Merranda Holmes, MD

Merranda
Holmes
MD
Co-Director Internal Medicine Global Health Resident Pathway
Medicine and Public Health
Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine and Clinical Pediatrics
Division of Hospital Medicine, General Internal, Dept of Pediatrics
Master Clinical Teacher
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
merranda.d.holmes@vumc.org

Global Health Research Interests: Education and Training (Capacity Building), Medical Education, Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs), Pediatrics

Country: Kenya

Merranda Holmes, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and works as a Med-Peds Hospitalist. She graduated with the Dean's Award from Quillen College of Medicine in 2014. She completed a combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Residency at Cincinnati Children's Hospital and University of Cincinnati Medical Center in 2018. At VUMC, Dr. Holmes is a core hospitalist for the Vanderbilt Interdisciplinary Care Program, which provides consistent inpatient and outpatient healthcare for medically complex and vulnerable populations. In addition, she serves as Co-Director for the Global Health Pathway for Internal Medicine Residents. 

She teaches with the Vanderbilt Collaborative for Global Health Excellence, a multidisciplinary effort for resident global health education. Dr. Holmes spends time abroad teaching Kenyan residents on inpatient wards at Chogoria Hospital annually. She has recently been appointed as an affiliate faculty member at the Vanderbilt Institute of Global Health and as a Master Clinical Teacher for the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. She spends the remainder of her time teaching  Pediatric residents at Monroe Carell Children's Hospital on inpatient wards. She is interested in vulnerable populations, chronic childhood disease, complex transitional medicine, and adverse childhood experiences. 

Dana Walker, MBA

Dana
Walker
Senior Financial Analyst

Dana conducts complex financial analyses for the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH) faculty and staff. She focuses on pre-and post-award accounting and financial management functions including the budget impact of implemented programs and projects and provides input for financial projections. 

2022 VIRDE Scholars Complete Training at Vanderbilt

The Vanderbilt Institute for Research Development and Ethics (VIRDE) welcomed eleven medical and public health professionals from Argentina, Brazil, Haiti, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zambia to Vanderbilt for a one-month training course in October 2022. The course covers grant writing and research ethics and is facilitated by the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH).

Pilot study seeks to understand and address health care worker burnout in Mozambique

Working in collaboration with Friends in Global Health (FGH), the Vanderbilt Institute of Global Health (VIGH) will collect interview data from health care workers to understand the challenges they face, the frustrations they feel, and the support they receive while providing HIV care and delivery in public hospitals. The VIGH and FGH teams will use this data to design and pilot two psychosocial interventions aimed at improving health care workers' mental health.

Alicia Rector, BS

Alicia
Rector
BS
Associate Health Services Research Analyst
a.rector@vumc.org

Alicia earned a bachelor's degree in Computer and Information Technology from Purdue University.

Mary Adam, MD, PhD

Mary
Adam
MD, PhD
Head of Research and Director of Maternal Newborn Community Health, Kijabe Kenya
Co-Founder, The Africa Consortium for Quality Improvement Research in Frontline Healthcare (ACQUIRE)
Associate Clinical Professor of Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
mary.b.adam@gmail.com

Global Health Research Interests: Biomedical Ethics, Community Health, Global Health Systems/Delivery, Pediatrics

Country: Kenya

 

Leigh Howard, MD, MPH

Leigh
Howard
MD, MPH
Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases

Leigh Howard, MD, MPH, is an associate professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at VUMC. As a pediatric infectious diseases specialist and investigator in the Vanderbilt Vaccine Research Program (VVRP), she has extensive experience conducting clinical and observational research and vaccine clinical trials in domestic and international settings. 

Dr. Howard served as a Pediatric AIDS Corps physician in the Baylor International Pediatrics AIDS Initiative before completing a pediatric infectious diseases fellowship at Vanderbilt. During her fellowship, she obtained a master's degree in public health, devoting a portion of her time to defining health literacy and antiretroviral medication dosing errors in Mozambique. She has mentored research experience as a Fogarty International Clinical Research Fellow and an NIAID K23 Award recipient.

Her primary research focuses on respiratory viral and bacterial epidemiology, with a focus on the impact of interactions between respiratory viruses and Streptococcus pneumoniae in the pathogenesis of acute respiratory illness in children. She also studies pneumococcal antimicrobial resistance patterns, transmission of antimicrobial resistance within households, and the impact of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines in this cohort. 

Dr. Howard also serves an investigator in the NIH-funded Vanderbilt Vaccine Treatment and Evaluation Unit (VTEU) and the CDC-funded Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) network. She also co-led the Vanderbilt Initiative for the Study of Antimicrobial Resistance (VI-StAR) funded by the Vanderbilt Trans-Institutional Program, and she serves as the Vanderbilt site PI for the NIH-funded Pediatric Research Immune Network on SARS-CoV-2 (PRISM) study, a longitudinal cohort study designed to evaluate outcomes associated with COVID-19 and MIS-C in children.

Her dedication to mentoring and training junior researchers is evident in the success of her mentored undergraduate and graduate students and post-doctoral fellows who have assumed leadership positions in academia or public health. She is currently mentoring another post-doctoral fellow in ongoing antimicrobial resistance studies in Peru.

leigh.howard@vumc.org