2015 Faculty Grants

Pam Factor-Litvak, PhD, Epidemiology, received $1,310,188 over five years from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for “Training Program in Environmental Life Course Epidemiology.”

Ruth Finkelstein, ScD, Columbia Aging Center, received $467,837 over three years from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for “Age Boom Academy.”

Lynn Freedman, MPH, Population and Family Health, received $2,095,080 over three years from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for “Promoting Respectful Maternity Care Through Birth Companions.”

Gina Lovasi, PhD, Epidemiology, received $2,361,009 over four years from the National Institute on Aging for “Communities Designed to Support Cardiovascular Health for Older Adults.” 

Barun Mathema, PhD, Epidemiology, received $259,723 over two years from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for “Genomic Epidemiology of TB in a High TB/HIV Endemic Area to Reveal Transmission Patterns.”

Lisa Metsch, PhD, Sociomedical Sciences, received $266,815 over one year from the National Institute on Drug Abuse for “Florida Node Alliance of the Drug Abuse Clinic Trials Network.”

Jasmine McDonald, PhD, Epidemiology, received $696,790 over five years from the National Cancer Institute for “Childhood Infection and Pubertal Timing.”

Ian McKeague, PhD, Biostatistics, received $797,000 over four years from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for “Post-Selection Inference and Trajectory Analysis.”
Eric Schrimshaw, PhD, Sociomedical Sciences, received $2,611,208 over four years from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities for “Cultural Script Interpretation and HIV Risk in a Diverse Sample of Young Urban MSM.”

Ursula Staudinger, PhD, Columbia Aging Center, received $450,000 over two years from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for “Do Mentally Stimulating Activities at Work and Beyond Optimize Cognitive Aging.”

Mary Beth Terry, PhD, Epidemiology, and Rachel Miller, MD, Environmental Health Sciences, received $4,498,306 over five years from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for “Pregnancy and Prenatal PAHs and Other Environmental Exposures and Breast Cancer.”

Pamela Valera, PhD, Sociomedical Sciences, received $563,004 over three years from the National Cancer Institute for “Cancer-Health Disparities in Incarcerated Men.”

Lawrence Yang, PhD, Epidemiology, and Ezra Susser, MD, DrPH, Epidemiology, received $3,072,538 over five years from the National Institute of Mental Health for “Characterizing Cognition Across the Lifespan in Untreated Psychosis in China.”

Elaine Abrams, MD, ICAP, received $2,992,374 over 15 months from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation for “CIFF Kenya for ACT-Accelerating Children’s HIV/AIDS Treatment Initiative.” She also received $475,000 over eight months from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation for “Accelerating Children’s HIV/AIDS Treatment (ACT) Initiative," and received $2,312,506 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for “Expand Coverage and Improve the Quality of Facility and Community-Based Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) Support for Rollout of Option B+ Services in the Littoral and Center Regions of Cameroon Under PEPFAR – Center Region (NY).”

Howard F. Andrews, PhD, Biostatistics, received $995,205 over five years from the National Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities for “Using Longitudinal Data to Characterize the Natural History of Fragile X Syndrome (FXS) to Improve Services and Outcomes-Data Coordinating Center (Component B).”

Ryan Demmer, PhD, Epidemiology, received $3,154,656 over five years from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for “The Subgingival Microbiome and Impaired Glucose Regulation.”

Wafaa El-Sadr, MD, MPH, ICAP, received $856,223 over two years from Family Health International for “HPTN076 Protocol.”

Jemima Frimpong, PhD, Health Policy and Management, received $701,668 over two years from the National Institute on Drug Abuse for “A Bundled Rapid HIV/HCV Testing Intervention to Increase Receipt of Test Results.” 

Jeff Goldsmith, PhD, Biostatistics, received $395,200 over two years from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering for “Generalized, Multilevel Functional Response Models Applied to Accelerometer Data.” He also received $400,000 over five years from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for “Statistical Methods for Biosignals with Varying Domains.”

Heather Greenlee, PhD, Epidemiology, received $2,776,192 over five years from the National Cancer Institute for “Cook for Your Life: Maintaining Dietary Change Among Breast Cancer Survivors.”

Tomas Guilarte, PhD, Environmental Health Sciences, received $2,978,963 over five years from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for “NMDA Receptor Function in Lead Neurotoxicity” in a competitive renewal.

Muhammad Parvez, PhD, Environmental Health Sciences, Joseph Graziano, PhD, Environmental Health Sciences, and Xinhua Liu, PhD, Biostatistics, received $1,844,057 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for “Arsenic Exposure, Impaired Respiratory Function, and Immunosuppression.”

Frederica Perera, PhD, DrPH, Environmental Health Sciences, received $300,000 over two years from the Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund for “Children’s Environmental Health Research and Translating Science to Prevention” in a competitive renewal. She also received $3,242,500 over 20 years from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for “The Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health.”

Miriam Rabkin, MD, ICAP, received $7,500,000 over five years from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for “Global Health Security Partnership Engagement: Expanding Efforts and Strategies to Protect and Improve Public Health Globally – USNY.” She also received $800,000 over five years from the Health Resources and Services Administration for “Quality Improvement Center.”

William Reidy, PhD, MPH, ICAP, received $345,228 over two years from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for “Mother Infant Retention Across the Option B Plus Cascade.” 

Regina Santella, PhD, Environmental Health Sciences, received $250,000 over one year from the Breast Cancer Research Foundation for “Environmental Exposures Epigenetics and Breast Cancer Risk.”

John Santelli, MD, MPH, Population and Family Health, received $509,867 over three years from the Merck Company Foundation for “Connecting Adolescents and Young Adults to Preventive Health Care Services.”

Marni Sommer, DrPH, Sociomedical Sciences, received $387,028 over two years from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism for “Structural Intervention for Adolescent Alcohol Use and HIV Risk in Tanzania.”

Bereket Alemayehu, MD, ICAP, received $2,100,004 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for “GH15-1581: Strengthening HIV/TB Laboratory Quality Management Systems and Services in the Kingdom of Swaziland under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) – NY.”

Simon Anthony, DPhil, Center for Infection and Immunity, received $1,137,637 over one year from the U.S. Agency for International Development for “PREDICT-2 Davis.”

Veronique Bortolotti, MD, ICAP, received $3,000,004 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for “GH15-1572: S. Sudan: Strengthening the Capacity to Scale up HIV Prevention, Care, and Treatment Programs in South Sudan Under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) – NY.” She also received $8,400,004 over five years from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for “Increase Access to Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Prevention, Care, and Treatment Services in the Democratic Republic of Congo under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).”

Helena Duch, PsyD, Population & Family Health, received $421,002 over one year from the Heising-Simons Foundation for “Getting Ready for School: Improving Parent Engagement with an Integrated School Readiness Program.”

Joseph Graziano, PhD, and Greg Freyer, PhD, Environmental Health Sciences, received $547,413 over five years from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for “Undergraduate Research Program to Promote Diversity in EHS.”

Andrea Howard, MD, ICAP, received $4,200,004 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for “GH15-1583: Strengthening Local Capacity to Deliver Sustainable Quality-Assured Universal Coverage of Clinical HIV/TB Services in Manzini Region, and Provide Central Level Technical Assistance to the National Tuberculosis Control Program (NTCP) in the King.”

Iuliana Ionita-Laza, PhD, Biostatistics, received $400,000 over two years from the National Institute of Mental Health for “Applications of Novel Statistical Methods to CNVs in Autism and Schizophrenia.”

Harriet Nuwagaba-Biribonwoha, MD, PhD, ICAP, received $11,000,004 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for “GH15-1580: Strengthening National Epidemiology and Research Capacity to Improve Health Outcomes in the Kingdom of Swaziland under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)-NY.”

John Rowe, MD, Health Policy & Management, received $250,000 over one year from the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for “Enhancing the Impact of the Network on an Aging Society.”

David Frost, PhD, Population and Family Health, received $294,596 over four years from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for “Identity Stress and Health in Three Cohorts of Lesbians, Gay Men, and Bisexuals.”

Le Minh Giang, MD, PhD, Sociomedical Sciences, received $254,121 over two years from the National Institute on Drug Abuse for “The Family as Recovery Capital for HIV Infected Male Injection Drug Users in Vietnam.”

Ian Lipkin, MD, Infection and Immunity, received $2,803,357 over two years from the Ministry of Agriculture of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for “Technical Cooperation in Diagnosis and Surveillance of Zoonotic Diseases.” He also received $350,000 over one year from Google for “Rapid Differential Diagnosis of Hemorrhagic Fever.” 

L.H. Lumey, MD, PhD, Epidemiology, received $506,291 over six months from the National Institute on Aging for “Prenatal Under Nutrition and Mortality Through Age 63 Project.”

Rachel Moresky, MD, Population and Family Health, received $670,000 over 29 months from the General Electric Foundation for “CPAP lll Program: Kenya and Rwanda.” She also received $290,278 over one year from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for “Human Resources for Health, Rwanda.”

Peter Muennig, MD, Health Policy and Management, received $454,721 over two years from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for “An Expanded Dataset to Study Psychosocial Influences on Health Disparities.”

Jeffrey Shaman, PhD, Environmental Health Sciences, received $2,687,144 over four years from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency for “Developing Real-Time Forecasts of Infectious Diseases.”

Sheila Smith, PhD, National Center for Children in Poverty, received $555,000 over three years from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for a “Program-Based Model for Early Care and Education Continuous Quality Improvement.”

Lindsay Stark, DrPH, Population and Family Health, received $581,954 over three years from the Department for International Development for “Creating a Space, Raising a Voice: Protecting and Empowering Girls in Humanitarian Crises.”

Shakira Suglia, PhD, Epidemiology, received $3,804,031 over five years from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for “Childhood Adversity and Cardiovascular Health among Puerto Rican Youth.”

Deliang Tang, MD, DrPH, Environmental Health Sciences, received $1,043,204 over four years from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for “A Nested Case-Control Study of Prostate Carcinogenesis” in a competitive renewal.

Alastair Ager, PhD, Population and Family Health, received $257,702 over two years from the Department for International Development for "Longer-Term Mental Health, Developmental, and Systems Impacts of CFS Interventions in Humanitarian Emergencies."

Mady Hornig, MD, and Ian Lipkin, MD, both of the Center for Infection and Immunity, received $788,507 over one year from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for "Infection, Fever, and Immune Signatures in an Autism Birth Cohort." They also received $2,061,353 over three years from the Simons Foundation for "CII Autism Program: Maternal and Child Infection and Immunity in ASD" as well as $766,163 over one year from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for “Microbial Discovery and Immunity in ME/CFS.”