We are excited to announce that Susan Meier, ND, NNP, MBA, MPH has accepted the role of APP Director of Children’s Services effective April 28, 2024. Sue has served as the Advanced Practice Provider Manager in the Division of Neonatal Perinatal Medicine at UNC Children’s Hospital since 2014, responsible for recruiting, hiring, training, and developing of a team of now 35 Neonatal and Pediatric Nurse Practitioners. Congratulations Sue!

Welcome to Melissa A. Haendel, PhD, FACMI, as the Sarah Graham Kenan Distinguished Professor in the Department of Genetics. In addition to her primary appointment, she will also be appointed as professor in the Department of Pediatrics and the School of Data Science and Society.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was one of four academic medical centers on the study, which shows that an intervention program developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics can dramatically reduce injuries in young children.

As the World Health Organization pushes to eradicate the Hepatitis B virus (HBV) by 2030, preventing vertical transmission is key, says Peyton Thompson, MD, MSCR, Assistant Professor of Pediatric Infectious Diseases. But despite widespread availability of effective childhood vaccines, HBV remains endemic throughout sub-Saharan Africa, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Emily Vander Schaaf, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, has been awarded the Academic Pediatric Association Public Policy and Advocacy Developing Award for 2024. Congratulations!

We are pleased to announce the next group of fellows accepted into our UNC Carolina Child Health Scholars Program, which is our Department of Pediatrics Fellowship Physician-Scientist Training Program. This program seeks to foster the next generation of physician-scientists to improve children’s health and build up the pipeline of pediatric clinician-investigators.

Kelley Ward, MD, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Hospital Pediatrics, was published in ‘A Piece of My Mind’, the long-running JAMA series devoted to telling stories about the joys, challenges, and hidden truths of practicing medicine in the modern era. Check out the full article!

We are thrilled to welcome the following students to our Pediatrics Family as first year residents!

Catherine O’Connell, PhD was promoted to Professor of Pediatrics effective March 1, 2024. Dr. O’Connell has been a faculty member in Pediatric Infectious Diseases since 2013. Dr. O’Connell received her BA in Microbiology from Dublin University in 1987 and received her PhD in Microbiology from Dublin University in 1993. She joined us at UNC in 2013 as an Assistant Professor from the University of Arkansas Department of Pediatrics.

Emilee Lewis, MD was promoted to Associate Professor of Pediatrics effective March 1, 2024. Dr. Lewis has been a faculty member in Pediatrics since 2019. Dr. Lewis received a BS in Biology from UNC Chapel Hill in 2008 and received her medical degree from UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine in 2012. She completed her Pediatric residency at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC in 2015. Subsequently, Dr. Lewis was an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Connecticut, School of Medicine and served as a Pediatric Hospitalist at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, CT.