Improving the Quality of Care for Adolescents and Adults With Sickle Cell Disease-It's a Long Road.

My research has focused on the epidemiology, risk factors, and prevention of the pulmonary and central nervous system complications of sickle cell disease and includes retrospective and prospective cohort studies and clinical trials.  I received my Ph.D. in clinical investigation from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health for a series of studies to identify predictors of cognitive function in children with sickle cell disease.  This work has expanded to the evaluation of the interaction between environment and disease in both children and adults and the functional evaluation of adults with sickle cell disease.  My other research interests include the application of large clinical, research, and administrative databases to the study of rare hematological diseases and interventions to improve quality of and access to care for sickle cell disease. I serve on the American Society of Hematology Sickle Cell Taskforce and Sickle Cell Pain Guideline Panel and am co-chair of the American Society of Hematology Healthcare Professional Education and Training Work Group.