Staff Biographies

Sarah Barrett -- Mrs. Barrett is the Center Coordinator. She is a graduate of Indiana University and spent the last five years working as a recreational therapist at a rehabilitation center in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Gae Caudill -- Mrs. Caudill is a part-time data technician. She is responsible for assisting research staff in making research questionnaires scannable, programming a computerized scanner to accurately read questionnaire responses for each project, scanning large volumes of study questionnaire sets, and checking the quality/accuracy of scanned study data.  Mrs. Caudill also mails questionnaires and other study materials to research subjects, monitors and ensures prompt entry of study data by subjects in large online research projects of Dr. Whitehead's team, handles subject payments, and assists with various accounting activities.

Emilee Colella -- Ms. Colella is a second year medical student at UNC working with Miranda van Tilburg, PhD and Sandra Kim, MD as the principle investigator of a pilot study looking at the effect of home based guided imagery treatment in pediatric patients with functional abdominal pain in quiescent inflammatory bowel diseases. The study is a continuation of her summer research, funded through the Carolina Medical Student Research Program, and she has been involved in all recruitment, data collection and administrative duties of the study. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from UNC Chapel Hill in 2008 with a BS in Biology, with highest distinction, and a minor in Chemistry.

Jane Hankins, MAT -- Jane Hankins is the study coordinator for Dr. Drossman’s clinical trials group working on the Atkins and the ElectroGastrogram (EGG) studies. She also assists Kim Meyer with clinical trials.

Yuming J.B. Hu, MA, PhD -- Dr. Hu is Assistant Director of the Biometry Core and is involved with data management and analysis of Dr. Drossman’s NIH treatment trial of functional bowel disorders (FBD). His data management responsibilities also includes the UNC pilot study of functional MRI of FBD, the Center’s master database of FBD patients, the IBS patient education (PEQ) study with Boston University, the Celiac study with Columbia University, and the new 5-year combined drug and CBT treatment trial of FBD at the University of Toronto.

Lenore Keck, RN -- Ms. Keck is a Research Nurse with Dr. Whitehead’s group. She participates in all stages of clinical research studies, including study subject recruitment and screening, administering psychological and physiological tests, and data management.

Jennifer Layton -- Mrs. Layton is an administrative assistant for clinical services. She facilitates the referral and scheduling process as well as providing support and information to patients seeking treatment. She attended North Carolina State University for Agricultural Communications with a concentration in horticulture. She is a lifelong resident of North Carolina, and devotes her spare time to the rescue and rehabilitation of small exotic animals.

Laverne Millikin -- Ms. Millikin is the Administrative Support for Dr. Whitehead’s research team. Her duties include checking for messages from patients for research; checking with Dr. Whitehead on what his plans are for that day, looks for articles, updating Dr. Whitehead’s “CV”, making flight arrangements, and checking with Marsha Turner, the research coordinator, to see if there are things that need special attention on that particular day.

Carolyn Morris, MPH -- Ms. Morris is the Biostatistician for for Dr. Drossman’s research group and the Biometry Core. She has been primarily involved with performing statistical analyses on data from the seven-year multi-center NIH study of treatment in FBD, but she also assists with analyses of data sets for other Center studies.

Mary Scholz, RN, PhD -- Ms. Scholz is the full time biofeedback provider and RN in the Motility department of UNC. She came to UNC from Seattle, Washington, in September of 2009. Prior to working at UNC, she was the Director and owner of Mind Body Health PLL C, which provided biofeedback, counseling and hypnosis training to client with chronic pain, headache, and stress related disorders management. Mary holds an undergraduate degree in Nursing, a master’s degree in Behavioral Medicine and a PhD in Psychophysiology. She has taught courses on psychophysiology, pain, headache and stress related disorders in undergraduate and graduate courses. For several years she wrote a column for RN Magazine called Pain Clinic. She is on the Board of Directors for the Behavioral Research and Training Foundation, which offer courses on biofeedback and psychophysiology.