Melissa H. Watt, PhD
Professor
University of Utah, Department of Population Health Sciences
Dr. Melissa Watt is an Associate Professor of Population Health Sciences at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She has expertise in qualitative methods, intervention development and global health. She is a co-investigator with the Leung Lab, supporting and leading the qualitative work for the lab’s research around using an electronic clinical decision support tool (eCDST) for improved pediatric diarrheal etiology prediction in low-resource settings. Dr. Watt is deeply committed to teaching and mentorship. She holds a teaching appointment in the University of Utah Honors College, where she directs the Honors Integrated Minor in Health.
Ben Brintz, PhD
Assistant Professor
University of Utah, Division of Epidemiology
Ben received his BA (2010) in math from Grinnell College in Iowa. He received his MSc (2014) and PhD (2018) in statistics from Oregon State University where his research extended models for estimating abundances that are imperfectly detected to the application of disease surveillance. He originally joined Dr. Leung’s lab as the data scientist postdoctoral fellow, working on clinical decision rules for pediatric infectious diarrhea. He is currently a Research Assistant Professor in the Division of Epidemiology and continues to work with Daniel on projects related to clinical prediction tools. In his spare time, Ben likes to run, climb, play chess, and watch NBA basketball with his wife.
Sharia M Ahmed, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor
Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology
Dr. Sharia M Ahmed is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. Trained as an infectious disease epidemiologist, her research focuses on exposures and risk factors that influence infectious disease susceptibility to enteric pathogens and their sequelae, with the aim of providing evidence-based guidance to clinicians and policy makers to improve clinical and population-level interventions. As an Infectious Disease Postdoctoral Fellow in Dr. Leung’s lab, she developed clinical prediction rules and mathematical models to guide clinical decision making for the treatment of infectious diarrhea, primarily in low- and middle-income countries. She is currently launching two social contact studies to collect primary data on person-to-person interactions with disease transmission potential, a key parameter in infectious disease modeling efforts.
Andrew T. Pavia, MD, FACP, FAAP, FIDSA
George and Esther Gross Presidential Professor
University of Utah, Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases
Dr. Pavia is the George and Esther Gross Presidential Professor and past Chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and adjunct Professor of Medicine at the University of Utah. He also serves as Director of Hospital Epidemiology at Primary Children’s Medical Center and Associate Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program. He received his MD from Brown University and was a resident and Chief resident in Medicine at Dartmouth. He served as an EIS officer and Preventative Medicine Resident at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) where he worked on diarrheal disease and HIV. He did Pediatric and Adult ID fellowship at the University of Utah. Dr. Pavia’s research, public health, and policy work has focused on emerging infectious diseases and pandemic.
Natalya Alekhina, PhD, ARNP-C, AOCNP
Post-Doctoral Fellow
University of Utah, Department of Biomedical Informatics
Natalya Alekhina is a practicing oncology nurse practitioner with nearly 10 years of outpatient Oncology/Hematology experience. She earned her PhD from the University of Utah College of Nursing in December 2024 and subsequently joined the Postdoctoral Fellowship Program in the University of Utah Department of Biomedical Informatics, where she is currently in her second year.
Her research is grounded in implementation science, with a focus on developing and validating predictive models and clinical decision support tools to enable early detection and prevention of treatment-related toxicities. Since early 2024, Natalya has collaborated with the Leung Lab and is actively involved in multiple projects, including external validation of a pediatric viral gastroenteritis prediction model and development of a cost-effectiveness–based predictive modeling framework.
Adama M. Keita, MD
Head of Epidemiology Department
Center for Vaccine Development (CVD) – Mali, Department of Epidemiology
Dr. Adama Mamby Keita is the Head of the Department of Epidemiology at the Center for Vaccine Development – Mali (CVD-Mali). His work has included several epidemiological surveillance studies (both qualitative and quantitative in nature), sero-survey and clinical trials (phase II to phase IV), and vaccine studies including influenza, meningitis, etc. Dr. Keita specializes in executing and monitoring epidemiological studies and clinical trials, including project and safety management, medical monitoring, and the writing and/or reviewing of all study related documents. He is involved in ethical and regulatory study documents submissions. Dr. Keita has strong foundations in regulatory requirements and is experienced at reviewing questions by Ethical Committees (EC) / Competent Authorities (CA).
His work with CVD-Mali under the leadership of Prof. Samba Sow has helped to implement and strengthen disease surveillance at national level and to introduce new vaccines into the national immunization program.
Ashraful Islam Khan, PhD
Research Scientist
International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) – Division of Infectious Disease
Dr. Ashraful Islam Khan is a scientist in the Infectious Disease Division, Mucosal Immunology & Vaccinology Unit at icddr,b, with over 20 years of experience in infectious disease, cholera surveillance and public health research in Bangladesh. Trained in medicine, health economics, and international health (PhD, Uppsala University), his work focuses on mainly cholera, enteric diseases, and vaccine impact evaluation, particularly among vulnerable and hard to reach populations. Dr. Khan has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles in international journals and has served as principal investigator and co-investigator on multiple NIH, WHO, UNICEF, and Gates Foundation funded projects. He also plays a key role in national cholera and enteric disease surveillance in collaboration with the Government of Bangladesh. Dr. Khan is also a member of the WHO Global Task Force on Cholera Control (GTFCC), contributing to global efforts in cholera surveillance and control, and has extensive experience in emergency oral cholera vaccine deployment in humanitarian settings, including work among Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals in Cox’s Bazar.