Meet the Holistic Contributors

Mary Keehn is the Assistant Vice Chancelor for Interprofessional Practice and Education in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs, Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs in the UIC College of Applied Health Sciences, and Lead for the HRSA funded Interprofessional Collaborative Practice in HIV Care and Prevention program in MATEC- the Midwest AIDS Training + Education Center that is housed with the Department of Family and Community Medicine in the UIC College of Medicine.

Dr. Keehn spent most of her career in a dual role as a faculty member in the UIC Department of Physical Therapy and as director of rehabilitation services for the University of Illinois Medical Center. She serves as a consultant in the areas of clinical administration and health professions education and she chaired the Foreign Education Standards Committee for the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy for 6 years. Her research interests are in the changing roles of health professions in the era of health care reform and in the impact of interprofessional collaborative practice on patient outcomes.

Dr. Jerry Krishnan is Associate Vice Chancellor, Office of Population Health Sciences, the Executive Director of the Institute for Healthcare Delivery Design and Professor of Medicine & Public Health.  Dr. Krishnan is a physician-scientist with expertise in the care of patients with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and other complex obstructive lung disorders. As a practicing pulmonologist, he provides care for advanced asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and individuals with pulmonary complications of long COVID-19. He has expertise in care delivery science and co-founded the Institute for Healthcare Delivery Design. The IHDD provides advising service to various clients, including the State of Illinois. He is an affiliate faculty member for the Center for Global Health and the College of Pharmacy.

Dr. Rashid Ahmed has a PhD in biostatistics and master’s degrees in both education and economics. Dr. Ahmed has two management diplomas from Harvard University. He has extensive management and work experience spanning multiple higher education sectors, including universities, hospitals, cancer institutes, and government economic and planning divisions. At UIC, Dr. Ahmed was the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the School of Public Health.  Dr. Ahmed moved to Montclair State University in 2023, to accept the role as inaugural Dean of the College of Health Sciences. He continues to be engaged with the HOLISTIC study.

Beyond his administrative duties, Dr. Ahmed has an extensive background in collaborative and applied research with various stakeholders, including Health Canada, the Canadian Cancer Society, John Hopkins University, Cancer Care Manitoba, the University of North Dakota, and the University of Manitoba. Dr. Ahmed’s research interests include the use of statistics in medical research, studies of prognosis, regression modeling, systematic reviews and meta-analysis, randomized trials, and studies of medical measurement. He has collaborated in several methodological research projects and is deeply involved in efforts to improve the quality of reporting medical research studies. He also consults to improve clinical trials and other clinical research study statistical methods.

Dr. Gerald is Assistant Vice Chancellor for Population Health Sciences and Research Professor of Medicine.  She has maintained continuous funding from NHLBI for 20 years.  Dr. Gerald has extensive experience in the areas of clinical, behavioral and epidemiological research in respiratory medicine. She currently serves as Co-PI of a U01 that is implementing proven effective interventions on the Navajo Nation to improve health disparities in pediatric asthma and Investigator on the ALA-Airways Clinical Research Center. She has also served as PI or Investigator on many NIH funded multi-center clinical trial networks including: Investigator for AsthmaNet; Investigator for the Lung Health Studies, Investigator for the COPD Clinical Research Network, and Investigator for the Precision Interventions for Severe and/or Exacerbation-Prone Asthma Network (PrecISE).  Dr. Gerald has held several leadership positions in the American Thoracic Society including serving on the Board of Directors, serving as Chair of the Behavioral Science and Health Services Research Assembly, Co-Chair of the Membership Committee, Co-Chair of the Research Advocacy Committee and as a member of the Finance Committee.  She currently serves as a member of the Health Equity Committee for ATS.  Dr. Gerald has served as a member of the Clinical Trials Review Standing Study Section for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and is also active in service at the local and state level.

Dr. J. Konadu Fukuo is Clinical Instructor with the Mood and Anxiety Disorder clinic in the Department of Psychiatry in the UIC College of Medicine. She completed her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with a specialization in Rehabilitation Psychology at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Her internship and postdoctoral fellowships (clinical and research) were at University of California, San Francisco. Her clinical, supervision, leadership and research efforts focus on developing targeted interventions for persons with behavioral health disorders. Dr. Fokuo’s primary research interest is in reducing stigma (structural, public and self) as a barrier to health service utilization for stigmatized population.

Dr. Fukuo joined the HOLISTIC team to mentor a team of students in preparing a recently submitted manuscript on the findings of the HOLISTIC study related to Mental health and lifestyle behaviors of health professions students during the COVID  19 pandemic.

Tina Schuh was the HOLISITIC project manager in the Office of Population Health Sciences for three years. She is currently a Senior Research Specialist in the UIC School of Public Health’s Institute for Health Research and Policy. Tina has over 15 years of public health experience in both research and community-based work.

Jun Lu is a biostatistics PhD candidate at the UIC School of Public Health who contributed as a data analyst in the HOLISTIC study. He completed his master program at the Biostatistics Department in Mailman of Public Health School, University of Columbia. His PhD research focuses on novel clinical trial design and Bayesian causal inference. In addition, he frequently collaborates with doctors, histopathologists, and biologists providing data management and analytical assistance for their research projects. Jun is proficient in statistical modeling (e.g, survival, longitudinal and categorical data analysis) and statistical programming (e.g, R, SAS and Python) for research projects.

Sarah Rappe is a Research Specialist with the Office of Population Health Sciences who earned a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from University of Illinois Chicago. She currently works at Breathe Chicago Center© (BCC) as a Research Specialist with the goal of expanding knowledge of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) development and treatment. Her work includes assisting in the recruitment of participants, organizing data collection and management, and disseminating participant results to create a larger network of care management to members of our community.

The following students took on the role of HOLISTIC Student Leads while they were with the team:  

• Sunil Domaraju – Medical Student, College of Medicine
• Ethan Rocha – Physical Therapy Student, College of Applied Health Sciences
• Daniel Loizzo – Medical Student, College of Medicine
• Atithi Patel – Medical Student, College of Medicine
• Nishita Gandhi – Pharmacy Student, College of Pharmacy

• Mohammad Mohmmad – Pharmacy Student, College of Pharmacy
• Serena In – Pharmacy Student, College of Pharmacy
• Isabella Hartnett – BS in Nursing Student, College of Nursing
• Hadeel Fouad – Pharmacy Student, College of Pharmacy
• Ruchi Naik – Dental Student, College of Dentistry
• Paige Hardy – Public Health Student, School of Public Health
• Ayesha Mohammad – Nutrition Student, College of Applied Health Sciences
• Priya Rajan – Advanced Generalist Master of Science – College of Nursing
• Alexandria – Seballos – Kinesiology Student – College of Applied Health Sciences
• Harper Long – Social Work and Public Health Student, Jane Addams College of Social Work and School of Public Health
• Stephanie Gordon Rivera – Public Health Student, School of Public Health
• Scott Bicknell – Dental Student, College of Dentistry
• Ummsesalmah Abdulbaseer – Medical Student, College of Medicine
• Ellie Braun – Pharmacy Student, College of Pharmacy
• Bansari Modhera – Pharmacy Student, College of Pharmacy
• Jaime Schulz – BS in Nursing Student, College of Nursing
• Niamh Kane – Physical Therapy Student, College of Nursing
• Asami Iba – MS in Nursing, College of Nursing
• Conor Dunham – Social Work Student, Jane Addams College of Social Work
• Danielle Westnedge – Public Health Student, School of Public Health
• Jessica Lopez Guzman – Social Work Student, Jane Addams College of Social Work
• Serena In – Pharmacy Student, College of Pharmacy
• Brenda Guillen – Medical Student, College of Medicine
• Jyotsna Bitra – Medical Student, College of Medicine
• Mariela Saenz – Occupational Therapy Student, College of Applied Health Sciences
• Nancy Giang – Pharmacy Student, College of Pharmacy
• Ramya Kolagani – Pharmacy Student, College of Pharmacy
• Hassan Maheen – Dental Student, College of Dentistry