2023 Career Awards

Carolyn Caughell, MSN, RN, CIC, FAPIC is a Pediatric Infection Preventionist (IP) with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). In her eleven years at UCSF, she has been a lead Pediatric IP for Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco working closely with medical and hospital leadership staff to implement best infection prevention practices from current evidence and published guidelines in pediatric surgical site infection (SSI) prevention and reprocessing of reusable medical equipment per Instructions for Use (IFUs). Prior to working in Infection Control, she worked at Children’s Hospital, Oakland, CA within their Hospital Research Institute and as a Neonatal Nurse within the NICU. Carolyn is an active member of both SHEA and APIC and currently serves on the SHEA Public Policy & Government Affairs Committee (PPGA) and CDPH Healthcare-Associated Infection (HAI) Advisory Committee.

Dr. Priya Nori is an Associate Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases) and Orthopedics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She serves as Medical Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (ASP), Outpatient Parenteral Antibiotic Therapy program (OPAT), and is Co-chair of the systems Antimicrobial Council at Montefiore Health System.

She is chair of the Infectious Diseases Society of America’s (IDSA) Subcommittee for Antimicrobial Stewardship Curricula, chair of the SHEA Antimicrobial Stewardship Committee, and co-chaired the SHEA stewardship certificate track, 2019-2022. She is also Deputy Editor of Antimicrobial Stewardship and Healthcare Epidemiology, and Clinical Infectious Diseases Photoquiz co-editor. She is also course director of IDSNY’s pre-meeting workshop on stewardship and infection prevention. She was awarded the Department of Medicine “rising star” award in 2017, the “Subspecialist Teacher of the Year” award in 2020 and was named the March 2022 IDSA Medical Education Community of Practice’s Featured Educator.

Takaaki Kobayashi MD MPH is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Division of Infectious Disease at the University of Iowa, and he also serves as an Associate Hospital Epidemiologist. He actively collaborates with fellow researchers and healthcare professionals, both nationally and internationally, to drive advancements in the management and prevention of infectious diseases. His research interests encompass infection control and prevention, device-associated infections, staphylococcus bacteremia, candidemia, and COVID-19.

Lindsey Lastinger, MPH is an Epidemiologist with the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. She is the Deputy Team Lead for the National Healthcare Safety Network’s Acute Care Analytics team and specializes in the analysis and interpretation of data on healthcare-associated infections and antimicrobial resistance.

Evelyn Wasangula, B.Pharm, MSc TID is a passionate pharmacist. With more than fifteen years of experience at the Ministry o f Health in Kenya, she championed the development and implementation of the National Policy and Action Plan for Antimicrobial Resistance, Infection Prevention and Control and Patient Safety. Evelyn currently works with the East Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC) based in Arusha, Tanzania, as a senior AMR Control Specialist, strengthening the implementation of Infection Prevention Control, Antimicrobial Stewardship Programs and AMR Surveillance programs in the region. She has worked as a consultant with the World Health Organization developing AMS guidance documents supporting implementation of NAPs. Currently pursuing her PhD, she is a Chatham House Africa Public Health Leaders Fellow, Fleming Fund Policy Fellow and an International Ambassador of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 2022.

Gonzalo Bearman, MD, MPH, FACP, FIDSA, FSHEA is Chair of the Division of Infectious Diseases, Richard P. Wenzel Professor of Internal Medicine (Tenure) with a focus on clinical infectious diseases, public health and healthcare epidemiology at the Virginia Commonwealth University Health System. He is a graduate of Colgate University (BA), SUNY at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (MD) and Columbia University (MPH). He completed a residency in Internal Medicine and was Chief Resident, both at SUNY at Buffalo. He then completed a fellowship in Infectious Diseases and a residency in Preventive Medicine/Public Health, both at Cornell University. Dr. Bearman is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases, and General Preventive Medicine and Public Health. 

Since 2003, Dr. Bearman is an attending physician/consultant in Infectious Diseases Service at VCU Medical Center. Dr. Bearman served as the Clerkship Director of the VCU M3 Internal Medicine Clerkship (2005 – 2011) and was the 4th year Acting Internship (AI) Director. Dr. Bearman lectures in the M1 Population Medicine Class and M2 Medical Microbiology. He is the course director for both Contemporary Issues and Controversies in Public Health seminar in the VCU Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine and an M4 Elective on Medicine in Literature. 

Since 2005, Dr. Bearman has worked on the VCU Global Health Program through the Honduras Medical Relief Brigade, a medical relief effort bringing medical and public health assistance to rural Honduran communities. 

In 2013, Dr. Bearman launched the Medical Literary Messenger, an online magazine for humanities and medicine, where he serves as the Editor in Chief. He serves as a section editor for Current Infectious Diseases Reports and as Editor in Chief of Current Treatment Options in Infectious Diseases. From 2013-2015, Dr. Bearman was the Chair of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America’s (SHEA) Guidelines Committee. 

His areas of research focus on the epidemiology of hospital-acquired infections. Dr. Bearman has 200+ peer-reviewed publications in Annals of Internal Medicine, Archives of Internal Medicine, Archives of Medical Research, Clinical Infectious Diseases, Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, Journal of Clinical Microbiology, Current Infectious Diseases Reports, American Journal of Infection Control, BioMedCentral Infectious Diseases, Infections in Medicine, Journal of Rural and Remote Medicine, Journal of Hospital Infection and Journal of Infection and JAMA. 

Dr. Bearman is recognized multiple years in Richmond Magazine as a Best Doctor in Richmond (Infectious Diseases). In 2019, Dr. Bearman was awarded the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) Barry Farr Award for the most influential publication in infection prevention and hospital epidemiology. In 2020, Dr. Bearman received the Medical Society of Virginia Salute to Service Award for his work in healthcare epidemiology and patient safety. 

In March 2021, Dr. Bearman was named inaugural editor of Antimicrobial Stewardship and Healthcare Epidemiology, an open access journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, published by Cambridge University Press. 

Chetan Jinadatha, MD, MPH currently serves as the Chief, Infectious Diseases Section at Central Texas Veterans Health Care System in Temple, Texas.  He is also a Clinical Professor, School of Medicine at Texas A & M University.   

Dr. Jinadatha is a clinician, researcher, educator, and inventor. His clinical and research interests focus on the role of surfaces in the causation of HAIs and how technology might be able to solve the problem of HAIs. He has participated in several VA task forces related to Legionella prevention and wastewater surveillance for COVID-19. Dr. Jinadatha has also testified as an expert witness in the US Congress and has also authored chapters in the APIC textbook of Infection prevention and control. Apart from publishing several peer-reviewed manuscripts in peer reviewed journals he also holds multiple patents in HAI prevention technologies and serves as a grant reviewer on various study sections.

Andi L. Shane, MD, MPH, MSc is a pediatric infectious diseases physician based in Atlanta, Georgia. She currently serves as the Chief of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Division at Emory University School of Medicine and the Medical Director of Hospital Epidemiology at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.  Her research interests relate to the improvement of child health through the prevention and management of enteric infections by optimizing vaccination, understanding the applications of probiotics and prebiotics in improving tolerance of antimicrobial therapy and vaccine efficacy, preventing and managing neonatal sepsis, characterizing and preventing pediatric healthcare associated infections, and optimizing pediatric special pathogen response in local and global settings.

Victoria J. Fraser, MD, is the Adolphus Busch Professor of Medicine, chair of the Department of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine. Her research focuses on preventing and controlling hospital-acquired infections (HAI). She has identified risk factors for HAIs, determined their morbidity, mortality and costs, and applied interventions in real-world settings to successfully reduce their occurrence. Dr. Fraser’s research has been funded by the CDC, AHRQ and NIH. She is the principal investigator of a CDC Prevention Epicenters Program. She has mentored numerous trainees who have gone on to successful careers in academic medicine. She has received the Neville Grant Award, Distinguished Service Teaching Awards, Distinguished Faculty Award, the Academic Women’s Network Mentoring Award and Pillar of Support Award at Washington University. She received the SHEA Mentor Scholar Award and Investigator Award and is a SHEA past president. 

Michael Klompas, MD, MPH is Hospital Epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital here in Boston and a Professor of Medicine and Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School.  He has published widely on surveillance, prevention, and management of pneumonia, ventilator-associated events, sepsis, and Covid-19.  Dr. Klompas served as the lead author of SHEA’s Compendium document on Strategies to Prevent Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia, Ventilator-Associated Events, and Non-Ventilator-Hospital Acquired Pneumonia in Acute Care Hospitals. 

This award recognizes the work of senior investigators in healthcare epidemiology based on the breadth of their contributions to the field. 

We are pleased to award Dr. Rodolfo Quiros with this year’s SHEA Senior Scholar Award. Dr. Quiros received his medical degree in Argentina where he trained in infectious diseases and hospital epidemiology. He has made significant contributions to building the national hospital-acquired infections surveillance program in Argentina. He was a pioneer in antimicrobial stewardship in Latin America, where he led free innovative initiatives such as the development of a research network and a mobile app which allows hospitals to upload their local guidelines providing an essential tool at the point of care to help clinicians make more appropriate antibiotic decisions. He has mentored thousands of physicians and infection prevention nurses in Argentina and Latin America. We are pleased to recognize his many accomplishments over the years today. 

Oladayo A. Oyebanji, MBChB, MS is a passionate and dedicated medical professional with a commitment to holistic patient care and clinical research. Oladayo earned his medical degree from Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria and later pursued a master’s degree in pharmacology and Toxicology from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.  

Currently, he is a postdoctoral researcher in infectious diseases at Case Western Reserve University where he is actively involved in multiple NIH- and CDC-funded projects focusing on the immunology and epidemiology of COVID-19 and its vaccines among nursing home residents and healthcare workers. With a book chapter and peer-reviewed publications to his name, he is driven by a desire for personal growth, and a commitment to lifelong learning, while constantly seeking to expand his knowledge and expertise. 

Beyond his professional pursuits, Oladayo enjoys watching and playing soccer, as well as exploring his creative side through graphics design. His multifaceted interests contribute to his well-rounded and dynamic personality.