Debra A. Goff, Pharm.D., FCCP

Debra A. Goff, PharmD, FCCP, is an Infectious Disease Specialist and past Program Director of the Infectious Diseases Residency at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center (OSUWMC) in Columbus, Ohio. Dr. Goff is a founding member of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (ASP) and leads the research program for the Department of Pharmacy. Dr. Goff received her bachelor of pharmacy degree, Doctor of Pharmacy degree, and performed her Pharmacy residency at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

She is a faculty member of the ASHP National Antimicrobial Stewardship mentoring program that provides on-site mentoring to help clinicians learn how to achieve excellence in their ASP. She is also a faculty member and international advisor to the Federation of Infectious Diseases Society of South Africa (FIDSSA) educating and mentoring South African health care providers about stewardship. She is the 2014-2016 recipient of an OSU Outreach and Engagement grant to provide training and mentoring to South African pharmacists. She also is involved in the national research initiative with Making a Difference Infectious Diseases (MAD-ID).

She is actively involved in developing strategies to improve patient outcomes and control the escalating rate of antimicrobial resistance. Dr. Goff incorporates new technology to create useful tools to educate health care providers. She developed a web-based “app” for OSUWMC called STAB-IT (Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia – is terrible) to help guide clinicians on the management of patients with S. aureus bacteremia. She developed and co-authored 2 apps in the Apple & Google Store called Management of Candidemia and Management of Invasive Aspergillosis and Rare Molds in a Stewardship Era. She published an iBook for the iPad titled “Infectious Diseases: There’s an App for That” to provide a free global educational tool for stewardship programs worldwide.

She teaches a social media workshop for healthcare providers titled “How to Use Twitter for Antimicrobial Stewardship”. She is currently studying “Engaging Surgeons in Antimicrobial Stewardship Using Twitter”. She has received numerous research grants and lectures both nationally and internationally. She has published in several journals, including Clinical Infectious Diseases, Archives of Internal Medicine, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Pharmacotherapy, and othersHer research interest includes antimicrobial resistance, application of rapid diagnostic tests, clinical outcomes, and innovative ways to educate using technology. She is an active member of IDSA, ACCP, ASM, SIDP, MAD-ID and a board member of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) and MAD-ID.

Stefan Riedel, M.D., Ph.D., D(ABMM), FCAP

Dr. Riedel is the Associate Medical Director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratories at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA, and he holds the academic rank of Associate Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. From 2007 to 2016, Dr. Riedel was the Director of the Clinical Pathology Laboratories at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, with concomitant appointments as Assistant Professor of Pathology (2007-2014) and Associate Professor of Pathology (2014-2016) at The Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine. From 2015-2016, he also held a secondary appointment as Associate Professor of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He currently maintains appointments as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Pathology and Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine.

Dr. Riedel’s research is focused on the diagnosis and management of sepsis as well as emerging antimicrobial resistance in gram-negative bacteria, including Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Enterobacteriacea, and non-fermentative bacteria such as Acinetobacter and Pseudomonas. He is particularly interested in surveillance programs for antimicrobial resistance, to enhance the understanding of emergence of antimicrobial resistance as well as the development of interventions to decrease the spread of resistance.

Dr. Riedel is a member of the following professional organizations: American Society for Microbiology (ASM), College of American Pathologists (CAP), and the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP). He serves as a member of the CAP Microbiology Resource Committee, the Federal Advisory Committee on Blood and Tissue Safety and Availability (ACBTSA), and as an advisor to the National Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing Committee for the United States (USCAST). In addition, he serves as an associate editor for BMC Infectious Diseases and is member of the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology.

Dr. Riedel received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees in 1996 and 1999, respectively, from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. After initial clinical training in general and orthopaedic surgery in England, Germany, and Switzerland, he completed residency training in anatomic and clinical pathology at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, TX, and a 2-year fellowship in medical and public health microbiology at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics in Iowa City, IA. Dr. Riedel is board certified in Clinical Pathology and Medical Microbiology by the American Board of Pathology, and is a diplomate (active status) of the American Board of Medical Microbiology (ABMM).

Patricia (Trish) Simner, Ph.D., D(ABMM)

Dr. Simner is an Associate Professor of Pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Director of the Medical Bacteriology and Parasitology Laboratories at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. She completed her undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Manitoba in Manitoba, Canada and a two year Clinical Microbiology Fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.  Her research has focused on understanding the epidemiology and molecular mechanisms of resistance of Gram-negative bacteria, in particular those harboring β-lactamase enzymes. With the increasing prevalence of carbapenemase-producing organism (CPO), her focus has evolved to studying novel diagnostic methods for the detection of these clinically important pathogens and understanding their mechanisms of resistance and spread in the hospital setting.  She is well published with greater than 65 peer-reviewed manuscripts and 10 book chapters.

Dr. Simner is currently the principal investigator for a National Institute of Health (NIH) grant which seeks to understand the molecular mechanisms of antibiotic resistance and spread amongst all CPO in a region of the US endemic for CPO.  In addition, she is involved in many interdisciplinary collaborative research projects.  She is also interested in novel diagnostic tools for infectious diseases and is actively involved in validating metagenomic next-generation sequencing as a diagnostic tool.

Dr. Simner is an advisor for the Subcommittee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing for the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute, a member of the Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Taskforce for the CDC and she was recently elected as the Early Career At-Large representative for the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Council on Microbial Sciences.  She is also an Editorial Board Member for the Journal of Clinical Microbiology.

Finally, Dr. Simner was selected as the recipient of the 2018 ASM Diagnostic Young Investigators’ Award and was recognized as the 2018 Department of Microbiology Distinguished Alumna from the University of Manitoba, Canada.

James W. Snyder, Ph.D., D(ABMM), FAAM

Dr. Snyder is the Medical Director of the Clinical Microbiology and Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory at the University of Louisville Hospital, and holds the academic rank, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, at the University of Louisville School of Medicine.

He holds active memberships in the following professional organizations: American Society for Microbiology, South Central Association for Clinical Microbiology, Infectious Disease Society of America, Pan American Virology Association, Society of Surgical Infections, and The Medical Mycological Society of America.

He serves the American Society for Microbiology as its representative to the Laboratory Response Network (LRN) for Preparedness and Response to Bioterrorism and Emerging Infectious Diseases, coordinating editor of the LRN Sentinel Level Laboratory Testing Protocols, co-author of the Anthrax Sentinel Level Protocol, a member of the Laboratory Practices Committee, coordinating editor of the Clinical Microbiology Procedures Handbook, former chairman of Division C (Clinical Microbiology) of the ASM, and a reviewer for the Journal of Clinical Microbiology. He recently was selected to represent the ASM on the APHL Biosafety and Biosecurity Committee. He is a lifetime member of the South Central Association of Clinical Microbiology (SCACM) and has held several leadership positions including having been elected twice as President, and currently serves as a member of the program planning committee for the SCACM Audioconference Series. He has authored or co- authored over 60 publications, five book chapters, numerous abstracts, research posters, and presented numerous invited presentations at the regional, national, and international levels.

Dr. Snyder received his BS and MS degrees from Eastern Kentucky University, his doctorate from the University of Dayton, is board certified as a Diplomat of the American Board of Medical Microbiology, and is a Fellow in the American Academy of Microbiology.

He retired from the U.S. Army Reserves with over 43 years of service including deployment to Iraq in 2011 where he commanded the Medical Task Force in support of Operation New Dawn.