Meet The Team

Laura Beskow, PhD

Paul T. Campbell, MD, FACC, FSCAI

Interventional Cardiologist

Dr. Paul T. Campbell, Kannapolis investigator for the Project Baseline study, is an interventional cardiologist with the Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute. He has more than 25 years of experience in the field at the Carolinas Healthcare System NorthEast. His main research interests are robotics in cardiovascular interventions, radiation safety in the cath lab and translational research involving the transition from health to cardiac disease. Dr. Campbell trained in medicine and cardiology at Duke University School of Medicine and is a member of the Duke University Cooperative Cardiovascular Society. He is a fellow of The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions and the American College of Cardiology.

Harvey Cohen, MD

Director, Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, Duke Department of Medicine Walter Kempner Professor of Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine Professor, Duke School of Nursing Division Chief, Division of Geriatrics, Duke University School of Medicine Investigator, MURDOCK Physical Performance Study Dr. Cohen is considered one of the world’s leading experts in geriatric oncology and holds the positions of the Walter Kempner Professor of Medicine, director of the Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, and a professor in the Duke University School of Nursing. During his more than forty years on Duke’s faculty, Dr. Cohen helped establish the Division of Geriatrics and served as interim chair and chair of the Department of Medicine, founding chief of the Division of Geriatrics, and director of the Durham Veterans Affairs Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center. He directs Duke’s Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center, a National Institutes of Health-funded all-university program focused on improving the functional independence of older adults. From 2001 to 2005, he served as a member of the School of Nursing Faculty Appointments, Promotion, and Tenure (APT) Committee. In 2009, Dr. Cohen received the Paul Calabresi Award from the Society of International Oncology and Geriatrics, and in 2010 he received the B. J. Kennedy Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology for his role in establishing the discipline of geriatric oncology. Last year, the Duke Medical Alumni Association recognized him with a Distinguished Alumnus Award. Dr. Cohen served as president of both the American Geriatrics Society and the Gerontological Society of America (GSA), and he chaired the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Institute on Aging. He also is a Fellow of the GSA. He currently serves as chair of the Cancer in the Elderly Committee for the Cancer and Acute Leukemia Group B. Dr. Cohen earned a bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College in New York and a medical degree from the College of Medicine at State University of New York Downstate Medical Center. He completed an internship and residency in medicine and a hematology-oncology fellowship at Duke.

Rowena J. Dolor, MD, MHS

Associate Professor with Tenure, Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine Director, Duke Primary Care Research Consortium, Duke Clinical Research Institute Co-Investigator, MURDOCK Study Community Registry & Biorepository Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Dr. Dolor did her medical training and internal medicine residency at Duke University Medical Center. She completed the Ambulatory Care/Health Services Research fellowship at the Durham VA Medical Center (VAMC) in 1996 and obtained her Masters in Health Sciences degree in Biometry from the Duke University School of Medicine in 1998. Dr. Dolor was a staff physician in the Ambulatory Care Service at the Durham VA Medical Center and Research Associate at the Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care at the Durham VAMC from 1995 to June 2012. The focus of her research pertains to primary care clinical and outcomes research. She acts as an investigator of several federally-funded projects conducted in community-based settings on hypertension, diabetes, patient-provider communication, immunization, and osteoarthritis. Since 1997, Dr. Dolor has been the director of the Primary Care Research Consortium (PCRC), a network of primary care practices in the Duke University Health System and outlying communities. The PCRC has participated in more than 100 studies on hypertension, hyperlipidemia, asthma, otitis, obesity, diabetes, depression, anticoagulation, and vaccines. The Duke PCRC is a registered network in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) PBRN registry and a member network within the North Carolina Network Consortium, (NCNC, http://ncnc.unc.edu) and the Meta-network Learning and Research Center (Meta-LARC, https://pbrn.ahrq.gov/sites/default/files/docs/page/Meta-Larc.pdf). Dr. Dolor served as a member of the AHRQ PBRN Resource Center Steering Committee from 2006-2010 and the NAPCRG PBRN Conference steering committee in 2012. She has chaired in the NAPCRG PBRN annual conference from 2013 to 2016.Her work in the Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) involves directing collaboration between Duke researchers and PCPs on community-based PBRN projects, and serving as a co-investigator on a CTSA supplement grant entitled Partnership-driven Resources to Improve and Enhance Research (PRIMER, www.researchtoolkit.org). From 2011- 2014, she was co-chair of the CTSA PBRN Collaboration Workgroup, and a member of the Community Engagement Key Function Committee, the CTSA Strategic Goal 4 Combined Networking Group committee, and the CTSA Comparative Effectiveness Research Key Function Committee (CER KFC). She serves on the University of Cincinnati Clinical and Translational Science and Training (CCTST) External Advisory Board. As part of the CER KFC, she co-authored a paper entitled “A National Strategy to Develop Pragmatic Clinical Trials Infrastructure” which lists five recommendations designed to lead toward a sustained national infrastructure for pragmatic trials — developing the network, enhancing community engagement, addressing regulatory challenges, advancing information technology, and developing research methods. In the fall of 2014, Dr. Dolor joined Vanderbilt as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine within the Division of General Internal Medicine. As a research faculty member, her role is to assist in the formation of the Meharry-Vanderbilt Clinical Research Network, a PBRN comprised of community sites in the mid-Tennessee region. In addition, she is involved in the Mid-South Clinical Data Research Network, a PCORnet awardee, responsible for building the partnership with the community practices for comparative effectiveness studies that will utilize the electronic health records/information system infrastructure of the CDRN. Since 2008, she has acted as a co-investigator of the MURDOCK Study Community Registry & Biorepository, helping to advise the research team on collaborating with community practices and organizations for recruitment, study implementation, and dissemination.

Pao-Hwa Lin, PhD
Associate Professor in Medicine

My research interest lies generally in the area of dietary patterns and chronic diseases including hypertension using controlled feeding study and lifestyle intervention designs.
Two major controlled feeding clinical trials that I was involved in include the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) Study and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension-Sodium (DASH-Sodium) Study. In addition to being an active member for the diet committee for DASH, I also function as the chair of the diet committee for the DASH-Sodium study. I am familiar with the development and operation of a controlled feeding study, which means the process of study design, development of questionnaire/forms for data collection/monitoring, development of quality assurance procedure, and data analysis.
I’ve also helped with the design and implementation of the lifestyle behavioral intervention program for the Hypertension Improvement Project (HIP), PREMIER clinical trial, Weight Loss Maintenance trial (WLM), ENCORE study, and the Cell Phone Intervention for You (CITY) trial.

Miriam C. Morey, PhD

Professor in Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine Senior Fellow in the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development Dr. Morey, principal investigator for the MURDOCK Physical Performance Study, is an expert on exercise and aging. Her research examines how physical activity, exercise training and physical fitness influence well-being, quality of life and the ability to perform physical tasks in late life. She directs a long-standing, supervised hospital-based program for older veterans called Gerofit, which is used to examine the effects of exercise training on health and well-being over time. Documentaries describing the impact of this program on the lives of participating veterans can be found at http://www.va.gov/geriatrics/gerofit/gerofit_success_stories.asp. Dr. Morey has expertise in the area of exercise physiology and aging. She has specific knowledge in age-related changes in cardiorespiratory functioning, the effects of habitual exercise (longitudinal) on performance, and exercise programming for older adults. She received her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1997.

Devon Noonan, PhD

Assistant Professor, Duke University School of Nursing Dr. Noonan is a registered nurse and registered nurse practitioner with clinical practice experience in community health, occupational health, and pediatric/adolescent health settings. She received her BSN at Boston College, her MS in Nursing at Georgetown University, her MPH and PhD at the University of Virginia and completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Michigan. Dr. Noonan’s research is focused on health promotion and cancer risk reduction in vulnerable populations. Her work has a strong focus on tobacco control and a special emphasis on alternative tobacco products, such as smokeless tobacco.

Scott M. Palmer, MD, MHS

Director, DCRI Pulmonary Research Professor of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine Vice Chair for Research, Department of Medicine Dr. Palmer, principal investigator for the MURDOCK COPD Study, leads a successful program of clinical, basic and translational research in transplantation and advanced lung diseases. He currently directs the pulmonary research program at the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) and serves as Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Medicine. Dr. Palmer has over 150 peer reviewed publications, received numerous awards, including election into the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) in 2012, chaired many sessions at national and international meetings, serves regularly on NIH study sections, and is on the editorial board of many prominent journals. He is also Associate Director of the Clinical Research Training Program at Duke and has personally mentored over 40 pre-and post-doctoral trainees, many of whom are now engaged in their own successful research careers. His scientific accomplishments include the first human studies to demonstrate the importance of innate immunity in transplant rejection and completion of a prospective multicenter study that improved CMV prevention after lung transplantation. Current basic projects in the lab are studying the role of the matrix in the activation of innate immunity in pulmonary transplant rejection, and epithelial injury and repair in the development of toxin induced bronchiolitis obliterans. Translational and human projects are studying predictors of lung transplant survival in the UNOS database, immune monitoring to predict CMV infection and acute rejection after lung transplantation, and the use of novel inhaled antibiotics in lung transplantation. The lab is also using cutting edge whole exome genetic sequencing to identify genetic predictors of transplant rejection. Dr. Palmer also leads trials coordinated through the DCRI that study the natural history and investigate new treatments for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), chronic lung transplant rejection, and posttransplant cytomegalovirus infection.

Steven Patierno, PhD

Deputy Director, Duke Cancer Institute (DCI) Director, DCI Population Sciences and Health Service Professor of Medicine and Professor of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, Duke University Medical Center Patierno’s research interests are focused on Cancer Control but include a broad spectrum of laboratory, population level, and health services research. He is internationally recognized as a leading expert in cancer causation and molecular carcinogenesis. His carcinogenesis research focuses on molecular mechanisms of DNA damage and repair, and cellular signaling responses at the nexus between cell death and survival. His translational research is focused on the genomics of cancer disparities, cancer biology, molecular pharmacology and targeted experimental therapeutics to control tumor aggressiveness. Patierno is also actively engaged in cancer health disparities and health services research, particularly in patient navigation, survivorship, community-based interventions, mHealth, implementation sciences, cancer care economics, and policy.

Julia Jarrard Scialla, MD, MHS
Associate Professor of Medicine
Division of Nephrology, Duke University School of Medicine

Dr. Scialla is an Associate Professor of Medicine in Nephrology at Duke University and a faculty member at the Duke Clinical Research Institute. Dr. Scialla trained in Internal Medicine, Nephrology, and Clinical Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research focuses on chronic kidney disease (CKD) epidemiology and prevention, with an emphasis on the role of metabolic complications and nutrition. Current studies are focused on treatment and prevention of abnormal phosphate homeostasis, acid-base physiology, diabetic and other forms of kidney disease, and outcomes in end-stage kidney disease.
Dr. Scialla’s work engages a number of study designs including prospective cohort studies, observational comparative effectiveness studies, and patient-oriented physiologic studies. She has worked closely with multiple chronic disease cohorts including the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC) Study, the African American Study of Kidney Disease and Hypertension (AASK), the Jackson Heart Study (JHS), and secondary analyses in clinical trials. Studies in electronic health records (EHR) and registries have engaged dialysis EHR data, the United States Renal Data System, and public registries, such as the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Physiologic studies include the Acid Base Complication in CKD Study, secondary analyses in the DASH Mechanism Study, and the newly launched MURDOCK Kidney Health Study.

Svati H. Shah, MD, MHS

Associate Director of Clinical Translation
Duke Molecular Physiology Institute

Dr. Shah is a physician scientist in the Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, and a faculty member in the Duke Molecular Physiology Institute (DMPI) and Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI). She is vice-chief of translational research in the Division of Cardiology, and co-director of translational research in the DMPI. She is a practicing cardiologist who sees patients and families with cardiovascular genetic disorders and does noninvasive imaging.

Her primary research interests focus on identification of genetic and metabolic biomarkers and mechanisms of cardiovascular diseases including diabetes, obesity, coronary artery disease and heart failure. Her training includes receiving an M.H.S. in epidemiology from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, a master’s degree in Medical Genomics from Duke University, and completing a research fellowship in genetic epidemiology at the Duke Center for Human Genetics. Her NIH- and AHA-funded laboratory within the DMPI is multidisciplinary with quantitative and mechanistic expertise and she collaborates with the DCRI for biomarker discovery studies in clinical trials.

Jamie L. Todd, MD

Assistant Professor of Medicine Member, Duke Clinical Research Institute Dr. Todd, co-principal investigator for the MURDOCK COPD Study, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine at Duke University with a secondary faculty appointment in the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI). Dr. Todd received her undergraduate education at Colorado State University and attended medical school at the University of Colorado. She then matriculated to Duke University where she completed internship, residency and chief residency in Internal Medicine followed by fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care medicine. Dr. Todd has developed a depth of clinical expertise in lung transplantation and advanced lung disease management. Concurrent with her clinical focus, her research emphasizes clinical and translational approaches to understand fibrotic lung disease development, in particular the development of chronic allograft dysfunction after lung transplantation. Dr. Todd’s ongoing research endeavors in lung transplantation include applying genetic approaches to understand susceptibility to lung allograft rejection, analyzing human lung fluid, tissue, and cell specimens to delineate novel pathobiologic mechanisms that contribute to graft rejection or fibrosis, and characterizing clinical phenotypes of chronic lung allograft dysfunction that strongly influence patient survival. Additionally, through her appointment at the DCRI, she has accumulated a breadth of hands-on experience in pulmonary clinical research including early phase clinical trial design, clinical events adjudication, and large-scale biomarker discovery research.

Crystal Cenell Tyson, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Medical Instructor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine

As a board-certified nephrologist and a certified clinical hypertension specialist (ASH-SCH), I take care of patients with kidney disorders and/or high blood pressure. Patients with chronic kidney disease and high blood pressure have an increased risk for developing complications of cardiovascular disease, such as heart attacks, congestive heart failure, strokes, kidney failure requiring dialysis or a kidney transplant, and a shortened lifespan. My clinical focus is to slow the progression of chronic kidney disease and reduce complications from cardiovascular disease with lifestyle modification. I particularly enjoy treating patients with severe or difficult to control high blood pressure by focusing on finding an effective medication regimen that provides the least side effects, eliminating ineffective medications, simplifying medication schedules, and promoting healthy lifestyle behavior. I see patients 2 days per week in the Duke Nephrology Clinic and the Duke Nephrology Hypertension Clinic.
My research interests are to reduce racial and health disparities among patients with hypertension and chronic kidney disease using lifestyle modifications. My past and current research investigates the effects of diet (i.e., the DASH diet, sodium reduction), exercise, and weight loss on blood pressure and kidney function, as well as the effect of bilateral renal artery denervation on blood pressure.

Allison Vorderstrasse, DNSc, APRN, CNE, FAAN

Dr. Vorderstrasse is an Adult Nurse Practitioner whose clinical practice and scholarship focuses on chronic illness, particularly in ethnic minority populations. Dr. Vorderstrasse’s doctoral dissertation research, recent publications, and national presentations illuminate the relationships of psychosocial factors with dietary intake in Black American women with Type 2 diabetes. She is a core team member of Durham Health Innovations: Partnership IMPACTS Diabetes. Dr. Vorderstrasse has also examined the validity of common dietary assessments for use in clinical practice and research. Her findings have contributed to the literature and to the debate on how best to assess dietary intake in persons with chronic illness, particularly given the extent of obesity in the U.S. and the need for dietary modification interventions at the clinical level.

Kathleen Welsh-Bohmer, PhD, ABCN

Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Division of Medical Psychology Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Division of Neurology Director, Bryan Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center Principal Investigator, MURDOCK Memory and Cognitive Health Study Dr. Welsh-Bohmer’s research focuses on the neuropsychology of aging and dementia. Her clinical interests include the neuropsychological evaluation of adults with known or suspected brain injuries, specializing in geriatrics, Alzheimer’s disease, memory disorders, movement disorders, stroke, and toxic exposure. She received by PhD in psychology from the University of Virginia in 1985 and completed her fellowship in clinical neuropsychology at the University of Iowa.