Fellow in Clinical Pharmacogenomics, University of Pittsburgh Kayla Rowe received her Pharm D. from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Pharmacy in 2022. She currently works as a clinical pharmacogenomics fellow at the University of Pittsburgh where she is part of an interdisciplinary team for UPMC's primary care precision medicine clinic. Within this clinic, patients are counseled on the risks, benefits and limitations of pharmacogenomic testing and their genetic results are interpreted and explained.
Professor of Immunology, Queensland University of Technology Traditional vaccine approaches have been unsuccessful in preventing chlamydial infections. Prof. Beagley and colleagues are researching novel DNA vaccination and bioinformatics approaches to identify protective chlamydial antigens that are conserved across several chlamydial species. Using combinations of these antigens we can reduce both the duration and magnitude of infection and reduce infection-associated inflammation that is the cause of infertility in animal models of chlamydial infection. We are now working with collaborators in the US and a major vaccine company to develop a human Chlamydia vaccine. We have also used these antigens to develop the world’s first Chlamydia vaccine for the koala. This vaccine has been shown to protect young koalas in a wild population with a high incidence of chlamydial infection and disease and has increased reproductive success in this population. The vaccine is currently undergoing registration. Neisseria gonorrhea is another human STI and is a disease of increasing concern due to antibiotic resistance. We have established a new mouse model of Neisseria infection in male mice and have shown that infection adversely affects sperm production similar to what we find with Chlamydia infection. We are currently using this model to further investigate the effects of Neisseria infection on male fertility and for development of vaccines to prevent infections. Prof. Beagley is a past-president of the International Society for Mucosal Immunology and is a member of the Australian and New Zealand Society for Immunology, the American Association of Immunologists, the Society for Reproductive Biology, the American Society for Reproductive Immunology, the International Society for Vaccines and the International Society for Immunology of Reproduction.
Associate Professor and Executive Director, Entry-to-Practice Education, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of British Columbia Dr. Kerry Wilbur is a pharmacist whose research program includes the study of interprofessional education and the practice of collaborative care among different professionals with patients. She is an Associate Professor and Executive Director of Entry-to-Practice Education at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of British Columbia.
Associate Professor of English, Texas State University Katie Kapurch is Associate Professor of English at Texas State University. Katie specializes in icons and the iconic, especially popular phenomena at the intersection of literature, music, and film. Forthcoming books include "The Mermaid as Pop Icon: From Siren Song to Disney and Barbie' and 'The Disneyfication of Pop: Disney Plus Beatles, Beyoncé, and Taylor Swift' (both with Bloomsbury). Other books include 'How Black Musicians Sang the Beatles into Being-- and Sang Back to Them Ever Since (November 2023), which is supported by a major award from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the monograph 'Victorian Melodrama in the Twenty-First Century: Jane Eyre, Twilight, and the Mode of Excess in Popular Girl Culture' (2016). Katie has also co-edited two collections, 'New Critical Perspectives on the Beatles' (2016) and 'The Beatles and Humour' (2023). In addition to these books, Katie has authored many articles and chapters about visual and narrative representations of gender, sexuality, and race in popular culture, including Disney, the Beatles, Twilight, and other major phenomena. Katie serves as co-editor of the peer-reviewed journal AMP: American Music Perspectives.
Senior Lecturer of International Relations, Texas A&M University Kateryna Shynkaruk, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer in Eastern European Politics, European Security and International Relations Theory at the Bush School of Government and Public Service in Washington, D.C. She is a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Shynkaruk has over 15 years of experience working in academia, with think tanks and diplomatic missions. Her research interests cover Eastern Europe, Ukraine’s foreign and security policy and the role of ideas and culture in International Relations. She earned a Ph.D. in Global Political Affairs in 2011 from National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv. Her doctoral thesis focused on emergence of Ukraine’s foreign policy identity as an international actor. Shynkaruk has over 30 publications on the topics of post-communist transformations in Ukraine and across Eastern Europe. She was a team leader in several cross-country research projects on democratic reforms in East European countries, such as the European Integration Index for Eastern Partnership Countries. From 2013 to 2020, she worked as a political analyst at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine and received several high-level awards from the Department of State, including the Superior Honor Award in 2018 and the Meritorious Honor Award in 2017. Between 2007 and 2013, she covered Ukraine’s foreign and security policy as a senior research fellow at the Kyiv-based Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting.
Associate Professor of Social and Political Science, UCL Karen is an interdisciplinary social scientist who tackles real-world issues through collaborative research. She draws on mixed method approaches and has expertise in systematic reviews. At present, Karen’s ESRC funded research focuses on domestic abuse and interventions that promote, enhance, or create informal support for victim-survivors. This refers to support provided by friends, family, neighbours, or colleagues of individuals experiencing abuse. Karen’s academic background is in Political Science, and she teaches politics to undergraduate social scientists. Karen supervises students at all levels and works with students and colleagues to develop evidence-informed initiatives that advance inclusive practices in higher education. Relevant recent publications include: Schucan Bird, K., Stokes, N., Tomlinson, M., Rivas, C et al., (2023) Training informal supporters to improve responses to Victim-Survivors of Domestic Violence and Abuse: A Systematic Review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse Schucan Bird, K., Stokes, N., Tomlinson, M., & Rivas, C. (2023). Ethically Driven and Methodologically Tailored: Setting the Agenda for Systematic Reviews in Domestic Violence and Abuse. Journal of Family Violence. Schucan Bird, K. L., Stokes, N., Rivas, C., & Tomlinson, M. (2022). Protocol: Informal social support interventions for improving outcomes for victim‐survivors of domestic violence and abuse: An evidence and gap map. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 18 (3), Schucan Bird, K., & Pitman, L. (2019). How diverse is your reading list? Exploring issues of representation and decolonisation in the UK. Higher Education.
