Faculty

Richard Deyo, MD, MPH is Director of the K12 Program. He is a General Internist and Professor of Medicine, with a joint appointment in the Department of Health Services (School of Public Health). He is Director of the NIAMS Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Center , focused on musculoskeletal disorders. Component projects include a surgical randomized trial for carpal tunnel syndrome; a prospective cohort study of surgical and non-surgical treatment for discogenic back pain; an imaging study that seeks to co-register digital CT and MR images of the cervical spine; and an analysis of large survey databases to examine trends in spine surgery. This multidisciplinary center includes investigators from Medicine, Orthopaedics, Neurosurgery, Psychiatry, and Rehabilitation Medicine, as well as methodologists from Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Health Services Research. Dr. Deyo has a long record of training young physicians in the methods of clinical and health services research. He has been Principal Investigator and Co-Director of the UW's Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program since 1992. He also is a member of the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Minority Medical faculty Development Program.

Mary L. (Nora) Disis, MD is Director of the Translational Research Division. She is Associate Professor of Medicine and Associate Member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC). She is Director of the Tumor Vaccine Group. Her research focuses on identifying and evaluating immunogenic proteins specific for solid tumors, to be used in diagnosis and prevention (through immunotherapy) of human malignancies. Research efforts include developing vaccine and T cell therapy, clinical trials of immune-based therapies, immunologic biomarkers, and cancer diagnostics. Dr. Disis is the recipient of a Mid-Career Investigator Award from the NCI to create a training program in tumor immunology and translational medicine. She is a faculty member for the American Society of Clinical Oncology/American Association for Cancer Research Clinical Trials Workshop in Vail, CO. In 2003, she was the first recipient of the UW School of Medicine/Center of Women's Health Award for Outstanding Mentorship and became the Director of the Center of Translational Medicine in Women's Health at the UW Medicine Lake Union Campus.

Thomas Fleming, PhD is Co-Director of the Clinical Trials Division. He is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine. He is also a Member at the FHCRC. He is Director of both the Biostatistics/Epidemiology Core in the Center for AIDS Research at UW and the Statistical Center for the HIV/AIDS Prevention Trial Network of NIAID. His major research interests are in survival analysis, sequential analysis, cancer clinical trials, and AIDS research. He has received the Outstanding Teaching Award from the School of Public Health and the FDA Commissioner's Special Citation Award for Extraordinary Contributions to the Agency.

Patrick Heagerty, PhD is Director of the shared Biostatistical Collaboration unit. He is Professor in the Department of Biostatistics. He is also Director of the Methodology Core for the NIAMS Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Center, and a member of the core faculty for the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program. His research interests focus on regression techniques for dependent data, including marginal models and random effects models for longitudinal data; methods for categorical time series and hierarchical models for categorical spatial data; statistical computing; and applications in epidemiology and ecology.

Doug Brock, PhD is Director of Program and Scholar Evaluation. He is Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Education in the School of Medicine. He has a background in personality and social psychology. He has been involved in developing computer simulations for instruction and web-based tools for program evaluation efforts both in industry (Microsoft) and academia. Among other activities, he is involved with developing evaluation strategies for the K30 programs nationwide.

Thomas Koepsell, MD, MPH is Curriculum Director. He isProfessor and past chairman of the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Washington and is also Professor of Health Services. He has applied epidemiologic methods in health services research, particularly for evaluating community-based health promotion and disease-prevention programs. He has conducted epidemiologic research on a wide variety of non-infectious diseases, particularly injuries and conditions of the musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and nervous systems. Dr. Koepsell is the recipient of three prizes for outstanding teaching and has served as President of the Society for Epidemiologic Research. He co-directed the University of Washington Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program for 10 years and currently serves as its Co-Director Emeritus.

Jeffrey Probstfield, MD is Director of the Clinical Trials Division. He is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology, Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology, and an Affiliate Member at the FHCRC. His research interests are focused on the treatment of hyperlipidemia and of hypertension, and on the methodology of clinical trials. He has conducted several clinical studies investigating the efficacy and effectiveness of lipid-lowering agents, lipoprotein physiology, and an algorithmic approach to control of hyperglycemia. He has ongoing activities in additional multicenter cardiovascular trials of prevention and treatment, and also in two prostate cancer prevention trials. Dr. Probstfield currently co-teaches a Clinical Trials Course in the Department of Biostatistics (with Dr. Thomas Fleming). He also teaches a five-part lecture series on clinical trials for fellows in cardiology that has become the clinical trials design course in the K30. He is the Associate Director for Education and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the GCRC.

Fred Rivara, MD, MPH is Co-Director of the Outcomes, Clinical Epidemiology, and Health Services Research Division. He is the George Adkins Professor of Pediatrics, Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology, chief of the Division of General Pediatrics, and Vice-Chair of the Dept. of Pediatrics. He was the founding director of the Harborview Injury Prevention Research Center. His career has been devoted to studying methods to prevent injuries and improve medical management. Areas of interest have spanned both intentional and unintentional injury to people of all ages, trauma care and trauma system effectiveness, and trauma outcomes research. His current work examines the cost-effectiveness of trauma care, the impact of domestic violence on women and children, and the effectiveness of interventions in childhood and adolescence on later health outcomes.

Danny Shen, PhD is Co-Director of the Translational Research Division. He is Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacy, with a joint appointment in the Department of Pharmaceutics. He is a Full Member of the Clinical Research Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center , where he directs the Pharmacology Laboratory within the Pain Research Program. Dr. Shen's research interests include in vivo expression, regulation and function of cytochrome P450 enzymes as they relate to intestinal and hepatic first-pass drug metabolism, drug transport across the blood-brain and blood-spinal cord barrier and cellular compartmentation within the brain, and pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of neuroactive agents, particularly anticonvulsants and opioid analgesics.

Sean Sullivan, PhD is Director of the Outcomes, Clinical Epidemiology, and Health Services Research Division. He is Professor in the Schools of Pharmacy and Public Health/Community Medicine. He is also Director of the Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research and Policy Program in the Department of Pharmacy. His training is both in pharmacy and in health economics. Dr. Sullivan's research interests include technology assessment, medical decision making and cost-effectiveness of pharmaceuticals, particularly in the areas of respiratory disease, surgical procedures, and hepatitis B and C.

Elaine Thompson, PhD is Director of Research Project Review. She is Professor in the Psychosocial and Community Health Department within the School of Nursing. Her doctorate is in sociology. She is Principal Investigator for the Reconnecting Youth Prevention Research Program and for a NIDA Research Training program in substance abuse. Her research interests are in intervention and evaluation research, advanced multivariate analytic techniques, measurement and instrument development, and testing intervention theory. Dr. Thompson will work with the Division Heads of the K12 to identify appropriate reviewers for Scholars' project proposals on a wide range of topics.

Bevan Yueh, MD, MPH is Director of the Recruitment and Selection Subcommittee. Dr. Yueh is Associate Professor of Otolaryngology/Head & Neck Surgery, with an Adjunct position in Health Services. He is part of the core faculty at the HSR&D Center of Excellence at VA Puget Sound, and is affiliate at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He is a former Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar and focuses on the clinical epidemiology of hearing loss and cost-effectiveness of head and neck cancer procedures.

Note: The faculty listed on this page represent the core faculty for the program. However, a number of additional faculty members will have substantial interaction with Clinical Research Scholars Program, and their biosketches will be added to this website. It is important to recognize that all faculty members at the various University of Washington Health Sciences Schools are eligible to serve as mentors to the Scholars.