Dr. Keri N Althoff, PhD, MPH
Dr. Keri N Althoff is a Professor of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and she has a joint appointment in the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. She is one of two Principal Investigators for the North American AIDS Cohort Collaboration on Research and Design (NA-ACCORD) of the International Epidemiologic Databases to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA) project. The NA-ACCORD is a collaboration of >20 longitudinal HIV cohorts (both clinical and interval), which rely on electronic medical record data and data collected via research study visits for analyses from most of the cohorts. Dr. Althoff's content areas of expertise are the chronic conditions (hypertension, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, end-stage renal disease, cancer, liver disease, cardiovascular disease, depression, anxiety) and multimorbidity in adults aging with HIV, as well as indicators benchmarking progress toward the goals of the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative in the United States. She has developed epidemiologic approaches to address challenges in longitudinal study designs nested within large-scale cohort collaborations. Dr. Althoff has >100 peer-reviewed publications and teaches courses onsite and through online-only platforms.
Dr. Parastu Kasaie, MS, PhD
Dr. Parastu Kasaie is an Associate Scientist in Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health (JHSPH), with a multidisciplinary background in computer science, epidemiology, and computational disease modeling. Her research primarily focuses on utilizing advanced computer simulation methods to address complex questions related to human behavior, especially related to infectious diseases like tuberculosis (TB), HIV, and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), both in the U.S. and globally. Dr. Kasaie has played an instrumental role in the development of the PEARL simulation model, collaborating closely with Dr. Keri Althoff since 2016. She leads the modeling components of this study, ensuring scientific rigor through careful data acquisition, model development, calibration, and validation.
Yao Zhao
Yao Zhao is a Ph.D. Candidate in Applied Mathematics and Statistics, M.S.E in Financial Mathematics at Johns Hopkins University, with research areas on epidemiology, precision medicine care, and medical imaging. Yao has also worked extensively on Artificial Intelligence including Large Language Models and machine learning. He has contributed to research in AI-driven healthcare as well as AI model architecture innovation, focusing on medical diagnosis/prognosis models, precision medicine care in HIV. Beyond academia, Yao is also a CFA Level 2 candidate and Erhu (traditional Chinese instrument) player.
Kendall Reid
Kendall Reid is a programmer anaylst for the PEARL team in charge of maintaing the PEARL agent based simulation model. Kendall has over 10 years programming experience and has training in mathematics, statistics, computer science, and biology. He has previously been a data scientist, startup cofounder, rare disease researcher, and is now focused on applying data driven methodology to bioinformatics and public health problems.
Lucas Gerace
Lucas Gerace, EBC Project Coordinator: I provide administrative support to the EBC, PASC II, PEARL, and IeDEA Strategic Data Working Group, as well as help manage scheduling logistics for Keri and coordinating events for the General Epi Methods track at BSPH. I also moonlight as a magician, fight choreographer, boardgame designer, community advisor for the Voyages series at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, and am active in the Baltimore theatre arts scene.
Liz Humes
Liz Humes is a senior biostatistician in the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She has been a member of the PEARL team since 2018. Her expertise is in data management and longitudinal study design and she provides statistical support for the PEARL project.