Mentoring Teams

Mentee

Mentors

Dr. Bailey received her undergraduate degree from Duke University, her Masters of Public Health degree in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her doctorate in Public Health Sciences from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research focuses on the definition and measurement of health literacy, its extent and associations with various health outcomes, and the testing of innovative and viable ‘low literacy’ intervention strategies to help individuals promote, protect, and manage their health. Her research experience and interests extend across the contexts of disease prevention, medication safety and adherence, and chronic disease management. Dr. Bailey’s work also focuses on the broader theme of health inequalities, especially those experienced by immigrant groups and individuals with limited English proficiency.

Born and raised in New Jersey, Dr. Bowers obtained his BA from the University of Chicago and went on to complete his PhD in organic chemistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago, under the guidance of Professor David Crich.  He spent one year as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Robert M. Williams at Colorado State, working on the total synthesis of bioactive natural products, before moving to Harvard Medical School to work with Christopher T. Walsh as an NIH sponsored postdoctoral fellow.  There his research focused on the genetic manipulation of biosynthetic pathways.  At UNC, Dr. Bowers’ research focuses on drug discovery and design.  His approach integrates medicinal chemistry and bioengineering to build and characterize new compounds.  This approach allows targeting of many previously inaccessible structures and pathways.  He is currently working to refine and validate a set of anticancer compounds that mediate their effect via two distinct, yet highly promising targets: the 26S proteasome and the oncogenic transcription factor, forkhead box M1 (FOXM1).

Dr. Carpenter is a Certified Respiratory Therapist and health outcomes researcher. She received her PhD in Health Behavior and Health Education at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, where she currently holds an appointment as an Adjunct Assistant Professor. Dr. Carpenter’s research focuses on the intersection of patient-provider communication, patient-reported outcomes, and chronic disease self-management. Her interest in patient-provider communication is broad and ranges from understanding how patients process conflicting medication information to child-caregiver-provider interactions during pediatric office visits.  Dr. Carpenter also is an interventionist dedicated to improving the quality of life of individuals living with chronic disease. As the first faculty member from the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy to join the satellite pharmacy campus in Asheville, she plans to evaluate the effect of mobile health and telemedicine interventions on the health of underserved rural populations in the state of North Carolina.

After graduating from Michigan State University with a degree in physical sciences, Dr. Dumond earned her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Michigan in 2004. She completed a Pharmacy Practice Residency at Borgess Health in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She left her home state in 2005 to pursue fellowship training in HIV pharmacology at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy under the mentorship of Dr. Angela Kashuba. After her fellowship, she joined the inaugural faculty of the Gatton College of Pharmacy at East Tennessee State University. In 2009, she returned to the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy in a research track position to refocus her career on pharmacometrics. She was awarded a K23 Mentored Career Development Award in 2011 to pursue training in this area, and earned a Masters of Science in Pharmacometrics from the State University of New York at Buffalo under the mentorship of Dr. Alan Forrest in 2012. She was appointed to her current position in August 2013. Her research focuses on the intersection of aging, inflammation, and HIV infection on antiretroviral efficacy and toxicity in older patients. She uses modeling and simulation of clinical PK/PD data to quantify the behavior of antiretrovirals and predict the effects of patient-specific factors and variability. She also has an interest in antiretroviral PK/PD in prevention and cure applications, and has worked with investigators in the medical school to design and implement PK studies in animals and humans. She became a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist in 2006, and an HIV Pharmacist as designated by the American Academy of HIV Medicine in 2008.

Stacie B. Dusetzina, PhD is a pharmacoepidemiologist and health services researcher by training and has expertise in the design and conduct of secondary database analyses. She has worked extensively with large claims data sources, public use data files and registry-linked claims databases. Her work to date has focused on estimating changes in the utilization and costs of medication in large secondary data sources and on assessing the quality of medication prescribing and use in U.S. based samples. This includes evaluations of adherence and utilization of medications typically dispensed in outpatient pharmacies (oral drug therapies) and those delivered in inpatient or outpatient settings (injectable therapies, devices). Her primary research focus is on assessing the role of health system policies, drug safety warnings and costs on prescription drug utilization and the subsequent health outcomes for patients; particularly among individuals with cancer or mental illness. Dr. Dusetzina also has an interest in informatics; particularly related to using and linking large data sources for health related research, including comparative effectiveness research. Dr. Dusetzina received her PhD from the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy at the Eshelman School of Pharmacy in 2010 and her post-doctoral training at the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School. Prior to joining the faculty in DPOP she was an assistant professor in the Division of General Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology in the UNC School of Medicine.

Dr. Fang’s overall research is centered in the areas of evaluating treatment utilization and outcomes in populations and pharmacoepidemiology, especially in cardiovascular disease (AMI, diabetes and hypertension). His research primarily focuses on estimating real-world comparative treatment effectiveness and safety, identifying optimal treatment strategies, assessing treatment variation in large populations and quality of care related to the treatment variation, and assessing treatment disparities particularly in the elderly and minorities, and developing innovative analytical methods using observational data from large healthcare utilization databases. His research was funded by the AHA, NIH, AHRQ and PCORI.

Danny was born and raised in Miami, FL. He received his pharmacy degree from the University of Florida in 2008. He then obtained his PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Florida in 2012 working under the direction of Hartmut Derendorf, PhD. Danny joined the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy in 2014 after completing a postdoctoral clinical pharmacology fellowship at UNC and Duke Clinical Research Institute where he worked under the mentorship of Kim Brouwer, PharmD, PhD; Daniel Benjamin Jr., MD, PhD; and Michael Cohen-Wolkowiez, MD, PhD.

Danny’s research interests include the application of modeling and simulation techniques to characterize the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs, guide dosage selection, and improve drug safety in the pediatric population.

Originally from Wisconsin, Nate attended Case Western Reserve University for his undergraduate education where he received a BS in Biology and a BA in Chemistry and Philosophy. He then attended Harvard University where he completed his PhD, working under Dr. Randy King in the Department of Cell Biology. At Harvard, Nate studied the functioning of the anaphase promoting complex, a critical cell regulator.  For his postdoctoral training, he worked in the lab of Dr. Jerry Crabtree at Stanford where he pioneered a new technology that allows one to examine how gene expression is controlled in mammalian cells by chromatin modifying enzymes.

Chemical Biology has always been at the heart of Dr. Hathaway’s research interests. At the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, he will utilize new chemical tools and approaches to study the way that genes are regulated. The Hathaway lab will examine the molecular requirements for creating an “epigenetic state”, a stable regulatory mechanism capable of transmitting information through cellular generations. Nate will also employ his expertise to drive the discovery of new small molecules that inhibit epigenetic pathways both for research purposes and as potential future therapeutics.

Due to their expansive utility, stem cell-based therapies hold the potential to redefine therapeutic approaches and provide cures for many terminal diseases. In the Hingtgen laboratory, we seek to harness the potential of stem cells to develop new and better methods for treating terminal cancers, including brain cancer. We use an integrative approach that begins with creating specially designed targeted therapeutic proteins.  We then “arm” different stem cell types with the anti-cancer molecules, and investigate the ability of stem cell-based therapies to improve both drug delivery and cancer cell killing using various small animal models of human brain cancer. Central to our research is the extensive integration of non-invasive imaging.  We use multiple imaging modalities to provide real-time dynamic feedback on stem cell and tumor cell volumes and distribution, pharmacokinetics of drug delivery, and the overall effectiveness of our therapeutic approaches.  By bringing together the tools and techniques of molecular biology, viral vectors, targeted therapeutics, stem cell biology, and molecular imaging with highly translatable animal models, we hope to ultimately bring successful cell-based treatments for brain tumors into the clinics.

Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics

Sam was born in Hong Kong and spent his childhood in both Hong Kong and Vancouver, Canada. After completing high school at Phillips Academy, Andover, he attended Cornell University and received his B.S. in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering in 2003. He then undertook doctoral studies at Johns Hopkins University, receiving his Ph.D. in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering in 2007. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow and a Research Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins before joining the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy as an Assistant Professor in fall 2010. Sam’s previous research focused on nanoparticle-based delivery of bioactive molecules to mucosal tissues. He helped pioneer the development of mucus-penetrating particle (MPP) technology, a breakthrough that formed the basis of Kala Pharmaceuticals, a Waltham, MA startup launched in 2009, with who he remains an adviser.  A major current research interest in his group is elucidating a novel mechanism of mucosal immunity in which the immune system work together with mucus secretions to block infections, and utilizing this mechanism to improve protection against existing and emerging respiratory, orally and sexually transmitted infections.  Another area of active investigation is characterization of nanoparticle-immune interactions, and engineering nanoparticles that can effectively evade immune recognition and biological barriers for improved lymphatic and systemic drug delivery.

Dr. McLaughlin received her undergraduate degree in Biological Engineering from North Carolina State University, her Masters of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Memphis, and her doctorate in Educational Research and Policy Analysis from North Carolina State University. She spent one year as a postdoctoral fellow with the Office of Strategic Planning and Assessment (OSPA) at the University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy and currently serves the school as an Assistant Professor of Educational Innovation and Research and the Associate Director of the OSPA. Currently, Dr. McLaughlin is actively involved in research that examines the relationship between various experiences, non-cognitive factors, cognitive indicators, and outcomes over the course of a curriculum. Her research experience and interests extend across the context of admissions, classroom engagement, experiential learning, and extracurricular activities.

I joined the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy in October 2011. My research interests are in the areas of HIV/AIDS, health outcomes, and health disparities in minority, underserved, and international populations. I am embarking on projects that focus on medication-use patterns, barriers to treatment, and comorbid conditions in patients with HIV/AIDS. For example, I recently received funding for a proposal that seeks to assess how a patient’s race and ethnicity influences barriers to receiving hepatitis C therapy among HIV patients who are infected with the hepatitis C virus. The results of this pilot study will serve as preliminary data for future studies that will assess how barriers to therapy change for co-infected minority patients as newer medications for hepatitis C infection become available. The intent of my research is to develop interventions that improve access to therapy for these patients. I received my Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD), Master of Science (MS), and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from the University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy. I also completed specialty residency training and am a board certified pharmacotherapy specialist and a registered pharmacist.

Nicole R. Pinelli, PharmD, is a clinical assistant professor in the Division of Practice Advancement and Clinical Education at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. She also has a shared appointment as a pharmacy clinical specialist in outcomes research in the Department of Pharmacy at UNC Hospitals and Clinics. Pinelli received her doctor of pharmacy from Wayne State University in 2007. She completed a two-year research-intensive diabetes postdoctoral fellowship at Wayne State University and a master of science in clinical research design and statistical analysis from the University of Michigan. After completing her postgraduate training, she served for three years as a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice at Wayne State University and as a pharmacy clinical specialist in ambulatory care at Henry Ford Hospital. Pinelli’s current research program is focused within the area of pharmacy-practice-model innovation. She has expertise in the design, development, and implementation of interdisciplinary care transition practice models that integrate the experiential education of residents and students with research opportunities to encourage critical thinking. She also has research interests in the clinical therapeutic effects of incretin-based therapies in various populations and settings. She has published several articles and abstracts related to pharmacy practice model innovation and the prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes. Certified as a diabetes educator, Pinelli belongs to many professional organizations, including the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, where she currently serves as president-elect of the Endocrine and Metabolism Practice and Research Network of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy.