ATLANTIS Leadership

Administrative Core Director and U2C PI: 
Susan M. Wall, MD

Professor of Medicine, Renal Division
Emory University 

Susan M. Wall, MD, is Professor of Medicine as well as the Research Director of the Emory Renal Division and MPI of the NIDDK-funded Renal T32 Program. Her laboratory, which has made major discoveries in the regulation of blood pressure by renal intercalated cells, has had uninterrupted NIDDK-KUH funding for 27 years. She is the recipient of several research awards. Most recently, she was the American Heart Association’s 2020 Donald Seldin Lecturer. Dr. Wall has mentored 6 postdoctoral fellows, many of whom have gone on to receive their own independent funding.

Training Core Director and TL1 PI:
Vivien Sheehan, MD, PhD

Professor, Pediatrics
Director of Translational Sickle Cell Development Research
Emory University

Vivien Sheehan, MD, PhD, is Associate Professor of Hematology & Oncology in the Department of Pediatrics at Emory University. The Sheehan lab uses genomics to unravel the mechanisms of globin switching and the pharmacogenomics of hydroxyurea in SCD, in order to develop new fetal hemoglobin inducing agents to treat people with sickle cell disease. Dr. Sheehan was Director of the K award Workshop at Baylor College of Medicine for four years before moving to Atlanta in 2020.

Training Core Associate Director:
Douglas C. Eaton, PhD

Professor of Medicine, Renal Division
Emory University

Douglas C. Eaton, PhD, is an Emory Professor Emeritus of Medicine and former Chair of Physiology who has served as co-PI of the Emory Nephrology T32 from its inception (1990–2021) and co-PI of the R25 SUPERR program. He also directed the NIGMS funded IRACDA K12 Program (2005-2018) and has been crucial in the program’s sustained success. Drs. Brown and Eaton have collaborated for more than 20 years and will work closely with ATLANTIS leadership to build a robust model that promotes the professional development of all trainees that compliments the rigorous TL1 KUH research training. He will continue offering career guidance and research support to TL1 trainees as he has done through the renal T32, NIDDK R25, and IRACDA K12.

Professional Development Core Director:
Chia-shi Wang, MD

Associate Professor
Director of Clinical and Translational Research, Emory Pediatric Nephrology Division
Emory University School of Medicine 

Chia-shi Wang, MD, MSc is Associate Professor of Pediatrics and the Director of Clinical and Translational Research of the Emory Pediatric Nephrology Division. She has served as Chair of the American Society of Pediatric Nephrology (ASPN) Research Committee and co-Chair of the Pediatric Working Group in the multi-center consortium, Nephrotic Syndrome Study Network (NEPTUNE). She is a health services researcher with focus on glomerular diseases and pediatric chronic kidney disease. Dr. Wang directs the research curriculum for Emory pediatric nephrology fellows.

Training Core Associate Director, TL1 PI:
Hui Cai, MD, FASN

Professor of Medicine, Renal Division
Emory University

Hui Cai, MD, FASN, is Professor of Medicine in Renal Division in the Department of Medicine at Emory University. He is also Staff Physician and Medical Director of Hemodialysis at Atlanta VA Medical Center. He currently also serves as Chair for the Recruitment Committee of Nephrology Fellowship Program. His laboratory has been focusing on investigating the roles of WNK kinase in the regulations of Big K (BK) channel and sodium chloride cotransporter (NCC) and the novel role of BK channel in preventing renal fibrosis and cardiorenal syndrome in the setting of chronic kidney disease. He has been mentoring a number of post-doctoral fellows, graduate students and undergraduate students since he joined Emory University in 2007. 

Professional Development Core Associate Director:
Nael A. McCarty, PhD

Marcus Professor of Cystic Fibrosis
PACS Division, Department of Pediatrics
Director of Emory's Children's Cystic Fibrosis Center of Excellence
Emory University

Nael A. McCarty, PhD, is Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Emory+Children’s Cystic Fibrosis Center of Excellence. He is co-Director of the innovative CF Scholars Program that ties pre-doctoral and post-doctoral trainees from both PhD and MD tracks. He is former Director of the GDBBS, and former Director of the Atlanta Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training (BEST) Program at Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology, funded by an NIH DP7 award, which included both pre and postdoctoral trainees. For 9 years he directed the Molecules-to-Mankind (M2M) doctoral pathway within the LGS, which sought to train students at the intersection of laboratory and population-based sciences. He is a co-founder of the Atlanta Society of Mentors, which provides mentorship training to faculty. Dr. McCarty’s research focuses on epithelial ion channels.

Network Core Director:
Stacy S. Heilman, PhD

Associate Professor
Vice Chair for Research Operations
Emory Department of Pediatrics and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta

Stacy Heilman, PhD, is Associate Professor and the Associate Vice Chair for Research in the Emory Department of Pediatrics. As a trained PhD basic scientist, scientific administrator and educator, she brings a track record of connecting trainees and faculty with vital research resources including facilitating fruitful collaborations, creating and overseeing scientific cores, and directing research education programs. She serves as Director of the monthly K-Club career development symposium and also has formal ties to pediatric resident and fellow research through co-direction of a residency research track and a research course for clinical postdoctoral. Promoting professional and inter-institutional networking is a centerpiece of Dr. Heilman’s role in the organization and thus is easily and naturally transferable to the ATLANTIS framework. She will hold primary responsibility for planning and executing the Network Core face-to-face events and will serve as the key driver for PhD pre and postdoctoral outreach and recruitment into ATLANTIS programming and training.

Site PI, Georgia Institute of Technology:
Melissa Kemp, Ph.D.

Carol Ann & David D. Flanagan Professor
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering 
Georgia Institute of Technology & Emory University

Melissa Lambeth Kemp received her BS in Nuclear Engineering from MIT and her PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Washington. Dr. Kemp joined the faculty at Georgia Institute of Technology in 2006 after completing postdoctoral training at MIT. Her expertise is in computational modeling of metabolism and signal transduction.

Dr. Kemp currently serves as the Research Director of the multi-site NSF Engineering Research Center “Cell Manufacturing Technologies”. In her former role as Associate Director of the NSF Science and Technology Center “Emergent Behavior of Integrated Cellular Systems”, she spearheaded the multi-site center’s computational activities. Dr. Kemp’s career honors include a Whitaker Graduate Fellowship, Merck/CSBi postdoctoral fellowship, Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholar, NIH New Innovator Award, and the CSB2 Prize for Innovative Measurement Methods from the Council for Systems Biology in Boston.

Site PI, Morehouse School of Medicine:
Gianluca Tosini, PhD, FARVO

Mikayla Zachos, MA

Emory University

Marco Aguilar, BS

Emory University

Michael J. Ross, MD, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

_{Dr. Michael Ross earned his MD from NYU in 1995. He completed his internal medicine training at Duke University, followed by a nephrology fellowship at Mount Sinai, which he finished in 2001. Dr. Ross joined the faculty in the Division of Nephrology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2001 and served as the Nephrology Fellowship Program Director from 2004 to 2015. He assumed the role of Chief of Nephrology at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center from 2014 to 2017, during which he played a key role in establishing the only VA Kidney Transplant Program in the northeastern US. In 2017, Dr. Ross became the Chief of the Division of Nephrology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, where he currently holds the position of Chief of Nephrology and Professor of Medicine and Developmental and Molecular Biology.}

_{Dr. Ross has held several national/international leadership positions, including Chair of the ASN Fellowship Match Taskforce and Deputy Editor of Kidney International from 2012 to 2017. He currently serves as the Nephrology Section Editor of the American College of Physicians Medical Knowledge and Self-Assessment Program (MKSAP). Additionally, Dr. Ross recently assumed the role of contact PI for the NIH-funded New York Consortium for Interdisciplinary Training in Kidney, Urological, & Hematological Research.}

Gregory E. Tasian, MD, MSc, MSCE, University of Pennsylvania

_{Dr. Tasian holds a tenured position as Associate Professor of Surgery and Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. His research is centered at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), where he practices as a pediatric urologist specializing in the surgical and medical management of children with kidney stone disease. Dr. Tasian obtained his MD from Baylor College of Medicine, an MSc in Neuroscience from the University of Oxford, and an MS in Clinical Epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his urology residency at UCSF and a pediatric urology fellowship at CHOP.}

_{The primary focus of Greg’s career is to generate and apply knowledge to improve health outcomes of individuals with kidney stone disease. He serves as the Director of the 30-site PCORI-funded Pediatric KIDney Stone (PKIDS) Care Improvement Network, a multi-PI in the Urinary Stone Disease Research Network (USDRN), and Director of the Center for Outcomes Research in Surgery (CORES) at CHOP.}

 James Zimring, MD, PhD, University of Virginia

_{Dr. Zimring holds a PhD in immunology and an MD, both obtained from Emory University. He is board-certified in Clinical Pathology, a diplomate of the American Board of Pathology, and an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation. Dr. Zimring has previously held professorships at Emory University and the University of Washington. Currently, he occupies the Thomas W. Tillack chair in experimental pathology at the University of Virginia. For over 20 years, Dr. Zimring has maintained an NIH-funded laboratory, publishing over 185 research articles, and focusing his research on transfusion medicine and blood-related diseases. He also teaches graduate-level coursework in critical thinking in the practice of science and has authored two books: "What Science Is and How It Really Works" (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and "Partial Truths: How Fractions Distort Our Thinking" (Columbia University Press, 2022).}