Brian A. Fallon, MD, MPH is the director of the Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center at Columbia University and of the two new Cohen-funded initiatives – the new translational clinical Center for Health and Recovery and the national CTN Coordinating Center.

Dr. Fallon’s research focuses on the overlap between medicine, neurology, and psychiatry. Dr Fallon has conducted numerous NIH-funded clinical trials, including serving as principal investigator on the NINDS retreatment study of Persistent Post-treatment Lyme Encephalopathy. His team’s studies of post-treatment Lyme disease have demonstrated deficits in brain blood flow and metabolism and delineated the neurocognitive and neuropsychiatric sequelae.

John Nathaniel Aucott, MD, is an Associate Professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a CTN Node Principal Investigator and CTN Executive Committee Member.

Dr. Aucott’ s research is focused on improved diagnostic testing and health related outcomes for all the stages of Lyme disease. His particular expertise is on understanding the cause, optimal diagnosis and treatment of persistent symptoms in Lyme disease. He is currently the Principal Investigator for the SLICE studies which have been pivotal in elucidating the immunologic profile of early and late manifestations of Lyme disease and examining the impact of acute and chronic Lyme disease on health outcomes and the human immune system.

Roberta Lynn DeBiasi, MD, MS, is the Chief of the Division of Pediatric Diseases and Co-Director of the Congenital Zika Program at Children's National Hospital, a CTN Node Principal Investigator and CTN Executive Committee Member.

Dr. DeBiasi’s extensive clinical and research expertise includes basic science and clinical/ translational research. Current research includes a study evaluating the burden of pediatric Lyme disease and its long-term outcomes in children. Dr. DeBiasi is principal investigator on multiple clinical trials addressing the impact and treatment of severe viral infections affecting pregnant women, neonates, immunocompromised hosts, and normal children. Dr. DeBiasi currently serves on a Tick-Borne Disease Working Group subcommittee established in 2018 by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Martina Pavlicova, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Biostatistics at the Columbia University Medical Center and the CTN Senior Statistician and Executive Committee Member

Richard Buchsbaum is the Director of the Data Management Unit in the Department of Biostatistics at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, and the CTN Data Center Director and Executive Committee Member

Mara Kuvaldina, PhD, is Associate Director and Research Coordinator of the CTN. Dr. Kuvaldina also serves as Research Scientist for the Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center at Columbia University.

Charles Chiu, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases at University of California, San Francisco, Associate Director of the UCSF Clinical Microbiology Laboratory, Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator, and a CTN Node Principal Investigator.

Dr. Chiu is a board-certified consulting infectious diseases physician at UCSF, and practices in both infectious diseases and clinical microbiology. He heads a translational research laboratory in clinical next-generation sequencing assay development for the diagnosis of infectious diseases, including Lyme disease and other tickborne infections, host response profiling, pathogen discovery, bioinformatics software development, nanopore sequencing, and characterization of emerging infectious diseases.

Kristopher Paolino, MD, is Assistant Professor, Departments of Medicine and Microbiology/Immunology at SUNY Upstate Medical University and a CTN Node Principal Investigator.

Dr. Paolino’s focus is on clinical care and associated clinical research, with a focus on Lyme and Tick-borne diseases affecting the communities of Upstate New York. He has a background in a variety of vaccine clinical trials, is currently the site principal investigator for an adolescent phase of a pediatric safety study for the Pfizer/Valneva Lyme vaccine. He is also a founding member of the CNY Lyme and Tick-Borne Disease Alliance with a goal of providing education to patients and providers on the growing threat of tick-borne diseases.

Amy Proal, PhD, is a microbiologist and President/CEO of PolyBio Research Foundation - a non-profit studying the chronic consequences of viral, bacterial, and fungal infection..

Dr. Proal conceptualizes and coordinates large-scale collaborative research projects among scientific teams studying infection-associated chronic illnesses such as LongCovid, ME/CFS and Long Lyme Disease. In that capacity she directs PolyBio's LongCovid Research Consortium (LCRC): a scientific collaboration to rapidly and comprehensively study LongCovid, with a focus on the persistence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in tissue. Dr. Proal also serves as Research Director for the Mount Sinai Cohen Center for Recovery from Complex Chronic Illness. She holds a Bachelor of Science in biology from Georgetown University and a PhD in microbiology from Murdoch University in Australia.

David Putrino, PT, PhD, David trained as a physiotherapist before completing a PhD in Neuroscience. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation and Human Performance at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City and is the Nash Family Director of the Cohen Center for Recovery from Complex Chronic Illness.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, David has been recognized globally as a leading expert in the assessment, treatment and underlying pathophysiology of Long COVID. His team has managed the care of over 3000 people with Long COVID and published multiple peer-reviewed scientific papers on the topic. In 2019, he was named "Global Australian of the Year" for his contributions to healthcare.