Contributors

Emre Sezgin, PhD, is a digital health scientist (IT project scientist) at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

Vanessa Shanks, MD, is a neonatologist who is originally from Baltimore, Maryland where she completed medical school at University of Maryland. She completed a combined residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics here in Columbus before moving back to the east coast for Neonatology fellowship at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. She is currently a certified lactation counselor and neonatologist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Wexner Medical Center at The Ohio State University, as well as the Medical Director for Lactation Services at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Her special interest is in providing parental support throughout all phases of lactation.

Emily Siebenmorgen is a Science Communication Specialist at Nationwide Children's Hospital with a passion for making research findings accessible. From her time writing at Battelle and AWRI's Center for Injury Research and Policy, she has experience distilling complex topics into simple takeaways for both professional and consumer audiences. Emily earned her BS in Psychology and BA in Strategic Communication from The Ohio State University.

Jonathan L. Slaughter, MD, MPH, is a neonatologist and principal investigator in the Center for Perinatal Research within The Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital and an associate professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University. Dr. Slaughter's ultimate goal is to improve outcomes important to neonatal patients and their families through research that leads directly to improvements in neonatal clinical care. His patient-centered research program focuses on comparative effectiveness research to determine which treatments work best for neonatal patients given specific clinical circumstances and patient characteristics.

Jen Smith, MS, RD, CSP, LD, LMT, is a Clinical Dietitian at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. She has been working at Nationwide Children’s Hospital with an emphasis in Gastroenterology since 2003. She is a board certified specialist in Pediatric Nutrition. In 2009, she was awarded Ohio Dietetic Association’s Recognized Young Dietitian of the Year. She is an active member and has been involved with speaking engagements for many organizations, including the Academy for Nutrition and Dietetics and the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America. She is an active participant in ImproveCareNow, a quality improvement collaborative dedicated to improving care for pediatric inflammatory bowel disease. In addition to working as a dietitian, Jen is also a Licensed Massage Therapist at Nationwide Children's Hospital.

Tyanna Snider, Psy.D. is a psychologist in the Pediatric Psychology Program at Nationwide Children's Hospital and Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. She is the team psychologist for the Center for Healthy Weight and Nutrition including the Bariatric Surgery Program; provides consultation/liaison services for the General Medical service; and provides outpatient therapy and evaluation.

Dr. Snider's research focuses on the treatment and psychosocial functioning of children and adolescents who are identified as overweight and obese.

Juan F. Sotos, MD, has been a practicing pediatric endocrinologist for over 50 years.He will be retiring in 2015 after many significant contributions to the field, including the characterization of Sotos Syndrome.

Mark Splaingard, MD, is the director of the Sleep Disorders Program at Nationwide Children's Hospital and is board certified in pediatrics, pediatric pulmonology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and sleep medicine. Dr. Splaingard's research has concentrated on the outcomes of children with chronic pulmonary disease and acquired neurological disorders with a recent focus on sleep disorders in children.

Madison Storm is the Senior Strategist of Research Communications at Nationwide Children's Hospital. She earned her bachelor's in multimedia journalism from Virginia Tech in 2021 and went on to achieve her master's in health communication from Johns Hopkins University in 2023. Her passion for transforming the complex to clear is supported by various experiences writing for consumer audiences.

David Stukus, MD, is a professor of Clinical Pediatrics in the Division of Allergy and Immunology. Prior to becoming the director of the Food Allergy Treatment Center, Dr. Stukus started the Complex Asthma Clinic at Nationwide Children's in 2011, which treats children with severe or difficult-to-treat asthma. In addition to providing clinical care for children with all types of food allergy, Dr. Stukus participates in clinical research, quality improvement, patient advocacy and medical education.

Dr. Dave (as his patients call him) has devoted his career to communicating evidence based medicine and best clinical practice to colleagues, medical professionals of all backgrounds, patients and the general public. He is very active on social media and uses his popular Twitter and Instagram accounts @AllergyKidsDoc to dispel myths and combat misinformation. In addition to developing an elective rotation to train medical students and residents about best social media practices as medical professionals, he co-chairs an annual conference at Nationwide Children's and authored a textbook on this topic as well.