Meet the team

The St. Jude Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Response (SJCEIRR) will address knowledge gaps that can support universal influenza vaccine research and development through longitudinal human studies while continuing to provide the international research infrastructure needed to address zoonotic or pandemic influenza and other respiratory disease outbreaks in humans.

Aligning with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’s (NIAID) expectation of the CEIRR network, we will create a multi-disciplinary collaborative network to conduct influenza research to:

• fill knowledge gaps;
• conduct integrated basic and clinical research to advance knowledge of factors that determine influenza emergence and transmission and protection against influenza to accelerate development of new and improved control measures;
• serve as a resource for the scientific and public health communities by providing training, reagents, candidate vaccine viruses, and data;
• and provide a research response in the event of an emergency situation.

Richard J. Webby, PhD, Director

Stacey Schultz-Cherry, PhD, Co-Director

Elena Govorkova, MD, PhD

Lisa Kercher, PhD

Pamela McKenzie, PhD

Charles Russell, PhD

Paul G. Thomas, PhD

Michael Chan, PhD

Ben Cowling, MPH, PhD, FFPH

Vijay Dhanasekaran, PhD

Yi Guan, MD, PhD

Malik Peiris, MD, PhD

Leo Poon, PhD

Hui-Ling Yen, PhD

Maria Zhu, PhD

Andy Bowman, DVM, PhD, DACVPM, Ohio State University

Juan Dib, MD, MPH/DM, PhD, Tropical Health, Colombia

Sue Huang, PhD, ESR, New Zealand

Aubree Gordon, PhD, MPH, University of Michigan

Chris Hamilton-West, PhD, University of Chile

Ghazi Kayali, PhD, MPH, Human Link, Lebanon

Jim Lowe, DVM, University of Illinois

Wenjun Ma, BVsc, MVsc, PhD, University of Missouri

Jacqueline Nolting, MS, Ohio State University

Becky Poulson, PhD, University of Georgia

Juergen Richt, DVM, PhD, Kansas State University

Gavin Smith, PhD, Duke University/National University of Singapore

Dave Stallknecht, PhD, University of Georgia

Jacco Boon, PhD, Washington University

Guido Ferrari, MD, Duke University

Aubree Gordon, PhD, MPH, University of Michigan

Tomer Hertz, PhD, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Lisa Kercher, PhD, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Pamela McKenzie, PhD, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Maureen McGargill, PhD, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Malik Peiris, MD, PhD, University of Hong Kong

Stanley Perlman, MD, PhD, University of Iowa

Juergen Richt, DVM, PhD, Kansas State University

Alessandro Sette, Dr.Biol.Sci., La Jolla Institute for Immunology

Pei-Yong Shi, PhD, University of Texas Medical Branch

Stacey Schultz-Cherry, PhD, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Heather Smallwood, PhD, University of Tennessee Health Science Center

Gavin Smith, PhD, Duke University/National University of Singapore

Paul G. Thomas, PhD, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Scott Weaver, PhD, University of Texas Medical Branch 

Richard J. Webby, PhD, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Hui-Ling Yen, PhD, University of Hong Kong