BU-CHART Trainees

Carolina Geadas, MD

Carolina Geadas received her medical degree from the University of Lisbon School of Medicine in Portugal, where she is originally from. She first moved to Boston to pursue her research interest in tuberculosis (TB). Working with researchers at Harvard Medical School, she looked into the mechanisms of cellular destruction in TB infection. Later, at Boston University, she researched the dynamics of household transmission of TB and the biomarkers predictive of progression from latent infection to active disease.

She completed her Internal Medicine residency at Boston Medical Center, and is currently an Infectious Diseases fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Throughout her clinical training she had the opportunity to work abroad in Mozambique, Mexico and Kenya. From these experiences she developed an appreciation for the challenges faced by patients and the cultural nuances impacting the success of health policies and interventions around TB control. She is interested in population health and implementation science focusing on community-based interventions to improve the TB cascade of care in low-resource settings. As a BU-CHART fellow, she will be working with mentors at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boston University focusing on understanding the barriers and facilitators to TB diagnosis in Lima, Peru, and identifying patient preferences to inform the implementation of interventions.

Outside of work, Carolina enjoys going on road trips, hiking and swimming with her husband and friends.

Mentors

Courtney Yuen, PhD –  Assistant Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Associate Epidemiologist in the Division of Global Health Equity, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Mercedes Becerra, ScDProfessor of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School

C. Robert Horsburgh Jr, MD – Professor of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health

Selected Publications

Freiman JM, Fatch R, Cheng D, Emenyonu N, Ngabirano C, Geadas C, Adong J, Muyindike WR, Linas BP, Jacobson KR, Hahn JA. Prevalence of elevated liver transaminases and their relationship with alcohol use in people living with HIV on anti-retroviral therapy in Uganda. PLoS One. 2021 Jun 1;16(6):e0250368. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250368. PMID: 34061870; PMCID: PMC8168875.

Geadas C, Acuna-Villaorduna C, Mercier G, Kleinman MB, Horsburgh CR Jr, Ellner JJ, Jacobson KR. FDG-PET/CT activity leads to the diagnosis of unsuspected TB: a retrospective study. BMC Res Notes. 2018 Jul 13;11(1):464. doi: 10.1186/s13104-018-3564-6. PMID: 30001743; PMCID: PMC6044021.

Michelet X, Tuli A, Gan H, Geadas C, Sharma M, Remold HG, Brenner MB. Lysosome-Mediated Plasma Membrane Repair Is Dependent on the Small GTPase Arl8b and Determines Cell Death Type in Mycobacterium tuberculosis Infection. J Immunol. 2018 May 1;200(9):3160-3169. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.1700829. Epub 2018 Mar 28. PMID: 29592961; PMCID: PMC5995332.

Acuña-Villaorduña C, Jones-López EC, Fregona G, Marques-Rodrigues P, Gaeddert M, Geadas C, Hadad DJ, White LF, Pereira Dutra Molina L, Vinhas S, Ribeiro-Rodrigues R, Salgame P, Palaci M, Alland D, Ellner JJ, Dietze R. Intensity of exposure to pulmonary tuberculosis determines risk of tuberculosis infection and disease. Eur Respir J. 2018 Jan 18;51(1):1701578. doi: 10.1183/13993003.01578-2017. PMID: 29348181; PMCID: PMC6719538.

Geadas C, Stoszek SK, Sherman D, Andrade BB, Srinivasan S, Hamilton CD, Ellner J. Advances in basic and translational tuberculosis research: Proceedings of the first meeting of RePORT international. Tuberculosis (Edinb). 2017 Jan;102:55-67. doi: 10.1016/j.tube.2016.11.006. Epub 2016 Nov 27. PMID: 28061953; PMCID: PMC9067314.

Katherine Reifler, MD

Katherine Reifler received her medical degree from University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago and her undergraduate degree from Harvard University. During medical school she worked abroad in Kenya on emergency care systems and screening for HIV in the emergency care setting. Prior to medical school, she worked on public health projects in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and Peru. These experiences, as well as her experience working at safety-net hospitals in Chicago and Boston, sparked her interest in tropical infectious disease, migrant health, and global and domestic inequities in access to care.

She completed internal medicine residency and infectious disease fellowship at Boston University/Boston Medical Center. While completing her residency and fellowship training, she began working on research related to Chagas disease in migrants and educational efforts to promote awareness of Chagas disease amongst clinicians. The pandemic put the Chagas research on hold; meanwhile she contributed to COVID-19 research. She is now returning to migrant health and tropical infectious disease.

As a BU-CHART Trainee and Research Fellow, she will continue working on Chagas disease research domestically in Boston under the mentorship of Dr. David Hamer and Dr. Daniel Bourque, as well as in Bolivia under the research mentorship of Dr. Robert Gilman and Dr. Deborah Cotton. In Bolivia, she plans to conduct a study that compares features of cardiomyopathy in patients with T. cruzi and HIV coinfection compared to mono-infection. She is also involved in a collaborative effort with members of the department of Hematology/Oncology to examine infectious screening (with a focus on latent tuberculosis and strongyloidiasis) in high-risk patients prior to cancer treatment.

Mentors

David Hamer, MD— Professor of Global Health and Medicine, Boston University School of Public Health and Chobanian and Avesidian School of Medicine

Daniel Bourque, MD— Assistant Professor of Medicine, Boston University Chobanian and Avesidian School of Medicine

Robert Gilman, MD—Professor of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Professor of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Deborah Cotton, MD, MPH—Professor of Medicine, Boston University Chobanian and Avesidian School of Medicine and Professor of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health

Selected Publications

Reifler, K, Kytomaa, S, Miller, N, Bourque, D. “Plasmodium species reactivation in the setting of COVID-19 infection.” Ann of Intern Med Case Reports. 2023 May 2; 2(5). DOI: 10.7326/aimcc.2022.1034.

Sinha P, Reifler K, Rossi M, Sagar M. Coronavirus Disease 2019 Mitigation Strategies Were Associated With Decreases in Other Respiratory Virus Infections. Open Forum Infect Dis. 2021 Mar 20;8(6):ofab105. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofab105. PMID: 34514014; PMCID: PMC8083776.

Sagar M, Reifler K, Rossi M, Miller NS, Sinha P, White LF, Mizgerd JP. Recent endemic coronavirus infection is associated with less-severe COVID-19. J Clin Invest. 2021 Jan 4;131(1):e143380. doi: 10.1172/JCI143380. PMID: 32997649; PMCID: PMC7773342.

Rachel Yorlets, PhD, MPH

Rachel Yorlets earned her PhD in Epidemiology from the Brown University School of Public Health. Prior to her doctoral training, she earned her MPH in Epidemiology with a focus on infectious diseases from the Boston University School of Public Health. She then collaborated on health disparities research for several years with clinician-researchers in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Across her work, Rachel has focused on understanding who gets health care, who doesn’t, and why. In her PhD dissertation, she evaluated the relationship between circular migration and HIV care engagement among adults in northeastern South Africa, where she also led fieldwork. In her BU-CHART fellowship, she will grow her research agenda to evaluate the effectiveness of HIV care that people use. Specifically, she will expand on her dissertation finding that, in one cohort in South Africa, a high proportion of adults living with HIV died within six months of starting ART. She plans to evaluate relationships between South African HIV policies and care uptake.

Outside of research and teaching activities, Rachel enjoys the Rhode Island beaches, Del’s, tennis, and reading medical non-fiction with her rescue cat.

Mentors

Matthew Fox, DSc MPH – Professor, Departments of Epidemiology and Global Health, Boston University School of Public Health

Jacob Bor, ScD, ScM – Assistant Professor, Departments of Epidemiology and Global Health, Boston University School of Public Health

Frank Tanser, PhD, MSc, MSc – Professor, Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation, Stellenbosch University; Senior Faculty, Africa Health Research Institute

Selected Publications

    Yorlets RR, Lurie MN, Ginsburg C, Hogan JW, Joyce NR, Harawa S, Collinson MA, Gómez-Olivé FX, White MJ. Validity of Self-Report for Ascertaining HIV Status Among Circular Migrants and Permanent Residents in South Africa: A Cross-Sectional, Population-Based Analysis. AIDS Behav. 2023 Mar;27(3):919-927. doi: 10.1007/s10461-022-03828-w. Epub 2022 Sep 16. Erratum in: AIDS Behav. 2022 Nov 10;: PMID: 36112260; PMCID: PMC9974592.

    Yorlets RR, Iverson KR, Leslie HH, Gage AD, Roder-DeWan S, Nsona H, Shrime MG. Latent class analysis of the social determinants of health-seeking behaviour for delivery among pregnant women in Malawi. BMJ Glob Health. 2019 Mar 30;4(2):e000930. doi: 10.1136/bmjgh-2018-000930. PMID: 30997159; PMCID: PMC6441245.

    Shrime MG, Iverson KR, Yorlets R, Roder-DeWan S, Gage AD, Leslie H, Malata A. Predicted effect of regionalised delivery care on neonatal mortality, utilisation, financial risk, and patient utility in Malawi: an agent-based modelling analysis. Lancet Glob Health. 2019 Jul;7(7):e932-e939. doi: 10.1016/S2214-109X(19)30170-6. PMID: 31200892; PMCID: PMC6581692.

    Raykar NP, Yorlets RR, Liu C, Goldman R, Greenberg SLM, Kotagal M, Farmer PE, Meara JG, Roy N, Gillies RD. The How Project: understanding contextual challenges to global surgical care provision in low-resource settings. BMJ Glob Health. 2016 Dec 16;1(4):e000075. doi: 10.1136/bmjgh-2016-000075. PMID: 28588976; PMCID: PMC5321373.