About Us

The following are brief biographies of the nine persons selected in the first year of this award. As you can see, they represent broad disciplinary diversity and bring impressive and relevant training and experience to the CASE/Cleveland Clinic MCRTP.

Jeffrey A. Claridge, M.D. received his BS with high honors in Biology from Rochester Institute of Technology and his MD with honors from the University of Rochester. He completed his residency in General Surgery at the University of Virginia and a Trauma/Critical Care Fellowship at
the University of Tennessee at Memphis. Dr. Claridge has received numerous honors including the multiple teaching awards while at the University of Virginia and a two year National Research Service Award during his surgical residency. His career goals are to become a leader in the field of Trauma/Critical Care and General Surgery as well as to contribute to improving evidence based guidelines specific to trauma, critical, and general surgery. Dr. Claridge’s current projects deal with utilizing medical informatics to improve the diagnosis and outcomes of infectious complications in the intensive care unit and improving long-term outcomes after trauma injury. Dr. Claridge joined MetroHealth Medical Center Department of Surgery in the Division of Trauma, Burns, and Critical Care in July 2005. He is also an Assistant Professor at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and recently completed his Masters Degree in Clinical Investigation.  Dr. Claridge has been funded by the NIH as part of the NIH roadmap initiative as a KL2 scholar for the past 4 years.  He was awarded the young investigator’s grant/award from the Surgical Infection Society for his developing the Surgical Intensive Care – Infection Registry (SIC-IR©).  Dr. Claridge is the Director of Research for the Division of Trauma, Burns, and Surgical Critical Care and oversees the research activities of the division and continually mentors residents and students. 

Mary Dolansky, R.N., Ph.D. Dr. Dolansky received her BSN and MSN from Kent State University and completed her PhD in nursing from Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing in 2001. She received the Marie Haug Award for excellence in aging studies and the Ruth Barber Moon award. Dr. Dolansky completed a two year post-doctoral Fellowship from the Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity John A. Hartford Foundation in 2003. During this post-doctoral experience, she completed a research study that examined long-term disability and rehabilitation services used by older adults following cardiac events. Dr. Dolansky’s career goal is to conduct interdisciplinary research to reduce older adults’ disability and improve recovery following cardiac events. Current research during the MCRTP includes the examination of older adults' discharge destination following cardiac events using the CMS MedPAR database; retrospective medical record review on the need for cardiac rehabilitation services delivered during skilled nursing care; focus group interviews on the cardiac care delivered to older adults during skilled nursing care; and a pilot intervention to determine the safety and feasibility of a cardiac rehabilitation intervention delivered during skilled nursing care. Dr. Dolansky is an Assistant Professor at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University.

Marni J. Falk, M.D. As part of a seven-year combined BA/MD program, Dr. Falk graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Biology from the George Washington University, followed by an MD from the George Washington University School of Medicine. She completed the five-year Combined Residency Program in Medical Genetics and Pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University, as part of the Department of Genetics at University Hospitals of Cleveland and the Department of Pediatrics at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital. Dr. Falk also spent two summers as an intern in the NIH Department of Transfusion Medicine as part of the NIH Summer Research Program. She is the recipient of several honors, including the David W. Smith 25th Workshop on Malformations and Morphogenesis Fellows Award in 2004. Dr. Falk focuses her work on genetic studies of mitochondrial disorders both by using laboratory based studies to develop an informative model system for the development of assays and through developing family pedigrees of affected children. Dr. Falk was an Instructor in the Department of Genetics at CASE before relocating to The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (UPENN) where she is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Human Genetics.

Sangeeta Kashyap, M.D. Dr. Kashyap completed her medical degree at the University of California at Irvine, and her residency in Internal Medicine at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston. She then completed a clinical fellowship in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at the Greater Los Angeles VA Medical Center/UCLA and subsequently a post-graduate research fellowship (supported by NIH National Research Service Award) in Diabetes at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Her research interests include insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and the metabolic syndrome. Her project as a Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Scholar is to evaluate clinical efficacy and mechanisms of diabetes reversal following gastric bypass and gastric restrictive surgery in obese patients with type 2 diabetes. Dr. Kashyap is a Staff physician in the Department of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at Cleveland Clinic and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. Dr. Kashyap is currently collaborating with her genetic epidemiology colleague in the KL2, Dr. Catherine Stein, on genetic and metabolic markers of inflammation in obese individuals.

Jayme Knutson, Ph.D. Dr. Knutson received his BS, MS, and PhD in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve University. His graduate work with the Cleveland Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) Center focused on the design and testing of methods for tetraplegic patients to operate an implanted hand neuroprosthesis. After completing his Ph.D., he received a VA Associate Investigator Award and began developing FES interventions for stroke survivors.  In 2005, Dr. Knutson was selected as a Clinical Research Scholar with the Case/Cleveland Clinic Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Training Program (NIH K12 award).  As a Clinical Research Scholar, he is developing novel rehabilitation techniques for mitigating post-stroke paralysis, and specializes in the development and testing of electrical stimulation devices for restoring motor control. During his tenure as a Clinical Research Scholar he has been awarded 3 NIH R21 grants and 1 NIH R01 grant as principal investigator to conduct studies of novel interventions for improving hand function and ankle movement in stroke survivors. Dr. Knutson is a Principal Investigator with the Cleveland FES Center and a Researcher in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University.

Steve Landers, M.D., M.P.H. received his BA in Political Science from Indiana University, a Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health and his MD from CASE School of Medicine. He completed his residency in Family Medicine at the CASE/University Hospitals of Cleveland Accelerated Family Medicine Residency Program. Dr. Landers is currently working with several senior investigators to develop an epidemiological study of physician home visits and the homebound elderly. His research tests a new model of comprehensive home care for the frail elderly. Dr. Landers is an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine at CASE School of Medicine.

Ruth Ann Marrie, M.D. received her BS in Chemistry with Distinction from Dalhousie University, her MD with Distinction from the Dalhousie Medical School and an MS in Epidemiology from Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Marrie completed a Neurology Residency at McGill University and a Neuroimmunology Fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic. She has received numerous honors including the Sylvia Lawry Physician Fellowship Award (National Multiple Sclerosis Society USA) and the Potiker Fellowship from the Mellen Center for Multiple Sclerosis Treatment and Research. Dr. Marrie is evaluating the impact of comorbidity on disability and health status in multiple sclerosis using the NARCOMS Registry, a large self-report database. She is collaborating on research projects studying genetic and environmental risk factors for MS, novel neuroimaging techniques for MS, and others.  Dr. Marrie received her PhD in Epidemiology through the MCRTP in August 2007 and is now the Director of the Multiple Sclerosis Clinic, Health Sciences Centre and Assistant Professor of Medicine and Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba.

Mehdi Shishehbor, D.O., M.P.H. Dr. Shishehbor received his BA in Chemistry from Florida International University, his DO in Medicine from Nova Southeastern University and an MPH from Northeast Ohio Universities College of Medicine. Dr. Shishehbor has published over 40 articles that have appeared in journals such as JAMA, NEJM, JACC, and Circulation. His research interest involves outcome studies in peripheral and interventional cardiology. Additionally, he has studied the role of contextual factors on cardiovascular physiology and health. He is currently completing his Doctor of Philosophy in Epidemiology at CWRU. Dr. Shishehbor is a staff interventional and peripheral cardiologist in the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic.

Catherine Stein, Ph.D. Dr. Stein received her BS in Biology with honors from John Carroll University and her PhD in Genetic Epidemiology from CWRU. Dr. Stein’s dissertation examined genetic susceptibility to tuberculosis in Uganda. She has also examined the genetics of speech-sound disorder and other cognitive disorders. She has had her work published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, Human Heredity, and the Journal of Infectious Disease. As a Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Scholar, Dr. Stein continues her studies of TB genetics in Uganda, and has initiated collaborative studies of genetics of other infectious diseases such as HIV. In addition, she has started developing multivariate statistical methods for gene mapping, which will ultimately be used to examine gene x environment interaction in infectious diseases.  Dr. Stein has also started a collaboration with Dr. Sangeeta Kashyap (KL2 Scholar) to study genetic influences on metabolism and inflammation, and another collaboration with Dr. Desiree LaBeaud  (KL2 Scholar) to study genetic influences on Rift Valley Fever Virus.  Dr. Stein is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the CWRU School of Medicine and Leader of the Genetics Working Group for the Tuberculosis Research Unit international project.  Recently, Dr. Stein's R01 NIH grant application scored very well and will likely be funded for 5 years; this project will continue her examination of TB pathogenesis by examining genetic and immunologic influences using multivariate statistical methods that she and her student have developed.