Research Members | Trauma and Acute Care Surgery

Marc de Moya, MD

Dr. de Moya is a professor of surgery and the chief of surgery (trauma and acute care surgery). His research interests include thoracic trauma, traumatic brain injury, acute care surgery education, and resuscitation. His research methods are primarily focused on clinical outcomes in retrospective or prospective designs.

Terri deRoon-Cassini, PhD

Dr. deRoon-Cassini is a professor of surgery, psychiatry and behavioral medicine, and the Institute for Health & Humanity. She is also the executive director of the Comprehensive Injury Center. Her research interests include neurobiological (neural mechanisms, endocannabinoids) and psychosocial risk factors for the development of PTSD, implementation and outcomes of multidisciplinary integrative care for trauma patients, PTSD and depression screening and treatment, impact of socioenvironmental stress (including racism) on mental health outcomes, and health disparities following injury, particularly for gun violence survivors.

Daniel Holena, MD, MCSE

Dr. Holena is a professor of surgery and serves as director of research for the division of trauma and acute care surgery. His research interests include trauma systems, the use of audiovisual recordings to improve processes of care in trauma resuscitation, and the application of the Failure to Rescue (FTR) metric to trauma populations. His research methods primarily focus on the use of large datasets and on abstraction of video recordings in the trauma setting.

Rachel Morris, MD

Dr. Rachel Morris is an associate professor of surgery (trauma and acute care surgery) and associate director of research. My research interest is model guided decision support using machine learning. Specifically, direct applications include shared decision-making in older adults and optimization of the trauma triage process. Through mobile application invention and development, we focus on directly applying complex models to patient care. My research is currently funded through the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma.

Jacqueline Blank, MD

Dr. Blank is an assistant professor of surgery (trauma and acute care surgery) at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Her research interests include the application of whole blood administration in trauma as well as surgical education. Having trained at the Medical College of Wisconsin, including a two-year research fellowship in the division of colorectal surgery, Jacqueline is looking forward to working with and educating residents and medical students. Specifically, she is interested in intraoperative teaching between senior and junior residents, and hopes to develop a structured learning curriculum to improve and maximize on this teaching relationship.

Nathan Carlson, MD

Dr. Carlson is a fellow and is an active-duty Army Lieutenant Colonel on special assignment to the Medical College of Wisconsin in efforts to improve military and civilian hospital cooperation as well as develop military surgeon combat surgical readiness. His research interests include combat surgical readiness, combat trauma and surgical simulation.

Thomas Carver, MD

Dr. Thomas Carver is a professor of surgery (trauma and acute care surgery) at the Medical College of Wisconsin. As an acute care surgeon his clinical focus is trauma, emergency general surgery, and surgical critical care. His clinical research interests focus on thoracic trauma and the management of chest injuries, pain control following trauma and surgery, splenic injury diagnosis and management, ultrasound use in trauma, and surgical education.

Christopher Davis, MD, MPH

Dr. Christopher Davis is an associate professor of surgery (trauma and acute care surgery), chair of the Injury Prevention Committee, and associate program director of the general surgery residency program. He is state chair of the Bleeding Control Initiative of Wisconsin and in addition to having coordinated teaching Stop the Bleed to thousands of Wisconsin citizens (including entire school districts), he co-authored the 2017 Assembly Joint Resolution 111 which passed unanimously in support of Stop the Bleed. His time is balanced with trauma/emergency general surgery care, clinical and translational research, medical student and surgery resident education, advocacy, legislation, and community engagement.

Joshua Dilday, DO

Dr. Joshua Dilday is an adjunct assistant professor of surgery (trauma and acute care surgery). He is serving as an active-duty Army surgeon as part of the Army Military Civilian Trauma Team Training (AMCT3) Partnership. In addition to his clinical focus, he also works to promote system quality improvement and online education. He has additional fellowship training in hospital quality improvement and his research interests include system development and quality improvement, trauma outcomes, military surgical outcomes, and surgical education.

Christopher Dodgion, MD, MSPH, MBA

Dr. Chris Dodgion is an associate professor of surgery (trauma and acute care surgery) and serves as a Froedtert/MCW Associate Trauma Medical Director. Through global collaboration he seeks to strengthen trauma systems, expand quality improvement initiatives in low resource settings, and address the global surgical workforce shortage through education innovation. His research methods vary from geospatial mapping and analysis informing system and workforce planning to survey development/ implementation examining educational initiative impact. He is passionate about training the next generation of global and trauma surgery leaders.

Katherine Flynn-O'Brien, MD, MPH

Dr. Flynn-O'Brien is an associate professor of surgery (pediatric surgery) and trained in general surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she also obtained her Masters of Public Health in Epidemiology. She then completed her Pediatric Surgery Fellowship at Children’s Wisconsin, where she is now faculty. She is the associate trauma medical director at Children’s Wisconsin, core faculty at the Comprehensive Injury Center, and a member of the Milwaukee Trauma Outcomes Project. Her current research focuses on trends in pediatric injury, the patient and family experience after firearm injury, recidivism after violent injury, and the intersection between injury and mental and behavioral health.

Timothy Geier, PhD

Dr. Timothy Geier is an assistant professor in surgery (trauma and acute care surgery) and psychiatry and behavioral medicine. His research interests include biopsychosocial risk factors for the development of trauma-related conditions (e.g., PTSD) following traumatic injury and acute medical illness, PTSD and depression screening and treatment, impact of socioenvironmental stressors on mental health outcomes, and health disparities following injury and illness.

Katherine Iverson, MD, MPH

Dr. Katie Iverson is an assistant professor of surgery (trauma and acute care surgery). Her research interests include global surgery, violence intervention and prevention, and trauma system development in low-resource settings. She has previously worked in Ethiopia and Peru through Harvard’s Program in Global Surgery and Social Change.

Jeremy Levin, MD

Dr. Jeremy Levin is an assistant professor of surgery (trauma and acute care surgery). His interests include trauma resuscitation, trauma video review, and surgical education of residents and fellows. His research methods focus on patient outcomes in both retrospective and prospective study designs using local, regional, and national datasets.

Christina Megal, NP, DNP

Dr. Christina Megal is an assistant professor of surgery (trauma and acute care surgery). She serves in the role of clinical director and APP manager for the Wound Care Center and Ostomy Program. In addition to clinical and administrative responsibilities, research interests include the use of wound diagnostic technology, factors that impede wound healing, impact of topical therapies on wound healing, and nutrition.

Patrick Murphy, MD, MSc, MPH

Dr. Patrick Murphy is an associate professor of surgery (trauma and acute care surgery) at the Medical College of Wisconsin. His main research focus is in defining quality in emergency general surgery and developing indicators of high-quality care and better understanding work-force planning / sustainability in acute care surgery. He has interest in both qualitative and quantitative research methodology including meta-analysis and systematic reviews. He is an active participant in multicenter AAST research studies and EAST practice management guidelines.

Jacob Peschman, MD

Dr. Peschman is an associate professor of surgery (trauma and acute care surgery) and serves as the chair of Froedtert’s Trauma Education Committee and as an associate program director of the general surgery residency program. His research interests include medical education, trauma, acute care surgery and critical care system and protocol development, and management of rib fractures. His research methods primarily focus on the use of registry data and prospective observational studies of educational interventions.

Andrew Schramm, PhD

Dr. Andrew Schramm is an assistant professor of surgery (trauma and acute care surgery). He has a joint appointment in the department of psychiatry and behavioral medicine. As a clinical and community psychologist, Dr. Schramm’s research interests include factors that impact the psychological adjustment of survivors of traumatic injury. He is particularly interested in the impact of social and environmental factors on recovery such as experiences of discrimination and economic inequity. A second major focus of Dr. Schramm’s research is suicide prevention, and he currently leads two grant-funded studies on suicide prevention in trauma centers. This work includes development of practice management guidelines on suicide screening and intervention in trauma settings with the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (EAST).

Mary Schroeder, MD

Dr. Mary (Libby) Schroeder is an associate professor of surgery and serves as the associate director of global surgery and the assistant trauma medical director with a focus on resuscitation and education. Her global research interests include medical education, building research capacity and trauma systems strengthening. Her local research interests include improving longitudinal care of trauma patients, health care disparities, post-traumatic stress disorder, trauma video review, and multidisciplinary trauma simulation. Her research methods include survey-based studies, prospective observational studies, and randomized control trials.

Sydney Timmer-Murillo, PhD

Dr. Sydney Timmer-Murillo is an assistant professor of surgery (trauma and acute care surgery). As a clinical psychologist, Dr. Timmer-Murillo’s research includes examination of the individual (i.e., affect dysregulation), biological, physiological and socioecological (i.e., systemic discrimination, community violence) factors that contribute to mental health outcomes after traumatic injury, with a focus in interpersonal mechanisms of trauma. A second focus of her work includes enhancing intervention provided at trauma systems to promote comprehensive care (i.e., integrated mental health care, trauma-informed care) to reduce risk of psychopathology and enhance quality of life after trauma.

Colleen Trevino, NP, PhD

Dr. Colleen Trevino is an associate professor of surgery (trauma and acute care surgery) Her research interests involve understanding the biopsychosocial mechanisms that modulate the transformation from acute to chronic pain after traumatic injury; including investigating predictors, biomarkers, and the stress response relationship with pain. Further interests include mindfulness as an intervention to treat acute pain, comprehensive care of gun violence survivors, and emergency general surgery guideline development.

Elise Biesboer, MD

Dr. Elise Biesboer is a general surgery resident completing a two-year research fellowship in the division of trauma and acute care surgery. She intends to apply to fellowship in trauma and acute care surgery at the completion of her general surgery residency. Her research interests include comprehensive social care for firearm injury survivors, DVT prophylaxis for surgical patients, optimization of postoperative pain control regimens, and surgical process improvement using qualitative research. Her research mentors include Drs. Marc de Moya, Patrick Murphy, Mary Schroeder, and Colleen Trevino.

Abed Tannir, MD

My name is Abed Tannir, I am a medical graduate from the American University of Beirut and a current postdoctoral researcher in the division of trauma and acute care surgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin. I am passionate about surgical education, quality improvement, and providing evidence-based patient-centered care. My research focuses on thoracic trauma, optimizing venous thromboembolism chemoprophylaxis in trauma patients, reducing unnecessary surgical intervention, and predicting long-term quality of life in elderly patients with traumatic brain injury.

Carrie Herdeman, BA, CCRC

Carrie is the clinical research manager for surgery (trauma and acute care surgery). With more than 10 years of experience in implementation of multicenter interventional clinical trials, her research interests focus on addressing the critical shortage of clinical research in those populations considered most vulnerable (decisionally impaired, prisoners, pregnant women, and pediatrics), and has unique expertise in the field of Exception from Informed Consent research (21 CFR 50.24).

Margo Mantz-Wichman, BS, RN

Margo Mantz-Wichman is a clinical research nurse in surgery (trauma and acute care surgery). She received her BS in biology from the University of WI-Madison. Her foundation in healthcare and science provides translational expertise to support all phases of research. She is also a member of Milwaukee Trauma Outcomes Project which focuses on improving the mental health of those affected by trauma.

Kelley Jazinski-Chambers, BA

Kelley Jazinski-Chambers is a clinical research coordinator II in surgery (trauma and acute care surgery). Kelley received her BA in psychology from the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin and has been a part of the Milwaukee Trauma Outcome Project (MTOP) since 2017 which focuses on improving the lives of those affected by trauma through research, intervention, prevention, education, and outreach.

Ariel Berry, BS

Ariel is a clinical research assistant in surgery (trauma and acute care surgery). She focuses on investigating the relationships between socioeconomic factors, public health outcomes, and healthcare access disparities. Her aim is to leverage research insights to inform policies and interventions that promote health equity and improve healthcare access for marginalized communities.

Yara Hamadeh, BS

Yara is a clinical research assistant in surgery (trauma and acute care surgery). She graduated from Marquette University in 2022, where she double-majored in cognitive science and psychology and worked in an affective neuroscience lab (Fear, Safety, and Reward Study). She is particularly interested in psychopharmacology and how variances in drug/neurotransmitter/hormone levels can impact cognitive processes in the short- and long-term. Yara hopes to challenge and optimize how providers currently manage mental health treatment.

Isabel Johnson, BS

Isabel is a clinical research assistant in surgery (trauma and acute care surgery). She received her BS in psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, and her research interests lie at the intersection of public health and health psychology. She works closely with patients to conduct research in our comprehensive, multidisciplinary Trauma Quality of Life Clinic, which focuses on improving the health and well-being of survivors who have sustained traumatic injury due to firearm violence.

Isela G. Piña, MS

Isela is a clinical research assistant with a passion for making a difference. She is interested in learning more about intergenerational trauma, bridging the gap between clinical studies and community well-being, and early childhood trauma. Her goal is to translate research findings into actionable strategies that empower communities to thrive, overcome adversity and find innovative ways to prevent trauma and promote resilience in underserved communities.

Medical College of Wisconsin Division of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery - Research Faculty, Advanced Practice Providers, and Staff