Category: Speaker

University of Chicago

Eric G. Pamer received his MD degree from Case Western Reserve University Medical School and completed clinical training in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases at UCSD Medical Center. He was a postdoctoral fellow with Charles E. Davis at UCSD, Maggie So at Scripps Research Institute and Michael Bevan at the University of Washington and then moved to Yale University. In 2000 he moved his laboratory to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York where he was a Member of the Infectious Diseases Service, Head of the Division of Medical Subspecialties and Director of the Center for Microbes, Inflammation and Cancer. In July, 2019 he moved to the University of Chicago to become the Director of the Duchossois Family Institute.

McGuckin Methods International (MMI)

Maryanne McGuckin, Dr. ScEd., FSHEA, is an internationally renowned advocate for healthcare quality, hospital safety, and patient advocacy. She is the author and developer of Partners In Your Care, a empowerment method that improves healthcare quality by helping patients avoid healthcare-associated infections.

She mentors healthcare teams across the globe through her teaching and encouragement, and instills a sense of ownership in healthcare workers, patients, and their advocates so that all stakeholders partner to ensure the best of care.

Dr. McGuckin’s distinguished body of work is represented in over 100 peer-reviewed abstracts, journal articles, and scientific conference lectureships. Her most recent publication, The Patient Survival Guide – 8 Simple Solutions to Prevent Hosptial- and Healthcare-Associated Infections, has received acknowledgement in healthcare reviews and national media.

As President and CEO of McGuckin Methods International, Inc., Dr. McGuckin leads a team of world-class researchers, educators, and patient advocates, in pioneering effective methods for safe healthcare practices. Dr. McGuckin is a former faculty member of University of Pennsylvania.

Singapore General Hospital

Dr Moi Lin Ling received her medical education at the National University of Singapore. She obtained her postgraduate training in Microbiology at the Victoria University of Manchester, is a member of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia, and is a certified professional in healthcare quality (CPHQ).
She is currently the Director of Infection Prevention & Epidemiology at the Singapore General Hospital where she plays a key role in the development and running of the program in the hospital.
She is the President of the Infection Control Association (Singapore) that was formed in 1999; and President of the Asia Pacific Society of Infection Control (APSIC). She was a Director on the Healthcare Quality Certification Board (HQCB) and its Asia Pacific representative from 2006-2007. She helped to set up the Healthcare Quality Society of Society in 2007 and is its founding President. She is a fellow of the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) and also a member of the Editorial Council of the International Journal of Infection Control and the Infection Disease and Health Journal.
Her interests are in infection prevention and control, antimicrobial resistance, molecular epidemiology as well as quality improvement. She is an experienced trainer in infection prevention and control, quality improvement, LEAN and patient safety.

Alfred Hospital and Monash University

Andrew is an Infectious Diseases physician and Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Infectious Diseases, Alfred Hospital and Monash University. He has a PhD (University of Melbourne) and a Master of Science in Epidemiology (Harvard School of Public Health). His research has focussed on the health and economic impact of antimicrobial resistance and healthcare-associated infections, the transmission dynamics of antimicrobial resistance, and the implementation of infection prevention and control interventions. He is current Chair of the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases (ASID) Healthcare Infection Control Special Interest Group (HICSIG).

University of California San Diego

Professor Jack A Gilbert earned his Ph.D. from Unilever and Nottingham University, UK in 2002, and received his postdoctoral training at Queens University, Canada. From 2005-2010 he was a senior scientist at Plymouth Marine Laboratory, UK; and from 2010-2018 he was a Professor of Surgery and Director of The Microbiome Center at University of Chicago. In 2019 he moved to University of California San Diego, where he is a Professor in Pediatrics and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He is also Group Leader for Microbial Ecology at Argonne National Laboratory, and the Yeoh Ghim Seng Visiting Professorship in Surgery at the National University of Singapore. Dr. Gilbert uses molecular analysis to test fundamental hypotheses in microbial ecology. He cofounded the Earth Microbiome Project and American Gut Project. He has authored more than 250 peer reviewed publications and book chapters on microbial ecology. He is the founding Editor in Chief of mSystems journal. In 2014 he was recognized on Crain’s Business Chicago’s 40 Under 40 List, and in 2015 he was listed as one of the 50 most influential scientists by Business Insider, and in the Brilliant Ten by Popular Scientist. In 2016 he won the Altemeier Prize from the Surgical Infection Society, and the WH Pierce Prize from the Society for Applied Microbiology for research excellence. He also co-authored “Dirt is Good” published in 2017, a popular science guide to the microbiome and children’s health.

Northwestern University

Erica Marie Hartmann, PhD is an environmental microbiologist interested in the interaction between human-made chemicals and microbes. Her career began at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she worked on mass spectrometry-based methods for detecting microbial enzymes necessary for bioremediation. She then moved to Arizona State University where she was the first graduate of the interdisciplinary Biological Design PhD program. She when to France on a Fulbright, studying microbes that degrade carcinogenic pollutants at the Commission for Atomic Energy. She began leading studies antimicrobial chemicals and microbes found in indoor dust at the Biology and the Built Environment Center at the University of Oregon and is currently continuing that work as an assistant professor at Northwestern University.

Washington University in St Louis School of Medicine

Gautam Dantas, Ph.D., is a professor in the Departments of Pathology & Immunology, Biomedical Engineering, Molecular Microbiology, and the Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences & Systems Biology, at Washington University in St Louis School of Medicine. He received a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Washington, and post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School. His research interests and training lie at the interface of microbial genomics, synthetic biology, systems biology, and computational biology. His research focuses on (1) understanding and predicting how diverse microbiomes respond to chemical and biological perturbations, (2) harnessing these insights to rationally design therapeutic strategies to curtail antibiotic resistant pathogens and remedy pathological microbiome states, and (3) engineering microbial catalysts to convert renewable biomass into value chemicals such as biofuels and pharmaceuticals. Since 2009, he has mentored 12 postdoctoral fellows, 25 graduate students, and over 50 high-school and undergraduate interns. He is a recipient of the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize, the Harvard University Certificate for Distinction in Teaching, the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the Mallinckrodt Foundation Scholar Award, the Academy of Science – St Louis Innovator Award, the Washington University Distinguished Educator Award, and American Academy of Microbiology Fellowship. More information about the Dantas Lab at: http://www.dantaslab.org