Dr. Hermsen is the Lead for Global Antimicrobial Resistance & Antimicrobial Stewardship Medical Affairs at Pfizer and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Colleges of Pharmacy and Medicine, in Omaha, Nebraska. Dr. Hermsen received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Nebraska Medical Center followed by a pharmacy practice residency at The Nebraska Medical Center, a fellowship in Infectious Diseases Research at the University of Minnesota, College of Pharmacy, and a master’s degree in business administration at the University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management. Following her fellowship, Dr. Hermsen developed and co-directed the antimicrobial stewardship program at The Nebraska Medical Center and then joined Cubist, where she held medical affairs and outcomes research roles and created and led the Antimicrobial Stewardship Outreach Group. Subsequently, Dr. Hermsen transitioned to Merck & Co., Inc. (known as MSD outside the US and Canada), where she was a Global Health Equity Director, responsible for integrating health equity across the enterprise and supporting efforts to improve equitable outcomes, primarily focused on vaccination equity, and the Head of Global Antimicrobial Stewardship, responsible for creating and executing a global strategy to advance antimicrobial stewardship through education, implementation, research, and advocacy, across human, animal, and environmental health. Now, in her role at Pfizer, she is responsible for leading the development and implementation of the antimicrobial stewardship medical strategy.
Dr. Hermsen is a Fellow of the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists (SIDP) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). She currently serves on the SIDP Policy & Government Affairs Committee, the IDSA Leadership Development Committee, the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Antimicrobial Stewardship Project at the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy, and the Forum on Microbial Threats through the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM); and she Co-Chairs the Appropriate Use Working Group of the AMR Industry Alliance. She has contributed to the profession with numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, and by serving as a reviewer for several professional journals. Dr. Hermsen has given over 100 invited presentations at state, regional, national, and international meetings, and she gave a TED talk regarding antimicrobial resistance and stewardship at TEDx Omaha 2019.
Katherine Perez is a pharmacist and infectious diseases expert who leads the antimicrobial surveillance efforts at Pfizer. She oversees the Antimicrobial Testing Leadership And Surveillance (ATLAS) program and dissemination of data on emerging AMR trends globally.
Dr. Perez developed and co-directed the antimicrobial stewardship program at Houston Methodist Hospital System and then joined Biomerieux as a Director of Antimicrobial Stewardship where she worked with clinical laboratories to integrate diagnostics into antimicrobial stewardship initiatives. Now, in her role at Pfizer, she is responsible for leading AMR surveillance and integrating the impact of vaccines with real-world evidence generation.
Katherine holds a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Texas in Austin, Texas and completed her postgraduate training in infectious diseases pharmacy at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas and Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas and pharmacoepidemiology at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. Dr. Perez is board certified in pharmacotherapy and infectious diseases pharmacy. She has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on topics such as antimicrobial resistance, antimicrobial and diagnostic stewardship, and vaccine-preventable infections.
Dr. Alisa Serio is Executive Director of Microbiology and Nonclinical Development at Paratek Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and has previously held positions in microbiology at Achaogen, Inc. Dr. Serio has over a decade of experience in antibacterial research and development, with a specific focus on combating antimicrobial resistance (AMR). She has contributed to the FDA approval and commercial launch of new antibiotics designed to evade AMR and lead research activities under several United States government partnerships including Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). She received her PhD in molecular biology and microbiology from Tufts University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and American Heart Association (AHA). Dr. Serio is a long-standing member of the American Society of Microbiology, Infectious Disease Society of America, and the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.
Dr. Srinivasan is the Deputy Director for Program Improvement in the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Before coming to CDC he was as Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Infectious Diseases Division at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where he was the founding director of the Johns Hopkins Antibiotic Management Program and the associate hospital epidemiologist. His primary responsibilities include oversight and coordination of efforts to eliminate healthcare associated infections and reduce antimicrobial resistance. His research and investigative areas of concentration include outbreak investigations, infection control, multi-drug resistant gram negative pathogens and antimicrobial use. Dr. Srinivasan has published more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals on his research in healthcare epidemiology, infection control and antimicrobial use and resistance. He continues to attend clinically on the infectious diseases consultation service at the Atlanta Veteran’s Affairs hospital.
Before joining Vivli, Swapna was the Staff QA automation Engineer at Ripple Science, where she led the automation of Quality proofing the developed/enhanced code resulting in saving of hours of testing. Before Ripple science, Swapna was with NDS (now Cisco) and Tata Elxsi systems in the area of software development.
Swapna holds a Masters degree in computer science from Bellevue University Nebraska.
Azusa joined the Vivli team in 2022 as a Senior Advisor. Azusa will be focusing on clinical data sharing and outreach in Japan. Before joining Vivli, she has nearly 15 years’ experience as leader for the Biostatistics & Programming Department at Sanofi in Tokyo. She holds a degree in algebraic geometry from Tokyo Woman’s Christian University.
Dr. Midega is a Senior Research Manager for Wellcome’s Drug Resistant Infections (DRI) program where she is providing scientific leadership, program development and management support to the surveillance and epidemiology program on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). At Wellcome, she led the recently published work on the burden of AMR and continues to lead science and policy research which aims at evaluating how legislative changes banning antibiotic use in animal meat production can reduce the potential transfer of resistant pathogens between animals and humans; and a surveillance program on the development of a comprehensive data capture system for patient-centered AMR surveillance in low- and middle-income countries. In line with the DRI programs interest in accelerating the development of new antibiotics, Janet worked closely with CARB-x based at Boston University, USA in 2018/19, as part of Wellcome’s role as an accelerator and support for companies joining CARBx. Prior to joining Wellcome, Janet was a scientist at Imperial College and the University of Oxford, Big Data Institute; in collaboration with the KEMRI- Wellcome Trust Research Program where she worked for over 10 years conducting academic research on the genomic epidemiology of malaria. Janet is also a Senior Fellow in Public Health at the Aspen Institute, Washington DC, USA.
Dr. Gemma Buckland-Merrett has a PhD in Immunology, an MSc in Global Health and Development and an MSc in Controlling Infectious Diseases. She has spent the last fifteen years working in multi-disciplinary research roles across academic and NGO sectors, bridging the gap between science and policy. Her work has spanned epidemiology, public health and access to medicines research with a particular focus on preventing and controlling infectious diseases and AMR. Prior to joining Wellcome Trust, Gemma was an epidemiologist at Public Health England working on travel-associated infections. She also spent three years working in Africa focusing on evidence-based interventions design to improve access to medicines. Gemma now oversees and leads the DRI work at Wellcome Trust.
Dr. Kajumbula is a Clinical Pathologist specializing in Medical Microbiology since 1998. His area of interest and Research is antimicrobial resistance notably the mechanisms of resistance, molecular approaches to rapid detection resistant infections as well as infection prevention and control. In recognition of his leadership role in the control of antimicrobial resistance in Uganda, Dr Kajumbula was nominated to chair the country’s Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Committee, a position he still holds. To this end, he has coordinated development of the Countries National Action Plan against antimicrobial resistance as well as a national surveillance plan for antimicrobial resistance.
Trudie Lang is Professor of Global Health Research; Head of the Global Health Network and Senior Research Scientist in Tropical Medicine, Nuffield Department of Medicine. She has over 20 years’ experience in running clinical trials, including trials in the developing world, for the pharmaceutical industry, the World Health Organisation and in academia.
Trudie focuses on combating diseases of poverty through the generation of high-quality evidence. She has worked in industry, academia and UN organisations. With her team and partners, she works to drive better health outcomes in vulnerable communities by enabling local leadership and ground-up implementation of high-quality health research studies.
Within the University of Oxford, she devised and leads The Global Health Network which is a major international collaborative enterprise that sets out to improve health by improving research.
