Jessica Kahn, MD, MPH

Kahn's research program focuses on prevention of human papillomavirus (HPV)-related diseases through Pap testing, HPV DNA testing, and HPV vaccines. Recent studies characterize clinician recommendations and adolescent uptake of HPV vaccines; epidemiology and risk factors for HPV in adolescents; immunogenicity and safety of HPV vaccines in HIV-infected young women and men; risk perceptions and behaviors after HPV vaccination; the epidemiologic impact of HPV vaccine introduction in communities, including the impact on effectiveness, herd protection, cross-protection and type replacement; and interventions to improve HPV vaccine uptake. Kahn also serves as MPI of the Center for Clinical and Translational Science and Training (CCTST). Kahn’s research program receives funding from the NIH, foundations, and the World Health Organization since 2002 with more than 190 published articles.

Frank Biro, MD

Biro’s primary research activity is as the principal investigator of the Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Programs over the past 19 years. This project exams factors that impact onset of puberty and overall health in a longitudinal cohort of young women followed since ages 6 and 7. He and his colleagues published the factors driving this change of earlier onset of pubertal maturation in girls. In the past year, additional papers discuss these factors, including exposure to several endocrine disrupting chemicals, that impact timing of pubertal onset and on general health. The most recent work explores the underlying biochemical and hormonal bases regarding the association of pubertal timing with risk of breast cancer.

Emmanuel L. Chandler, MD

Chandler is a board-certified pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist who is the medical director for the Division of Adolescent and Transition Medicine and the Hamilton County Juvenile Court Youth Center. Additionally, he is the residency rotation coordinator for adolescent medicine. His clinical and research interest is in young men's health, reproductive and sexual health, juvenile justice health, decreasing health care disparities among adolescents, and health equity. He collaborates with his adolescent medicine colleagues on research in the epidemiology of human papillomavirus in young men, improving the use and understanding of the healthcare system by juvenile justice involved youth, decreasing mental health disparities in adolescents, understanding how factors influence COVID-19 vaccination. In this past year, he is now the leader of a robust quality improvement project to decrease mental health disparities in adolescents, and collaborated with his colleagues to understand what factors influence COVID-19 vaccination in adolescents and their parents.

Lee Ann E. Conard, RPh, DO, MPH

Conard conducts clinical research to improve health outcomes for transgender and gender expansive youth. She and her colleagues host the Midwest Multisite Transgender Research Collaborative in order to increase the scope of research within this population and health disparities. Conard works closely with the Living With Change Foundation to educate the community around transgender issues.

Corinne Lehmann, MD, Med, FACP, FAAP

Lehmann is an adolescent medicine specialist who is the medical director of the Family Care Center for Pediatric and Adolescent Patients with HIV infection. She is the director of Medical Student Education in the Department of Pediatrics within the University of Cincinnati, also serving as the director of the third-year medical student clerkship in pediatrics. Her clinical research interests include adolescent vaccination, sexually transmitted infections, and the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis to prevent HIV infection. Her educational research interests include feedback, virtual reality skills training, innovative curricula, and natural language processing in evaluating clinical student performance. Lehmann was most recently a co-investigator on integrating HIV prevention into HIV care, a co-investigator on a COMSEP research award in creating a virtual reality training curriculum for medical students and co-authored a publication on integrating an oral health curriculum into a medical student pediatric clerkship.

Jessica Lin, MD

Lin's research focuses on the intersection between the treatment of anorexia nervosa/atypical anorexia nervosa and the prevention of obesity complications. Her basis for the identification of differences in medical and psychological complications is on premorbid weight status in adolescents and young adults who present to establish outpatient eating disorder care. Her goal is to explore and identify weight restoration goals that balance eating disorder recovery with obesity risk prevention. Her research program will ultimately inform treatment guidelines for multidisciplinary providers, patients and caregivers. This will improve communication, treatment alliance and barriers to recovery, which will in turn improve clinical outcomes.

Laurie Mitan, MD, FAAP

Mitan is a clinical track physician and the director of the Eating Disorder Program. She engages in clinical research with colleagues from the Department of Behavioral Medicine and Clinical Psychology. This past year publications and conference presentations focus on two main themes: increased rates of hospitalizations among patients with eating disorders secondary to COVID-19 pandemic stressors and emotion coaching as an augmentation to family-based treatment for adolescents with anorexia nervosa.

Tanya K. Mullins, MD, MS, FSAHM, FAAP

Mullins is an adolescent medicine physician and associate division director for the Division of Adolescent and Transition Medicine. Her primary research interest is prevention of sexually transmitted infections and HIV. Her current work focuses on understanding ways to improve the delivery and uptake of oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention by adolescents and young adults and optimizing care of transgender and gender-diverse youth. She co-leads research conducted in collaboration with the Cincinnati Children's Transgender Health Clinic team. Her work receives support from the NIH, the Adolescent Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions and institutional grants. She is also mentoring adolescent medicine fellows and pediatric residents in research.

Brittany L. Rosen, PhD, MEd, CHES

Rosen’s research program focuses on using implementation science methods to implement and evaluate behavior change techniques to increase healthcare providers’ use of evidence-based practices to increase positive patient health outcomes. Specifically, she focuses on increasing positive health outcomes in adolescents by focusing on HPV and COVID-19 vaccination uptake and sexually transmitted infection prevention. Over the fiscal year, she completed the University of California San Francisco Online Certificate in Implementation Science. Rosen published seven studies during the past year. Rosen receives funding from Administration for Children and Families (ACYF), Family and Youth Services Bureau to conduct a RCT of Using the Connect (UTC)—a game-based intervention to increase positive sexual health outcomes in youth. In addition, she receives funding from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center Place Outcomes Research Award to adapt virtual reality training to increase healthcare providers’ ability to address COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Rosen also submitted a NCI R01 application to conduct a RCT to evaluate the effectiveness of virtual reality training to increase HPV vaccination in adolescents.

Lea Widdice, MD

Widdice's research program focuses on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of sexually transmitted infections. She serves as the director of Clinical Translation and Validation Core of the Center of Point of Care Technologies Research for Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Her current studies focus on diagnostic performance of point of care tests for sexually transmitted infections, as well as their implementation and impactful use in ambulatory health care settings and non-traditional health care settings. She is the site principal investigator of clinical trials for STI diagnostics, vaccines, and treatments funded through the National Institutes of Health and industry.

Jason F. Woodward, MD, MS

Woodward directs the Transition Medicine program in the Division of Adolescent and Transition Medicine and his research interests focus on developing interventions to improve health outcomes for adolescents and young adults with chronic childhood conditions as they transition from pediatric to adult health care. He directs the multidisciplinary Center for Spina Bifida clinic in the Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics and is principal investigator for the clinic’s CDC funded participation in the National Spina Bifida Patient Registry. His recent collaboration with the Spina Bifida Coalition of Cincinnati on a community based participatory research study engages a diverse group of stakeholders and identify and prioritize areas for interventions to improve transition to adulthood for youth with spina bifida in the Cincinnati region. This year, in collaboration with Northwell Health, his research team completed a community-based survey and focus groups with caregivers and siblings of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) to identify strategies to promote long-term care (LTC) planning for adults with IDD and preferences for a web based LTC planning tool. He is currently a site co-PI for Down Syndrome Clinical Trials Network (DS-CTN) and The Longitudinal Investigation for Enhancing Down Syndrome Research Study (LIFE-DSR). He is co-chair of the Health Care Transition and Disease Self-Management Special Interest Group of the Academic Pediatric Association.