Our Team

Each member of our team has accumulated years of first-hand experience leveraging approaches from the fields of epidemiology, disease prevention, health promotion, school health and public health communication, while responding directly to infectious disease outbreaks and pandemics, including some of the biggest public health crises and challenges of our time.

We are not just world class experts in epidemiology and public health practice. We are seasoned leaders. Our highly trained technical team brings extensive leadership and technical experience at the global, national and local levels. Many of us have worked at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as part of the Epidemic Intelligence Service. Some stayed on for long careers at CDC, and others went into leadership and technical careers at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYC DOHMH), academia, and industry, and the non-profit space. Our careers have prepared us to be consummate consumers, interpreters and creators of the latest science on COVID-19 as it relates to public health, school health and workplace safety. We have directly advised and supported preK-12 schools, major universities, religious institutions, congregate settings (e.g., nursing homes), and corporate clients using evidence-informed, epidemiologically sound advice for reopening and operational plans that balance the goals and resource constraints of each organization and setting.

Leadership

Denis Nash, PhD, MPH, CEO. Denis is an infectious disease epidemiologist with over 20 years of experience and leadership in conducting epidemiologic studies. He is a Distinguished Professor of Epidemiology at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Public Health and the Executive Director of CUNY’s Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health. He also maintains Epidemiology faculty appointments at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Sarah Kulkarni, MPH, COO. Sarah has fifteen years of international and domestic research and programmatic experience in epidemiology and public health. Prior to that, she was an analyst for the U.S. Department of State. Sarah has extensive experience managing large projects and study teams conducting epidemiologic studies. She is also a seasoned manager and administrator, and serves as the Associate Director of the CUNY Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health. Sarah lives in New York with her husband and two toddler daughters.

Our technical experts

Denis Nash, PhD, MPH

Dr. Nash’s central interests include infectious diseases and the field of public health surveillance. He has worked extensively in domestic and international settings conducting large-scale, ‘real-world’ epidemiologic studies. His research is funded by the National Institutes of Health and he has published over 250 peer-reviewed scientific articles to date. Prior to joining academia, he worked in public health practice as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer with the CDC (and played a key role investigating the emergence of West Nile virus in the western hemisphere) and as the Director of HIV/AIDS Surveillance at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. He is currently the Principal Investigator of the national CHASING COVID Cohort Study and leading the CUNY-CityMD COVID Research Collaboration.

He is quoted regularly by the media as an expert on infectious disease epidemiology. For more info about Denis and his work, visit his academic home page or download his CV.

Susan Blank, MD, MPH

Dr. Blank is a medical epidemiologist and board-certified pediatrician. She is an alumna of CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, and has 30 years of experience as a career epidemiologist at CDC, much of which was based at the NYC DOHMH where she served as an Assistant Commissioner of Health and Director of the Bureau of Sexually Transmitted Infections. Dr. Blank also served as chief of the NYC DOHMH’s Incident Command during COVID-19 and has had extensive experience responding to other public health emergencies (infectious and environmental). Most recently, she assisted the DOHMH in the establishment, oversight and operation of COVID-19 vaccination centers during 2021, administering thousands of vaccines each week and resulting in COVID protection for over 10,000 individuals

Grace Sembajwe, ScD, MSc, CIH

Dr. Sembajwe is an epidemiologist and certified industrial hygienist. She has been working in clinical sciences and exposure assessment for the past 24 years. Her research interests include investigating the multi-factorial contributors to early mortality in occupational cohorts by integrating qualitative and quantitative information about the environment, physiological burden, and exposure modeling. Dr. Sembajwe brings extensive experience in occupational and environmental epidemiology having worked with varied industries. She is currently an associate professor and epidemiologist in the Department of Occupational Medicine, Epidemiology, and Prevention (OMEP), Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra University, Feinstein Institute for Medical Research at Northwell Health, where she oversees workforce serosurveillance to track long-term modifications to COVID-19 exposure due to factors in the built environment that engages over 72,000 workers. On the global front, Dr. Sembajwe is a lead reviewer for the World Health Organization (WHO) / International Labor Organization (ILO) joint methodology for estimating the burden of work-related disease and injury and through an Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) agreement, she is technical advisor to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (CDC/NIOSH) COVID-19 response. For New York State, she serves as one of four appointees (Member) to the Department of Labor’s Hazard Abatement Board. Dr. Sembajwe is also an Investigator at the CUNY Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health.

Margaret McNairy, MD, MSc

Dr. McNairy is a global health physician scientist with over 15 years experience as a front-line doctor and public health researcher. She has worked as a physician providing direct medical care to patients living with HIV, tuberculosis, cholera, malaria and COVID-19 across Africa, India Haiti and New York City. Since March 2020, she has treated COVID-19 patients who are hospitalized in New York City and has consulted for clients including preschools, K-12 schools, summer camps, and corporations in retail, manufacturing, transportation, and consumer products. She leads research on COVID-19 and cardiovascular risks, and has published extensively on how COVID-19 has affected physician wellbeing, medical education, and long-term patient outcomes. She has received numerous awards for her work and her research has been funded by the NIH, CDC, and numerous foundations. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Center for Global Health at Weill Cornell Medicine and an attending physician in New York City. Dr. McNairy is also an affiliated investigator at CUNY Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health. She lives in New York City with her husband and three children ages 4, 8 and 11.

Liz Ann Doherty, RN, MBA

Liz Ann has headed the nursing office at Packer Collegiate Institute, a 176 year old Pre K - 12 independent school in Brooklyn, N.Y., for 10 years. Her early career as a clinical nurse included positions at the National Institutes of Health and Memorial Sloan Kettering. After her clinical experience, she received an MBA from Fordham University. Thereafter, she led marketing research projects in the pharmaceutical and advertising industries before starting a marketing consulting company. Liz Ann was instrumental in designing the COVID protocols and routine testing strategy that enabled Packer to stay open for in-person learning for the 2020/21 school year. She is a member of the Operational Leadership Committee at Packer and continues to manage the testing program and formulate strategies and protocols in response to the evolving governmental guidance for NYC schools. Liz Ann and her husband raised three now adult children in Brooklyn where they continue to reside.

David L. Swerdlow, MD

Dr. Swerdlow is a medical epidemiologist and infectious disease physician, who has worked in both the pharmaceutical industry and at the CDC. He was the Global COVID Vaccine Medical Lead, Clinical Epidemiology Lead, and Business Development Lead, in the Medical Development & Scientific/Clinical Affairs team at Pfizer vaccines. There he led a diverse group of epidemiologists working on licensed and pipeline vaccines and helped develop epidemiologic projects worldwide. Before joining Pfizer, he worked at CDC for 25 years. From 2009- 2015 he was the Associate Director for Science, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) and also led the NCIRD Infectious Disease Modeling Unit. He was the CDC Ebola Response International Task Force Lead in August and September, 2014, and was Incident Manager (CDC lead) of CDC’s MERS Coronavirus Responses in 2013 and 2014. He held leadership roles during numerous CDC emergency responses including CDCs response to cholera in Haiti, Pandemic Influenza A (H1N1), Hurricane Katrina, smallpox vaccine adverse events, and the anthrax bioterrorism attacks. He spent 15 years at CDC studying foodborne diseases (Team Lead), viral and rickettsial diseases (Team Lead), and HIV/AIDS (Section Chief). He served as Co-Chair of the Pandemic Prediction and Forecasting Working Group (White House Office of Science and Technology), and has co-authored over 240 publications.

Robyn Gershon, MHS (microbiology), DrPH

Dr. Gershon is an interdisciplinary occupational and environmental health and safety researcher with extensive experience in the areas of disaster preparedness, healthcare safety, and risk assessment and management in high-risk work occupations. She is a Clinical Professor of Epidemiology at NYU, where she leads a large grant funded by NIOSH focusing on the impact of interventions to reduce the the risk of COVID-19 on NYC Transit Workers. Dr. Gershon and her team conducted numerous ground breaking studies to develop and test new metrics of preparedness. Importantly, Dr. Gershon’s work has influenced the adoption of safe work practices and regulatory control measures, such as national needlestick prevention guidelines and high-rise building fire safety laws. Her numerous research studies encompass a wide range of topics, including, (to name a few): bloodborne pathogen exposure; hospital safety climate; psychosocial work stress in law enforcement; “ability and willingness” of essential workforce employees to report to duty during natural and man-made disasters; preparedness of responders for terrorist incidents; emergency high–rise building evacuation- (including the World Trade Center Evacuation Study); emergency preparedness of the elderly and disabled; mass fatality management infrastructure in the US; adherence to emergency public health measures among the general public; hearing loss risk in subway ridership; and noise exposure in urban populations.

Julia Schillinger, MD, MSc

Dr. Schillinger is a medical epidemiologist and pediatrician. She is an alumnus of CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (meningitis and special pathogens branch), and a 28 year career epidemiologist at CDC, much of which was based at the NYC DOHMH where she oversaw surveillance and epidemiology for sexually transmitted infections. During the first wave of New York’s COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Schillinger worked closely with providers on case identification and arranging testing, and was subsequently involved in the epidemiologic investigation of multi-system inflammatory disease among children in NYC.

Thomas Merrill, JD

Thomas Merrill is a Senior Advisor to the Epidemic Intelligence team and our clients. He was General Counsel to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. He is an attorney, who for more than 20 years worked for City of New York. He was General Counsel to the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for thirteen years, serving under four different commissioners. In that role, he was at the forefront in the development and implementation of policies to improve health in New York City and advised the agency in its responses to several emergencies, including the H1N1 epidemic, Hurricane Sandy and the West African Ebola epidemic. He has lectured and spoken on public health topics throughout the world and currently is an adjunct professor at the City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy.

Andrew Tucker

Andrew Tucker is a communications and content strategist. He has nearly 20 years of experience managing crisis communications, content strategy, and community outreach for public health and government agencies, non-profit organizations, schools, health care settings, and private companies. He was the New York City Health Department’s senior communications advisor on emergency planning and response through 9/11 and anthrax attacks, a world-wide flu vaccine shortage, disease outbreaks, and the implementation of groundbreaking policies to improve workplace safety and reduce chronic disease burden.