Our People

My primary research focuses on the intersection of global health, emergency care, HIV and implementation science. I am also the co-principal investigator and/or technical director for several projects supporting emergency care capacitation, COVID-19 response and global health security across 15 countries in collaboration with the RISE and CDC GHSA projects at JHPIEGO.I am also deeply invested in training future global health leaders and direct the international emergency medicine and public health fellowship at The Johns Hopkins University, as well as co-direct the Johns Hopkins site for the UJMT fellowship consortium. In addition, I am the associate director for academic programs at the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health and teach in several courses at both the school of medicine and public health. 

My primary area of interest is emergency care development, with a focus on health economics, system strengthening and resilience. I have consulted for the World Bank and the World Health Organization. I am also the founding chair of the International Federation of Emergency Medicine Portuguese Translation Task Force and am passionate about expanding access to high quality emergency care in Lusophone countries. Through the RISE project, I support emergency and critical care capacitation in several countries. 

Before having the privilege of joining the faculty in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A., as an assistant professor of emergency medicine, I was core faculty at the emergency medicine residency at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Kigali (CHUK) in Kigali, Rwanda, under the Human Resources for Health Program. More recent work has involved emergency systems development on behalf of sidHARTe at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health as senior advisor on emergency health systems and medical education. Over the past 12 years, I have collaborated on projects with USAID, UNAIDS, National Institutes of Health, local and international non-governmental organizations and governments in Brazil, Botswana, El Salvador, Ethiopia, the Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Mozambique, Oman, Rwanda, UAE and Uganda. 

My main research interests are the ways that, through education and training, emergency medicine practitioners can become a first-order determinant of improved patient outcomes, from district to tertiary hospital levels in resource-restricted settings. I have specific interests in the role of point-of-care ultrasonography, medical education and evidence-based emergency medical provider training. 

My primary research focuses on studying the burden of medical emergencies, critical illness and trauma in low- and middle-income countries in order to develop data-driven quality improvement and capacity building initiatives. I have collaborated internationally with clinicians and researchers in Ethiopia, India, South Africa and Israel and have participated in a number of educational projects teaching context-appropriate critical care practices to clinicians in sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, I am working with collaborators in Ethiopia to build critical care research capacity by developing, implementing and evaluating ICU registries. 

My research focus is disaster medicine and public health preparedness and, in particular, issues related to crowd disasters. At Johns Hopkins, I serve on the leadership group of the Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response (CEPAR) and was involved in its unified command during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. I am co-principal investigator on a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-sponsored project related to recognizing best practices in public health emergency response leadership training that is in its final stages and am currently working with the World Health Organization Kobe Center in Japan to investigate minimum health data sets in disasters. I have been involved in the planning and evaluation of disaster drills domestically and internationally, including most recently in Karachi, Pakistan, and Port Harcourt, Nigeria. I have served as a member of the Committee on Evidence-Based Practices for Public Health Preparedness and Response with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, which released its report, Evidence-Based Practices for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response: Assessment of and Recommendations for the Field, last year. 

My primary focus is supporting frontline nurses to complete robust and actional evidence-based practice, research and quality improvement projects. As an editor and author of the most recent Johns Hopkins Evidence-Based Practice Model and Guidelines for Nurses and Healthcare Professionals, my goal is to give nurses tools and skills to ensure they are providing care based on best evidence. In addition to this work, I continue to practice as a clinical nurse in the adult emergency department as well as adjunct clinical faculty at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. My research work has focused on involving frontline nurses in all aspects of the clinical research process, global infectious disease, and capacity building. I work with nurses in the U.S. and globally to advance not only their own practice, but the profession and science of nursing through scholarly inquiry.     

I completed medical school at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine and my emergency medicine residency training at John Hopkins University School of Medicine. During residency, I have continued to foster my interest in global health. As part of the RISE COVID-19 Response project, I provided technical assistance to clinical teams in Ghana, and I started taking courses to expand my fund of knowledge in public health. I will be starting my fellowship in international emergency medicine and public health in July 2021. As part of the fellowship, I will also be completing my Master of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Through my fellowship, I hope to gain hands-on experience in emergency care delivery in low-to-middle-income country (LMIC) settings and build skills in health systems and emergency medicine capacity building. Long term, I hope to be a leader in global emergency medicine, as well as improve emergency medicine education and care delivery across LMICs.   

My interests are in international pediatric emergency care and emergency planning and preparedness. My international experiences have spanned clinical care, pediatric emergency education, and research on infant sepsis in Rukunjiri, Uganda, clinical care and nutritional assessment in Yemen. Currently, I am working with collaborators internationally on validation of digital auscultation. As the pediatric emergency medicine director of disaster management, I lead the Johns Hopkins Children's Center emergency management committee and Johns Hopkins Biocontainment Pediatric Subcommittee. I also work regionally and nationally in the preparedness of communities for all hazard disasters. 

My interests lie in working with and researching refugee populations, as well as in disaster response and medicine. I am particularly interested in strengthening health systems and access to healthcare for vulnerable populations such as victims of gender-based violence in refugee populations. I graduated in 2019 with a Masters of Science in Global Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. I have worked on a myriad of research initiatives across different countries including curbing domestic violence in Brazil and safe surgical initiatives in Tanzania. I currently work on strengthening National Public Health Institutes in a project collaboration between the CDC and JHSPH. My future plans include pursuing a path in medicine and emergency medicine