Mellon Scholars

The Mellon Scholars program is the foundation of the Richard King Mellon Institute for Pediatric Research at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Scholars are comprised of all assistant professors in the tenure stream at UPMC Children’s Hospital, across all divisions.

Our goal is to:

• foster career development
• create a stronger community of investigators
• retain talented scientists and physician-scientists

Meet our Mellon Scholars

Taylor Abel, MD

• Brain surgery for epilepsy

Sameer “Sam” Agnihotri, PhD

• Personalized treatment for brain cancer

Rannar Airik, PhD

• New strategies to treat kidney failure

Thiago Bruder do Nascimento, MSc, PhD

• Vascular biology and metabolic diseases

Craig Byersdorfer, MD, PhD

• Bone marrow transplant cell manipulations

Brian Campfield, MD

• Fending off foreign attacks on the lung

Scott Canna, MD

• Moderating our autoimmune system

Will DePas, PhD

• Biogeography of bacterial infections

Erick Forno, MD, MPH

• Obesity and asthma

Tim Hand, PhD

• Intestinal interactions with bacteria

Jackie Ho, MD

• How kidneys form, and how to replace them

Tom Hooven, MD

• Mechanisms and prevention of perinatal infections

Baoli Hu, PhD

• Brain tumor cell behavior

Melissa Kane, PhD

• Viruses and the immune system

Dwi U. Kemaladewi, PhD

• Interventional genomics in rare diseases

Gary Kohanbash, PhD

• Brain tumor vaccines

Liza Konnikova, MD, PhD

• Understanding intestinal infection in babies

Marcus Malek, MD

• Precision-guided surgery to find cancers

Anita McElroy, MD, PhD

• Virus effects throughout the body

Kevin Mollen, MD

• Cellular defects in inflammatory bowel disease

Amanda Poholek, PhD

• Transcriptional and Epigenetic Regulation of Immune Cell Function

Kristin Ray, MD

• Improving access to pediatric health care 

Laurie Silva, PhD

• Viral and host determinants of virus replication and pathogenesis

Sunny Sims-Lucas, PhD

• Blood flow and cell behavior in the kidney

Amery Treble-Barna, PhD

• Neurologic function after brain injury

Xiangwei Xiao, MD, PhD

• Insulin cell function and preservation

Dean Yimlamai, MD, PhD

• Hippo signaling in liver growth and oncogenesis
• Role of immune cells in hepatocyte activation