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James Bales
is an MD/PhD student currently attending the University of Pittsburgh as a member of the Medical Scientist Training Program. He did his undergraduate education at Washington State University in Pullman, WA. In 2007, he finished the first two years of his medical degree and has transitioned into the graduate years of his program. James is doing his graduate training in the lab of Dr. C. Edward Dixon examining the molecular changes in striatal neurotransmitter systems, particularly dopamine, following traumatic brain injury and their relation to functional deficits.

Dr. Jennifer Exo
joined the Pediatric Critical Care Medicine fellowship program in July 2006, and recently selected the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research to carry out her research. Jennifer did her residency at Advocate Hope Children’s Hospital. Dr. Exo has just begun experiments—and is testing novel resuscitation strategies in a mouse model of combined traumatic brain injury and hemorrhagic shock. Currently, she is comparing polynitroxylated albumin and hypertonic saline to conventional resuscitation fluids such as hetastarch and lactated Ringers solution and is assessing both acute and long-term outcome parameters, along with markers of oxidative stress in this model, which is being mentored by Drs. Kochanek, Bayır, and Dixon, is supported by a program project grant from the United States Army.

Dr. Rosanne Salonia
is currently a fellow in the Pediatric Critical Care Medicine program at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. She did her residency training at SUNY Upstate Medical University Hospital. Dr. Salonia is interested in the area of inflicted childhood neurotrauma and the development of novel diagnostic tools for this important condition. She has recently begun research in this area working under the mentorship of Dr. Rachel Berger.

Dr. Craig Smith
joined our fellowship program in July 2005. He did his pediatric residency training at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and is currently a second year fellow in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine. Dr. Smith is working under the mentorship of Dr. Robert Clark studying the role of poly-ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) in experimental traumatic brain injury. In February 2007, Dr. Smith received the scientific award from the Society of Critical Care Medicine for his work on the effect of gender on sub-cellular localization of PARP-activation after experimental traumatic brain injury in developing rats. Dr. Smith will join our T32 training program in Pediatric Neurointensive Care and Research beginning in July 2007.