Faculty & Staff

Dr. Shweta Bansal’s laboratory focuses on the social interactions that facilitate infectious disease transmission between hosts. The goal is to understand how social behavior and population structure shape infectious disease transmission and how knowledge of such processes can improve disease surveillance and control.

Dr. Ellen Carlin’s research interests are in the epidemiology of emerging infections with a focus on zoonoses. She also works on domestic and global policy analyses, studying the adequacy and impacts of policies, statutes, and collaborations on biothreat risks. (Please note that Dr. Carlin does not take PhD students.)

Dr. Rebecca Katz’s research is focused on global health security, public health preparedness and health diplomacy. Much of her work focuses on the domestic and global implementation of the International Health Regulations and global governance of public health emergencies.

Dr. Steven Singer’s research is focused on understanding mucosal immunity and applying that understanding to improve human and animal health. His laboratory specializes in experimental studies with the protozoan parasite Giardia duodenalis.

With more than 30 years of experience in biomedical science and global health policy and programming, Dr. Felice Apter has deep knowledge in advancing complex international health efforts across governmental, non-governmental, academic, and philanthropic organizations.

Research in Dr. Peter Armbruster’s laboratory is focused on understanding processes of phenotypic evolution in natural populations and the molecular bases of adaptation.

Dr. Deus Bazira is the Director of the Center for Global Health Practice and Impact at Georgetown. He has more than 25 years of experience in global health and health systems strengthening with field work experience in more than 15 countries spanning health policy development, health sector regulation, and public health programming.

Dr. Jishnu Das is a professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy and the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Jishnu’s work focuses on health and education in low and middle-income countries, with an emphasis on social markets, or common, but complex, conflagrations of public and private education and health providers operating in a small geographical space.

Dr. Julie Fischer directs the Elizabeth R Griffin Program (ERGP) which promotes evidence-based biosafety and biosecurity practices to protect the health and safety of researchers as well as the workers on the front lines of disease detection around the world.

Dr. Jesse Goodman directs Georgetown COMPASS, which focuses on science based policy and research to address unmet public health needs with an emphasis on product development and access and antimicrobial resistance and stewardship.

Dr. Charles Holmes leads a multi-disciplinary policy focused research group testing large-scale strategies to improve information for public health decision-making and the development of more effective and efficient models of healthcare delivery in low resource settings, and practices medicine on the infectious disease service.

Dr. Matthew Kavanagh is the Director of the Global Health Policy and Governance Initiative at the O’Neill Institute, and a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center. A political scientist by training, with extensive policy experience, he works at the intersection of global health, law, and political economy. Dr. Kavanagh’s research and policy work focus on the drivers of access to healthcare and medicines in low- and middle-income countries and the impact of human rights and constitutional protections on health outcomes.

Dr. John Kraemer’s work focuses on the intersection of empirical evidence and public health policy. Substantively, he mainly studies women and children’s health in rural populations in sub-Saharan Africa and road safety for vulnerable road users.

Dr. Sivan Leviyang’s laboratory centers on modeling viral infection and immune response. The viral work mostly involves modeling early HIV infection with the goal of improving the understanding of the early CTL and antibody response and their effect on intrahost HIV evolution and pathogenesis.

Dr. Christopher Loffredo’s research focuses on environmental and genetic causes of cancer and birth defects, and especially on the roles that genetics play in mediating the risks from environmental chemical exposures.

Dr. Mark Meyer’s primary areas of methodological research are functional data analysis, wavelet and spline-based regression, categorical data analysis, longitudinal data analysis, Bayesian statistics, and environmental statistics.

Professor John Monahan is the Senior Advisor for Global Health to Georgetown University President John J DeGioia; Senior Fellow, McCourt School of Public Policy; and Senior Scholar, O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law.

Dr. Babatunji Oni is a physician with training in business administration, public health, and project management committed to the cause of expanding global health equity and improving the quality of clinical care and outcomes.

Dr. Padmanabhan’s laboratory has been studying the basic mechanisms of dengue virus RNA translation and replication and 5’-capping using membrane-bound complexes isolated from infected cells. Using proteomics approach, they are working on identification of viral and host proteins in the purified membrane-bound replication complexes that are active in the in vitro replication assay.

Dr. Alexandra Phelan is a member of the Center for Global Health Science and Security and an Assistant Professor on the tenure track in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Georgetown University. She also holds an appointment as Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. Dr. Phelan works on legal and policy issues related to infectious diseases, with a particular focus on emerging and reemerging infectious disease outbreaks and international law. She has worked as a consultant for the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and Gavi: the vaccine alliance, and has advised on matters including international law and pathogen sharing, human rights law and Zika, intellectual property law, and contract law.

Dr. Michael Plankey’s research expertise has focused on the methodological approaches to analyze complex longitudinal data related to the syndemic production of social, psychological and behavioral risk factors and HIV health outcomes among sexual minority and race/ethnicity minority men and women.

Dr. Paul Roepe’s laboratory hopes to elucidate mechanisms of resistance to cytotoxic drugs, so that better therapy can be developed, and to also design, synthesize and test new drugs based on that information.

Dr. Ronda Rolfes’ research group is interested in how microbial cells sense environmental conditions and how they use that information to change gene expression to affect cell morphology and physiology.

Dr. Erin Sorrell is interested in operational and implementation research questions related to sustainable health systems strengthening, with an emphasis on the prevention, management, and control of infectious diseases in humanitarian situations, and particularly countries and regions affected by conflict. (Please note that Dr. Sorrell is not taking PhD students for Fall 2023 admission, but is open to PhD students rotating through her lab.)

Dr. Claire Standley’s research focuses on the analysis of health systems strengthening and international capacity building for public health, with an emphasis on prevention and control of infectious diseases in both humans and animals, as well as public health emergency preparedness and response.

Dr. Michael Stoto’s research includes methodological topics in epidemiology and statistics including systematic reviews/meta-analysis and other analytical methods for comparative effectiveness research, community health assessment, evaluation methods, and performance measurement.

Research in Dr. Christian Wolf’s research group is very interdisciplinary and includes organic reaction development, green chemistry, catalysis, chirality, optical sensing, high-throughput screening methodology and drug discovery.