaction. Responsibilities may include: identifying potential patients, recruitment, specimen handling, organizing study materials, data abstraction and data entry.
We are unable to provide support for this unfunded project. All time and materials are being donated in-kind.
Daphne Koinis Mitchell, Ph.D
Associate Professor (Research), Dept of Psychiatry & Human Behavior, Brown Medical School
Associate Professor of Pediatrics (Research), Brown Medical School
Director, Community Asthma Program, Rhode Island Hospital, Providence RI
NOTE: Please direct inquiries to Sheryl Kopel,
Project NAPS-PA “Asthma and Physical Activity in Urban Children: Cultural and Contextual Factors”
(Koinis Mitchell and Jelalian, PIs) Associate professors (research), Dept of Psychiatry & Human Behavior, Brown Medical School. NAPS-PA is a longitudinal, multimethod study examining asthma, physicalactivity and obesity in inner city minority children between 7-9 years of age. Involvement will include assisting with research participant recruitment and scheduling and withadministering questionnaires to youth with asthma and their parents, study tracking setup and documentation, data entry, lab organization, and other tasks integral to research. Summer interns also will assist with asthma education activities at a local week-long summer camp for children with asthma. Opportunities to assist with preparing research presentations or manuscripts may also be available.
Qualifications: Strong organizational and time management skills, excellent attention to detail, a thorough working knowledge of all MS Office applications, comfort and experience interacting with children and parents from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Spanish fluency and access to a reliable car are advantages but are not required.
No funding is available.
Philip A. Chan, MD, MS
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Division of Infectious Diseases
Brown University
The Miriam Hospital
1125 North Main Street
Providence, RI 02906
(401) 793-4859
Title: Addressing HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases in Rhode Island
Description: Students will work at The Miriam Hospital Immunology Center STD Clinic under the supervision of Dr. Philip A. Chan. The urban centered clinic provides free testing to the community. Students will also work on outreach and research projects related to the clinic and HIV/STD prevention.
Unfortunately, no funding is available.
Jisu Li, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Medicine, Dept. Medicine,
Tel: 401-444-7387,
Title: Hepatitis B virus and liver cancer. We are studying host factors involved in HBV life cycle and liver cancer. Identificationand characterization of these factors will establish novel targets forinterruption of HBV infection and cell malignant transformation.
Requirements: familiar with molecular biology, cell biology; good athands on work.
Students will need to apply for a Summer Assistantship for funding.
David Egilman MD, MPH
President GHETS
Clinical Professor of Family Medicine
Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University
8 North Main Street
Attleboro, Massachusetts 02703
Office 508-225–5091 Ext 11
I can take three students.