Joanna Burdette, PhD
Assistant Professor, College of Pharmacy
Joanna Burdette is an Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She also holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Biopharmaceutical Sciences. Prior to joining the faculty at UIC, she was a Research Assistant Professor in the Institute for Women’s Health Research at Northwestern University. She completed postdoctoral fellowship under the mentorship of Dr. Teresa Woodruff in the Department of Neurobiology and Physiology at Northwestern. Her research interests include understanding how ovulation-induced wounding is associated with early events in ovarian cancer, the engineering of steroids as intracellular magnetic resonance contrast agents, and the role of steroid and peptide hormones to regulate each other in breast cancer cells. Past research projects have focused primarily on the role of hormones in reproductive process and aging including characterizing several botanicals as alternatives for menopausal symptoms, ovulation’s contribution toward ovarian cyst formation, and the stimulation of ovarian cellular proliferation in response to gonadotropins.

Colleen Corte, PhD, RN
Assistant Professor, College of Nursing
Dr. Corte received her PhD in nursing from the University of Michigan. Her dissertation was focused on identifying specific disturbances in the structure of the self-concept that characterized young adults with alcohol dependence and distinguished them from social drinkers and young adults in recovery from alcohol dependence. Dr. Corte completed a 2-year interdisciplinary postdoctoral fellowship at the Addiction Research Center in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan where she focused on disturbances in the structural properties of the self-concept as a predictor of early drunkenness in a high risk sample of adolescents, as well as gender differences in these effects. Dr. Corte started as an Assistant Professor at UIC in 2004. Since coming to Chicago, she has extended her work to urban minority youth who are at an earlier developmental stage (preadolescence) in an effort to determine whether disturbances in the structure of the self-concept are related to risk factors for alcohol use (conduct problems and parental alcohol problems) and whether these self-concept disturbances are associated with drinking initiation. Dr. Corte is in the process of revising an R01 application to examine gender differences in the underlying structure of the self-concept as a risk factor for early drinking initiation and rapid progression through drinking developmental milestones (age of first regular drinking and age of first intoxication). With the support of the BIRCWH program, Dr. Corte will focus more closely on within-group differences in girls. More specifically, she will focus on determining whether impairments in the underlying structure of the self-concept differ for socioeconomically disadvantaged adolescent girls of different race/ethnicities and different stages of development, and whether these impairments are differentially associated with early alcohol use and misuse. The long-term goal of her research program is to prevent early alcohol use and the development of risky patterns of drinking that lead to alcohol use disorders in at-risk youth, and in particular, girls given their higher liability to problem alcohol use. This work will lead to the development of not only gender-specific, but culturally and developmentally specific interventions aimed at the self-concept to prevent early alcohol use and alcohol problems.

Bryna Harwood, MD, MS
Assistant Professor, College of Medicine
Bryna Harwood is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology who recently joined the faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago to become Director of the Family Planning Fellowship. She graduated from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Francisco, California. She then completed a Fellowship in Contraceptive Research and Family Planning and a Masters degree in Epidemiology under the direction of Dr. Daniel Mishell at the University of Southern California from 1999 to 2001. In her fellowship, Dr. Harwood participated in epidemiologic research and Phase I, II, and III clinical trials in contraception and medical abortion and completed an independent research project investigating the use of buccally-administered misoprostol as a single agent for medical abortion. Her masters thesis entitled “Life Table Analysis to Estimate the Efficacy of Misoprostol in the USC Medical Abortion Trials” was the first such analysis of the largest dataset of misoprostol used as a single agent for medical abortion. At the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Harwood was Assistant Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and collaborated on clinical trials on the safety and efficacy of new methods of contraception and microbicide clinical trials. Now at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Dr. Harwood continues to conduct clinical trials in contraception and aspires to be a health services researcher in Family Planning to conduct and promote research that ultimately results in fewer unplanned pregnancies and healthier women. This would include not only research to evaluate the safety and efficacy of new methods of contraception, but also research measuring the efficacy of such methods in different populations, research measuring health outcomes associated with different methods of contraception, and understanding patient and provider medical decision-making to improve choices, compliance, and efficacy.

Patricia Hershberger, PhD, APRN, BC
Assistant Professor, College of Nursing
For the first 10 years of her career, Dr. Hershberger actively cared for women who were experiencing reproductive health concerns as a registered and advance practice nurse. In the spring of 2005, she completed her Ph.D. in Nursing Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago where she examined the life experiences of donor oocyte recipient women. Following her doctoral work, she completed a two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Michigan Center for Enhancement and Restoration of Cognitive Function where she focused on understanding naturalistic decision making theory and methods. While at the University of Michigan, she designed and developed a research project examining the decision making processes of young women with cancer who were contemplating the use of novel and experimental fertility preservation treatments such as cryopreservation of oocytes and ovarian tissue. Her interest in the decision making processes of women as they interface with novel and emerging reproductive treatments has expanded to include the innovative and far-reaching use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis. In preparing for her recently funded R03 study examining the decisions of women and their partners surrounding the use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Dr. Hershberger completed the 2006 Summer Genetics Institute Fellowship that takes place on the NIH campus. Dr. Hershberger envisions her research plan ultimately addressing the development and testing of targeted and tailored decisional support interventions that are based on a comprehensive understanding of women’s decision making regarding medical options for fertility management, most particularly when emerging reproductive or genetic technologies are involved, and the ‘quality of life’ effects of those decisions. Further, she plans to learn more about health policy with the intent of engaging in work to mitigate health disparities in the use of medical options for fertility management that involve advanced technologies.

For more information on Dr. Hershberger's Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis: Couples' Decision Making at the Genetic and Reproductive Interface study, please visit her website.

Hyunyoung Jeong, PharmD, PhD
Assistant Professor, College of Pharmacy
Hyunyoung Jeong is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Pharmacy Practice and Biopharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Jeong received both her PharmD and PhD from the UIC College of Pharmacy, and completed postdoctoral fellowship under the mentorship of Drs. William T. Beck and James Fischer at UIC. Her research interests are in understanding how female hormones regulate expression and function of hepatic drug metabolizing enzymes and transporters, and the clinical impact on pharmacokinetics of drugs. Accordingly, her current projects involve characterization of hormonal effects on hepatic drug elimination, and investigation of potential clinical outcomes of the hormonal regulation, with special interests in drug therapy in pregnant women or oral contraceptive users. The long-term goal of her work is to develop a model to better predict altered pharmacokinetics of drugs in women during the life cycle.

Thasarat S. Vajaranant, MD
Assistant Professor, College of Medicine
Thasarat Vajaranant is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences. She received her medical degree from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand in 1996. Since 1999, Dr. Vajaranant has been involved in research focusing on imaging and electrophysiology of the retina and optic nerve. She completed her ophthalmology residency in 2006 and glaucoma fellowship in 2007 at the University of Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary. In the fall of 2007, Dr. Vajaranant joined the faculty in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences. During the first year as a new faculty member she received two prestigious awards from the American Glaucoma Society: Clinician-Scientist Award and Mentoring for Advancement of Physician Scientists. In addition, she won an award for the best paper presentation at the American Academy of Ophthalmology in 2008. In 2009-2010, she has been named one of the Best Doctors in America as recognized by her peers. Dr. Vajaranant’s research focus has been broadened, and as a BIRCWH scholar, her research goal is to build a research program in women’s eye health. Specifically her goals are to determine gender difference in eye diseases and to identify women at risk as well as gender specific risk factors for blindness. Worldwide, blindness is more common in women, and glaucoma is one of major causes of irreversible blindness. Under the mentorship of Rohit Varma, MD, Ronald Hershow, MD and Jacob Wilensky, MD, Dr. Vajaranant is investigating gender difference in eye diseases and glaucoma using a database from the Los Angeles Latino Eye Study (LALES), a large population based study. In addition, she is examining the neuroprotective effect of female sex hormones, and studying the association between the decline in the female sex hormones with aging and the development of glaucoma and glaucoma progression. Under the mentorship of Mahnaz Shahidi, PhD, she will be investigating the effect of female sex hormones on the optic nerve head oxygenation in a glaucoma animal model.