Robert M. Arnold, MD, is a Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and in the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law and the Medical Director of the UPMC Palliative and Supportive Institute. Dr. Arnold has published on end-of-life care, hospice and palliative care, doctor-patient communication and ethics education. His current research interests are focused on educational interventions to improve communication in life-limiting illnesses and better understanding how ethical precepts are operationalized in clinical practice. He is the Past-President of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities as well as the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.

Velpandi Ayyavoo, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at the Graduate School of Public Health where she also serves as the Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Affairs. As a molecular virologist her research interests include understanding the consequences of HIV-induced neuronal dysfunction, cognitive disorders in HIV subjects, and developing novel therapeutics. In addition to teaching and advising students, she also serves as the Graduate Program Director and Assistant Chair for Academic Affairs. In her role as Associate Dean for faculty Affairs, she mentors and guides faculty during the promotion process and is working to establish a mentoring program for junior faculty at the school level.

Leslie Hausmann, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Medicine and a Core Investigator at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System (VAPHS) Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP) where she also serves as Co-Director of the Health Equity Capacity Building Core within CHERP. An experimental social psychologist, Dr. Hausmann’s research interests include understanding how issues of discrimination and bias contribute to health and health care disparities, especially with regards to pain management. As a faculty member in the Institute for Clinical Research and Education at Pitt, Dr. Hausmann teaches a course on health equity research and mentors medical trainees and junior faculty interested in pursuing careers in clinical research.

Zsuzsa Horvath, PhD, serves as the Director of Faculty Development in the Office of Faculty Affairs and is an Assistant Professor in the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine’s Department of Dental Public Health. Within Pitt’s School of Dental Medicine, her responsibilities include overseeing, designing and implementing faculty development and mentoring programs and teaching in the pre-doctoral dental curriculum. Recently, she has created a two-year Academic Career Track Area of Concentration certificate program for pre-doctoral students to train future dental educators. In addition to directing this program, she also offers various elective courses in teaching methods, clinical teaching, and educational research. In her most recent endeavors, she has served as Principal Investigator of the NIH funded University of Pittsburgh Center of Excellence in Pain Education: Pain Challenges in Primary Care and oversees the development of virtual cases in pain education and their interprofessional implementation in five health sciences schools.

Deborah Jacobs-Sera is a senior researcher in the lab of Dr. Graham Hatfull. The lab studies actinobacteriophages, “phages,” which are viruses that infect the bacteria of the phylum Actinobacteria. Deborah coordinate’s the PHIRE (Phage Hunters Investigating Research and Education) program for undergraduates at the University of Pittsburgh and is part of a leadership team that administers the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s SEA-PHAGES (Science Education Alliance – Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science) program. She is committed to productive mentoring programs, such as peer-mentoring, that rely on collaborative ways to do science.

Paul (Kip) Kinchington is a tenured professor of the Department of Ophthalmology within the School of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh where he leads a basic research program addressing aspects of virus/host relationships. His articular focus is on the interaction of the vision-important herpesviruses HSV-1 and VZV with the host neuron, where these viruses go latent for long periods and then reactivate to trigger blinding diseases or pain. His extensive teaching roles include those for the Graduate Program in Microbiology and Immunology, where he has directed a well-regarded course in Experimental Virology for over 25 years. His mentoring roles include his department, where he is the Director of Ophthalmology Faculty Mentoring; and as an elected member of the School of Medicine “Academy of Master Educators (AME)’ where he co-chairs the AME Mentoring Committee. In this role he regularly consults/guides requesting medical school faculty in portfolio development, promotion and academic advancement.

Natalie E. Leland is an Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Occupational Therapy. Her research is focused on understanding and improving care quality for vulnerable older adults. Her mentoring has a dual focus, including: (a) training the next generation of rehabilitation science researchers in health services research and implementation science as well as (b) empowering  emerging clinician leaders to deliver high quality patient-centered care.

Dr. Jessica Merlin is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.  She is an independent clinician-investigator fellowship trained and boarded in Infectious Diseases and palliative care, and board certified in Addiction Medicine. During her career development award from the National Institutes of Mental Health, she developed and pilot tested a behavioral intervention for chronic pain in patients with HIV, and is now conducting an R01-funded full scale efficacy trial of this intervention.

Darlene F. Zellers serves as the Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Career Development in the Health Sciences, and the Director of the Office of Academic Career Development (OACD). In this capacity she is responsible for supporting the professional development of biomedical researchers, clinical investigators, and educators within the schools of the health sciences across the spectrum of their careers, which includes doctoral students, postdoctoral trainees, clinical fellows, and faculty members. The OACD also houses the Center for Postdoctoral Affairs in the Health Sciences, the centralized postdoctoral office in the health sciences; the Center for Doctoral and Postdoctoral Career Development, a university-wide resource for advanced-degree trainees; and fosters a sense of community among the University’s training grant directors and administrators by facilitating communication and maintaining the University of Pittsburgh Training Grant Directory.