Meet the Team

Dr. Nelson is a pediatric hospitalist and sees patients at UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital. Board-certified in pediatrics and pediatric hospital medicine, Dr. Nelson earned his medical degree from Tufts University. He then completed a pediatric residency at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University followed by a pediatric global health fellowship at Stanford. 

Dr. Nelson is currently on faculty at the UF Emerging Pathogens Institute and is a tenured Associate Professor with the UF Department of Pediatrics. Prior to joining UF in 2016, Dr. Nelson served as Pediatric Global Health Physician Scientist and Instructor for the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stanford University.

Dr. Nelson enjoys spending time with his family, playing the cello, sailing and playing soccer.

I joined Dr. Nelson’s lab in 2018 after working with two community-based NGOs in Haiti, where I designed, implemented and evaluated public health programs. Previously, I conducted research in both Latin America and the US spanning a range of topics from household water purification to development of diagnostic tests for parasitic diseases to best agricultural practices for watershed management.

At UF I coordinate all aspects of the INACT (Improving Nighttime Access to Care and Treatment) study series conducted in Haiti. Within these studies we are  building, evaluating, and disseminating the MotoMeds telemedicine and medication delivery healthcare delivery model. Ultimately, we are working towards the goal of improving access to quality healthcare for all families.

I am proud to contribute to the Nelson lab because of the focus on bridging the gap between scientific research and actionable public health solutions.  

As a future public health professional, Ishae strives to combine her skills in microbiology, statistics and programming to bridge the translational research divide in a way that makes the world a better place for all people. She completed her undergraduate degree in microbiology and cell sciences with a minor in bioinformatics at the University of Florida. She is a graduate student in the Department of Environmental and Global Health within the College of Public Health and Health Sciences (PHHP). Ishae is pursuing a PhD in public health with a concentration in environmental health. Her research interests include studying how molecular interactions of pathogens can influence the epidemiology of infectious diseases and how these data can influence public health policies. 

Caiden is a recent Microbiology and Cell Science graduate from the University of Florida. As an aspiring physician, she is passionate about bridging the gap between public health initiatives and underserved populations. She also has a deep interest in improving antibiotic stewardship by conducting research that can be applied at the bedside. In her free time, Caiden loves to read, watch movies, and play with her cat Anakin.   

David Sack, M.D., is a Professor of Internal Health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health with a joint appointments in the Department of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases, Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Sack’s research has been focused on enteric infections and vaccine development for these infections.

Dr. Khan’s research currently covers the following two topics: (1). the modeling of realized volatility, which is the sum of squared intraday returns over a certain interval such as a day, in the Japanese stock market and its application to the prediction of future volatility, the option pricing and VaR; (2). the application of Support Vector Machine methods to the volatility modeling and forecasting.

Jess Shapiro, PhD is an Associate Professor at McGill University. He uses genomics to understand the ecology and evolution of microbes, ranging from freshwater bacterioplankton to the human gut microbiome. His work has helped elucidate the origins of bacterial species, leading to a more unified species concept across domains of life, and has developed genome-wide association study (GWAS) methods tailored for bacteria. He brings these skills and tools to our collaboration to enable discoveries on antimicrobial resistance mechanisms and their impact on cholera infection and transmission.

Dr. Ahmed obtained her BA from University of Minnesota, an MPH from Emory University, and her PhD from Oregon State University College of Public Health and Human Sciences. Her research is extremely interdisciplinary, and sits at the crossroads of epidemiology, global health, environmental health, clinical medicine, and translational sciences. She focuses on exploring 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.

Dr. Daniel Leung is a tenured Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, and the Dr. Thomas D. Rees and Natalie B. Rees Presidential Endowed Chair in Global Medicine. He received his M.D. from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle, and a fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center / Harvard Medical School in Boston. Dr. Leung also has clinical experience in several international settings, including locations in Asia, Africa, and South America.

Dr. Adam C. Levine is a Professor of Emergency Medicine, International and Public Affairs, and Health Services, Policy & Practice at Brown University. Dr. Levine currently serves as the Associate Dean of Global Health Equity in the Division of Biology and Medicine and as the Perri Peltz and Eric Ruttenberg Professor of Practice in Human Rights at the Watson School for International and Public Affairs. Dr. Levine received his Medical Doctorate from the University of California, San Francisco and his Masters of Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley before completing specialty training in Emergency Medicine and Humanitarian Studies at Harvard University. He has previously led research and training initiatives in East and West Africa and South and South-East Asia. His own federal and foundation-funded research focuses on improving the delivery of emergency care in resource-limited settings and during humanitarian emergencies.

Ben Brintz, PhD, is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Utah School of Medicine, Division of Epidemiology. As a statistician, his research interests include developing decision-making tools using machine learning and surveillance models. As a member of the Study Design and Biostatistics center, he enjoys consulting on a broad range of clinical and epidemiological applications.