Research Team

Leadership

Hannah Davis (they/she)

Hannah Davis (they/she)

First infection: March 25, 2020

Hannah is a machine learning artist and has a background in data analysis and machine learning, with a focus on modeling worldviews, generative art and music, and tools for countering bias in machine learning datasets. She is a public speaker and has spoken at the Library of Congress, Bell Labs, Eyeo Festival, the European Association for Computational Linguistics, and others.

Hannah Wei (she/her)

Hannah Wei (she/her)

First infection: March 11, 2020

Hannah Wei has a background in cognitive science and computer science. Her work focuses on the intersection of global communities, frontier technology and user-centered design. She has led product design and research initiatives on the ground in Indonesia, Ghana, and Taiwan, and has worked with teams at Facebook, MIT Media Labs, Harvard Innovation Labs.

Gina Assaf

Gina Assaf

First infection: March 20, 2020

Gina Assaf is an independent digital strategist, researcher, and designer for the humanitarian and global aid sector, and the co-founder and managing director of a digital design & development consulting organization. She has worked for organizations such as the United Nations, IRC, World Bank, USAID contractors, Intuit, and GitHub.

Lisa McCorkell (she/her)

Lisa McCorkell (she/her)

First infection: March 14, 2020

Lisa McCorkell has a Masters in Public Policy from UC Berkeley and a BA in Political Science from UCLA. Her background is in public policy, public health, advocacy, writing, and research.

Dr. Athena Akrami

Dr. Athena Akrami

First infection: March 17, 2020

Dr. Akrami is a faculty member at Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, in University College London, where she runs a large neuroscience laboratory studying learning and memory in rodents, human, and computational models. She has more than 15 years of experience in scientific research and publications, project managements, and international collaborations.


Contributors

Aimee Weiss

Aimee Weiss

First infection: March 2020
Alison Cohen

Alison Cohen

First infection: January 2022

Alison Cohen is an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco. She conducts community-driven, policy-relevant applied epidemiology research to document health inequities and identify and evaluate interventions that could improve health and reduce inequities. She has a PhD in epidemiology and a Masters of Public Health in epidemiology and biostatistics from UC Berkeley and a AB in community health and education studies from Brown University.

Anisha Sekar

Anisha Sekar

First infection: June 7, 2020

Anisha Sekar is a fintech entrepreneur with over 10 years of experience in product management, user experience, and strategy. She received her BA in computer science from Brown University with a focus on applied mathematics and statistics. Her analysis has been cited in Reuters, the Washington Post, Marketplace and more.

Asmae

Asmae

Current Contributor
Beth Pollack

Beth Pollack

Current Contributor

Beth Pollack is a biomedical Research Scientist at MIT studying infection-associated chronic illnesses. She leads research in an immunoengineering lab on the connections, comorbidities, and shared pathophysiology among Long COVID, ME/CFS, chronic Lyme, connective tissue disorders, and other co-occurring illnesses. She is currently working/collaborating on two clinical studies on Long COVID, ME/CFS, and Lyme disease at MIT and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Beth is a member of the NIH’s ME/CFS Research Roadmap Working Group where she chairs its Less Studied Pathologies Subgroup. The group is tasked with developing a plan to advance ME/CFS research towards clinical trials. Beth also served on PLRC’s Biomedical Research Fund Panel. She is a former Senior Researcher at Harvard where she also went to graduate school.

Elisabeth Stelson

Elisabeth Stelson

First infection: March 23, 2020

Elisabeth Stelson is a licensed social worker and PhD Candidate in Social Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Beth’s research focuses on the occupational health of social and health services workforces, vicarious trauma, and intimate partner violence.

Giorgia Lupi

Giorgia Lupi

First infection: March 2020

Giorgia is an information designer. She is a Partner at Pentagram in New York. After receiving her master’s degree in Architecture, she earned her PhD in Design at Politecnico di Milano. In 2011, she co-founded Accurat, an internationally acclaimed data-driven design firm with offices in Milan and New York.

Girish

Girish

Current Contributor
Dr. Jared Austin

Dr. Jared Austin

Current Contributor
Jared Mercier

Jared Mercier

Current Contributor
JD Davids

JD Davids

First infection: March 2020

JD Davids is a health justice and communications strategist for networks of disabled and chronically ill people. A queer and trans person living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS), Long COVID and other complex chronic conditions, he is co-founder and co-director of Strategies for High Impact / Long COVID Justice. He also writes and hosts conversations for The Cranky Queer Guide to Chronic Illness. He’s served as an advisor with many groups, including the U.S. Caucus of People Living with HIV, NIH, CDC, and health departments, and was managing editor and director of strategic communications for TheBody.com.

Jerry

Jerry

First infection: March 5, 2020
V. Jo Hsu, MFA PhD (they/them/theirs)

V. Jo Hsu, MFA PhD (they/them/theirs)

First infection: November 2022

Jo Hsu (they/them) is an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where they study storytelling as political strategy. Right now, they’re working on several projects that examine how discriminatory narratives affect scientific research and medical treatment—and how prejudicial arguments appropriate scientific terms to legitimize social inequity. www.vjohsu.com.
Date of first COVID infection: November 2022, but they’ve had ME/CFS for much longer.

Julia Moore Vogel (she/her)

Julia Moore Vogel (she/her)

First infection: July 2020

Julia Moore Vogel is a Long COVID patient-researcher at Scripps Research, where she is leading a study that examines whether wrist-worn wearables can help people with energy-limiting conditions implement pacing. She also oversees inclusive health research efforts through the All of Us Research Program and other initiatives. Julia previously managed genomics initiatives at the New York Genome Center and The Rockefeller University. She has a PhD in Computational Biology and Medicine and an MBA both from Cornell.

Letícia Soares (she/her)

Letícia Soares (she/her)

First infection: April 12 2020

Letícia Soares is a Brazilian scientist and disability activist with a Masters in Ecology and a PhD in Biology. Her scientific background is in ecology, evolution and epidemiology of infectious diseases and she has developed and published research in human and wildlife diseases. She also has extensive training and experience in teaching Biological Sciences.

Lucia

Lucia

Current Contributor
Marie

Marie

Current Contributor
Margaret O’Hara

Margaret O’Hara

Current Contributor
Matthew

Matthew

Current Contributor
Megan

Megan

First infection: March 19, 2020

Dr. Megan Fitzgerald holds a PhD in Neuroscience and has a background in human neuroanatomy, developmental neuroscience, and stem cell research. She became ill with COVID in March of 2020.

Dr. Mel Symeonides

Dr. Mel Symeonides

First infection: March 20, 2020

Dr. Symeonides is a faculty scientist at the University of Vermont, USA. He is conducting wet lab research, primarily in the fields of virology and immunology, in the context of HIV-1 and Rotavirus. He is also engaged in educating and training early career (undergraduate and graduate level) scientists, both through lecturing as well as in the research lab.

Michael Sieverts

Michael Sieverts

First infection: March 18, 2020

Michael has a background in science and technology policy. He has held senior positions at the National Science Foundation and has also worked for the Congressional Budget Office.
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Myra

Myra

Current Contributor
Nisa Malli

Nisa Malli

First infection: March 23, 2020
DVL Padma Priya

DVL Padma Priya

First infection: April 24, 2020
Rachel Robles (she/her)

Rachel Robles (she/her)

First infection: March 26, 2020

Rachel is a Cornell University graduate with a degree in Operations Research Engineering and 6 years of experience working in sales strategy. She has skills in building data pipelines for the purposes of automation and reporting.

Dr. Ryan Low

Dr. Ryan Low

Current Contributor
Dr. Signe Redfield

Dr. Signe Redfield

Current Contributor

Dr. Redfield received her Ph.D. and MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida, and a BA in General Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.
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Teresa Akintonwa

Teresa Akintonwa

Current Contributor
Tess Falor

Tess Falor

Current Contributor

Dr. Tess Falor, holds a PhD in Earth and Planetary Science from UC Berkeley. Motivated by her own complex health conditions, she changed her career to work on medical research and patient advocacy. She is cofounder of the community science self-experimentation project, RemissionBiome.org. She’s also a patient representative on three additional ME/CFS and Long COVID research projects and is a member of the PLRC Patient-Generated Hypotheses Journal team.

Dr. Yochai Re’em

Dr. Yochai Re’em

Current Contributor

Contact Us:

Please direct all press and questions to team@patientresearchcovid19.com!

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