New Research Faculty Introduction

Ryan Coute, M.D., is an assistant professor of Emergency Medicine at UAB. He attended medical school at Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences and then completed his Emergency Medicine residency at UAB. His primary interest is resuscitation science research with a focus on cardiac arrest treatment and outcome disparities, burden of disease estimation, and health care policy. His research has received high-profile awards including the 2021 Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Resident Researcher of the Year. Coute is also the recipient of two research grants funded by the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine and the Emergency Medicine Foundation.

Brittney Davis, Pharm.D., instructor, obtained her undergraduate degree in Biology from UAB in 2010. Over the next four years, she worked as a research technician in the UAB Department of Cellular and Molecular Pathology, where she was introduced to gene therapy-based cancer treatment approaches and experimental therapeutics. After obtaining her Pharm.D. from the Samford University McWhorter School of Pharmacy in 2018, she was appointed as a T32 fellow under Nita Limdi, Pharm.D., Ph.D. MSPH, in the Program for Translational Pharmacogenomics as part of the UAB-HudsonAlpha Genomic Medicine Training Program. She has collaborated on genomic projects with national consortia, including the Implementing Genomics in Practice (IGNITE) and Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) networks.

Byron Lai, Ph.D., M.S., assistant professor in the Division of Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine, completed his doctoral training and a postdoctoral fellowship in the UAB School of Health Professions’ Department of Physical Therapy. He further completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the UAB Department of Pediatrics. He has been conducting exercise research for people with disabilities for eight years under the UAB/Lakeshore Foundation Research Collaborative.

Malgorzata Kasztan, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, completed her doctoral training in the Pharmacology and Laboratory Medicine Department at the Medical University of Gdansk, Poland. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the UAB Division of Nephrology. Her major research interest is to study the functional significance of renal iron/heme homeostasis using models of chronic kidney injury.

Spencer Poore, M.D., MSCS, assistant professor in the Division of Pediatric Pulmonary & Sleep Medicine, earned his medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, Georgia. Poore completed his Pediatrics residency at UAB, his Pediatric Pulmonology fellowship at the University of Colorado, and his Master of Science in Clinical Science at the University of Colorado. His clinical interests include cystic fibrosis, primary ciliary dyskinesia, bronchiectasis, and his research interests include fungal infections and airway inflammation in cystic fibrosis.

Jennifer Marwitz, M.A., director of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Research, received her B.S. in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and her M.A. in Psychology from the University of Richmond. After that, she served as the Project Coordinator for the Virginia Commonwealth University TBI Model System and since 2012 has served as the chair for the Data Management Committee for the TBI Model System Centers. She also served as Research Coordinator for the NIDRR-funded RRTC on Severe TBI.

Alexander Arynchyn, M.D., Ph.D., is an instructor in the UAB Division of Preventive Medicine. He received an M.D. and a Ph.D. at Minsk State Medical Institute, Minsk, Belarus. Arynchyn joined the Division of Preventive Medicine as a Fulbright Scholar in 2002 where he spent five years as a post-doctoral employee before taking a regular position of research associate in 2009. Arynchyn has been an integral part of the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study since 2004.

Lori Bateman, Ph.D., R.D., an assistant professor in the Division of Preventive Medicine, is a medical sociologist with training and experience in community based participatory research, nutrition, health promotion, and bioethics. She completed her Ph.D. in Medical Sociology at UAB, and Master of Arts and Master of Science in Education - Wellness Promotion at Baylor University. Bateman currently leads or co-leads grants that focus on health disparities and exploring and addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.

Yulia Khodneva, M.D., is a board-certified Internal Medicine clinician and an assistant professor in the Divisions of Preventive Medicine and General Internal Medicine. Her research interests include cardiovascular epidemiology and health promotion intervention development. She obtained her Medical Doctor degree from the Yaroslavl State Medical University, in Yaroslavl, Russia, and a Ph.D. in Health Promotion at UAB. She completed residency training in Internal Medicine at UAB. The overarching goal of her research is to improve quality of life and other health outcomes of patients suffering from heart failure.

Lisa Zubkoff, Ph.D., M.S., is an associate professor in the Division of Preventive Medicine. She also serves as the associate director for Research at the Birmingham/Atlanta Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center at the Birmingham VA Health Care System. Zubkoff received a Ph.D. and Master of Science from The Dartmouth Institute of Health Policy and Clinical Practice at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. Upon completing her doctoral training, she completed a health services research post-doctoral fellowship at the VA Greater Los Angeles Health Care System, where her training focused on the field of implementation science. She is currently PI on an NCI funded study) comparing two strategies to implement an early concurrent palliative care program in community oncology practices.

Katie Alexander, Ph.D., joined the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology as an assistant professor in March 2021. She obtained her undergraduate degree in chemistry from Birmingham-Southern College. In 2010, she joined the division to obtain her Ph.D. in Immunology in the laboratory of Charles Elson, M.D., followed by two years of postdoctoral training in Elson’s laboratory. Alexander was then awarded a highly competitive position on the UAB T32 Training Program in Immunologic Diseases and Basic Immunology, choosing to expand her studies to human epithelial cell immunobiology in the laboratory of Phillip Smith, M.D.

Selene Meza-Perez, Ph.D., is an instructor in the Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology. She received her B.S. in Biology from the National Autonoma University of Mexico and her masters and Ph.D. degree in Immunology at the National Polytechnique Institute in Mexico in 2010. In February 2011, she joined the laboratory of William Agace, Ph.D., at Lund University in Sweden as a postdoctoral fellow. In 2013, she moved to UAB to join the laboratory of Troy Randall, Ph.D., and currently, she is investigating the impact of microbiota in the immune responses of the tumor microenvironment. She has been actively involved in teaching in the GBS program and in training clinical fellows in cancer research due to her collaboration with the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB.

Aaron Silva-Sanchez, Ph.D., an instructor of the Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology, focuses his research on understanding the origin and function of neonatal regulatory dendritic cells and their role in controlling CD8 T-cell responses.  Silva-Sanchez graduated with a Ph.D. in Immunology from the National School of Biomedical Sciences in Mexico City. He joined UAB as a postdoctoral fellow in 2011 to work with  Harry Schroeder, M.D., Ph.D., to study mice with altered B-cell receptor repertoire and the production of anti-DNA antibodies.

Juan J. Calix, M.D., Ph.D., completed his Internal Medicine residency and Infectious Diseases fellowship in the Physician Scientist Training Program at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. After a brief instructorship, he was recruited to UAB as an assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases. His cross disciplinary research laboratory focuses on understanding and interrupting the microbial and host factors promoting the propagation of bacterial pathobionts among at-risk hosts, with a special focus on Acinetobacter and Streptococcal species.

Olivia Van Gerwen, M.D., completed her Internal Medicine residency and chief residency at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. She returned to her hometown of Birmingham to pursue a fellowship in Infectious Diseases at UAB, which she completed in 2020 in addition to a post-doctoral fellowship in health services, outcomes, and effectiveness research. She is now an assistant professor in the UAB Division of Infectious Diseases.

Bryan Garcia, M.D., received his undergraduate degree from The University of Notre Dame and received his medical degree from the Florida State University College of Medicine. He then completed an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Florida. Following this he completed his fellowship at UAB in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine. He took his first faculty position at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston as an assistant professor. In 2021 he returned to UAB as an assistant professor of Medicine where he specializes in the treatment of nontuberculous mycobacterial lung infections including mycobacterium avium complex and mycobacterium abscesses.

Paramita Pati, Ph.D., earned her Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Augusta University in 2015. The following year, she joined the UAB Division of Nephrology as a postdoctoral trainee in the lab of  Jennifer Pollock, Ph.D., where she went on to train on the Interdisciplinary Training in Kidney Research T32. While working as a postdoctoral fellow, she was awarded an AHA postdoctoral fellowship in 2018 and in 2019, she was also granted a NIH F32 Postdoctoral Individual National Research Service Award. In 2021, she was awarded an AHA Career Development Award and appointed as an instructor in the UAB Division of Nephrology.

Bryan Becker, Ph.D., is originally from South Dakota and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 2015. Later that year, he joined the UAB Division of Nephrology as a postdoctoral trainee in the lab of David Pollock, Ph.D., where he was a fellow on the Mechanisms of Hypertension and Cardiovascular Disease T32. He was subsequently awarded an AHA postdoctoral fellowship from 2019-2021. Currently, his research is elucidating how autonomic nerves modulate kidney function and how sensory nerves from the kidney feedback into blood pressure control.

Neil Pfister M.D., Ph.D., joined the UAB Department of Radiation Oncology as an assistant professor in July 2021. Prior to joining UAB, Pfister completed an internship in Internal Medicine as well as a residency and post doc in Radiation Oncology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He received his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Genetics from the University of Georgia and both his M.D. and Ph.D. (Cancer Biology) from Columbia University. Pfister comes to the department with existing grant funding including an NCI K08 award.