Research Team

Faculty/Principal Investigators

Manish Shah

Manish N. Shah, MD, MPH

• Professor
• Chair, BerbeeWalsh Department of Emergency Medicine

Dr. Shah developed an independently-funded research program dedicated to improving acute illness care for older adults, with a specific focus on developing and testing innovative models of care for acutely ill older adults. His goal is to prevent older adults from needing emergency department care or to develop substitutes for emergency department care. His recent work has been focused on improving the care of patients with dementia, especially using advanced technology and community health resources. Over his career, Dr. Shah has more than 175 publications and has received over $150 million in grants and contracts as principal or co-investigator.

Dr. Shah has a deep commitment to training researchers and is increasingly dedicating his efforts to developing the next generation of independent scientists. He has mentored many students, residents, fellows and faculty, including on career development awards, and until recently led the NIH-funded KL2 program at UWMadison. Many of his mentees are now successful academicians and leaders in emergency medicine and beyond.

Andrea Gilmore Bykovskyi

Andrea Gilmore-Bykovskyi, PhD, RN

• Associate Professor (Tenure)
• Associate Vice Chair of Research
• Deputy Director, UW Center for Health Disparities Research
• Co-Lead, Care Research Core, Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center

Dr. Gilmore-Bykovskyi leads an active research program focused on promoting effective, meaningful, and equitable care and research for people living with and at risk for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Her goal is to identify and effectively intervene on structural and health system barriers to optimal ADRD-specific care and patient/caregiver-centered outcomes. Much of her research has focused on addressing these priorities among vulnerable populations at high-risk points in the health and care continuum, such as during and after emergency department care and hospitalization and in advanced disease stages. Dr. Gilmore-Bykovskyi has led advances in ADRD health services research that have stewarded new areas of investigation surrounding ADRD-specific care delivery patterns and outcomes and established frameworks to advance research equity and inclusion. She has coauthored over 80 publications and led numerous NIH and foundation-funded projects. Her recent work focuses on identifying and characterizing episodes of paradoxical lucidity in people living with advanced ADRD near end of life.

Dr. Gilmore-Bykovskyi also serves as Associate Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Emergency Medicine and founding Deputy Director of the UW–Madison Center for Health Disparities Research (CHDR). She also co-leads to the National Institute on Aging (NIA) funded Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) Care Research Core. And she was honored by the NIA to co-chair the 2023 National Research Summit on Care, Services, and Supports for Persons Living with Dementia and their Care Partners/Caregivers.

Brian Patterson

Brian Patterson, MD, MPH

• Associate Professor (Tenure)
• Medical Informatics Director for Predictive Analytics and Clinical Decision Support, UW Health

Dr. Patterson’s research interests are in clinical informatics and geriatric emergency medicine. His work aims to use routinely collected clinical data to generate actionable insights to improve the quality and safety of emergency care for older adults. To achieve these goals, Dr. Patterson works in collaboration with investigators from the UW–Madison School of Business and College of Engineering, as well as in the UW Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics. His current work focuses on automated risk scoring to identify older adults at high risk for falling after ED visits, and automating referral to interventions to prevent future falls.

In his role as Medical Informatics Director for Predictive Analytics and Clinical Decision Support for UW Health, Dr. Patterson identifies ways to best use information technology to support clinical, educational, and research priorities. He advises on a range of issues, including optimizing the design, implementation, dissemination, evaluation and routine use of clinical data and information systems to improve healthcare quality, operational efficiency, educational programs, and research. Among other roles, he functions as a liaison between clinicians and health IT staff within the department and hospital, and provides input into implementation of new IT-related workflows in the department.

Michael Pulia, MD

Michael Pulia, MD, PhD

Associate Professor (Tenure)
• Director, Emergency Care for Infectious Diseases Research Program
• Director, Emergency Medicine Antimicrobial Stewardship

Dr. Pulia leads a health services research program focused primarily on improving infectious disease diagnosis, infection control, and antimicrobial stewardship in the emergency department and downstream care settings. Dr. Pulia’s research program has been supported by intra- and extramural sources, including the Wisconsin Partnership Program and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Dr. Pulia has been an invited expert speaker at national and international conferences including IDWeek, the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, and the International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine. In 2015, he was awarded the Barry M. Farr Humanitarian Award from the MRSA Survivors Network in recognition of his efforts to raise public awareness of bacterial resistance related to the overuse of antibiotics. He served a five-year term as Chair of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine’s (AAEM) Antimicrobial Stewardship Task Force. In this capacity, Dr. Pulia represented AAEM at the 2015 White House One Health Forum on Antimicrobial Stewardship and 2018 CDC Global Antimicrobial Resistance Challenge Kickoff event during the UN General Assembly. This task force was successful in raising awareness among thousands of emergency care providers about antimicrobial resistance and best practices in stewardship, culminating in the development of an antibiotic stewardship pledge for emergency care providers.

Researchers & Staff

Maria Balbach

Medical Program Assistant

Hanna Barton, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Clark Benson

Lab Manager

Chuck Broghammer

Research Intern,
Research Coordinator

Gail Campbell

Outreach Specialist

David Chen

Research Coordinator

Alison Coulson, BSN, MS, RN

Research Program Coordinator

Kayla Dillon

Research Specialist

Jess Fehland

Research Specialist

Erica Flyte

Research Program Assistant

Meggie Griffin, MS

Research Specialist

Meghan Haas, APSW, MSW

Project Assistant

Scott Hall

Research Coordinator

Dann Hekman, MS

Data Analytics Scientist

Haley Kottler

Project Assistant

Alden Laev

Research Coordinator

Jessie Libber

Research Program Administrator

Apoorva Maru

Research Specialist

Chelsea McClellan

Research Intern

Kristin Merss, BSN, RN

Project Assistant

Phoebe Natzke, MS

Research Services Manager

Bonnie Nuttkinson, MS

Research Program Coordinator

Alexis Oliver

Research Coordinator

Stephanie Ricketts, MSW

Research Program Coordinator

Morgan Schmit

Research Coordinator

Rebecca Schwei, MPH

Researcher,
EC-ID Lab Manager

Undergraduate Research Assistants

Ashley DeLaurelle

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Max Hsu

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Sarahi Garcia

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Aayush Goud

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Helena Ikenberry

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Olivia Lin

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Kevin Phalphouvong

Undergraduate Research Assistant