{tab=CIREN Faculty & Staff}
Donald Reiff, M.D., Principal Investigator
Dr. Reiff is an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery, Division of Acute Care Surgery He also holds and an academic appointment as an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Related Professions. Dr. Reiff is active in many leadership roles serving as the Medical Director of the 28-bed Intensive Care Unit dedicated to trauma and burn care. He has an active role in both education and research serving as the Director of the Undergraduate Surgical Education for the UAB Heersink School of Medicine, Medical Director of the Physician Assistant School at UAB and the Director of the Trauma and Surgical Critical Care Fellowship at UAB. He has authored more than twenty-five manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals of high scientific impact and written more than five book chapters in major surgical texts. Previously, Dr. Reiff has served as a senior medical and research analyst for the Mercedes-Benz CIREN Center at UAB.
Dr. Reiff organizes and coordinates the UAB CIREN Center's activities to ensure that the proposed objectives are met in a timely manner. He provides the necessary clinical expertise to understand the etiology of motor vehicle collision related injuries and aids in the review and interpretation of pre-hospital, hospital and injury information, as well as crash information. He also leads monthly formal case reviews.
Gerald McGwin, Jr., M.S., Ph.D., Epidemiologist
Dr. McGwin is a Professor and Vice Chairman in the Department of Epidemiology at the UAB School of Public Health. He also holds academic appointments in the Departments of Surgery (Division of Trauma, Burns and Surgical Critical Care) and Ophthalmology, and is the Associate Director of the CIS where he directs the Epidemiology Unit. He is also the Associate Director of Biostatistics and Epidemiological Services in the Department of Ophthalmology's Clinical Research Unit. Previously, he was the Senior Epidemiologist for the Mercedes-Benz CIREN Center at UAB. Dr. McGwin has published over 300 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals of high scientific impact, much of it in the area of injury epidemiology.
Holly Waller, R.N., M.P.H, Study Coordinator
Ms. Waller is a registered nurse and received her bachelor's degree in nursing from Auburn University in 1992 and Master's Degree in Public Health from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2008. She has worked as a staff nurse in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at UAB and ultimately began as a clinical care coordinator for the trauma service in 1996. Ms. Waller is currently the Trauma Coordinator for the UAB Trauma Center. She formerly served as the study coordinator for the Mercedes Benz CIREN Center at UAB. In this role, her responsibilities include screening and enrolling study candidates; collecting, coding and entering the medical data into the database; coordinating monthly case reviews; as well as coordinating outreach presentations for area high school drivers' education classes. She has given multiple presentations related to CIREN to audiences including Birmingham area high school driver's education and health students, nurses and paramedics attending the annual UAB Trauma Symposiums, and nurses attending the Emergency Nurses' Association meeting in Charlotte, NC.
Kelly Sheils, R.N., Research Nurse
Ms. Sheils supports the activities of the Study Coordinator and Crash Investigator as they relate to data gathering, organization, and input. She has experience with the study patient population and is in a position to help identify study participants and obtain informed consent under the Study Coordinator's supervision. Being a nurse familiar with the patient population and particular hospital environment, she assists with much of the legwork associated with patient enrollment and data collection. In addition, she performs project related office functions at the direction of the Study Coordinator and Crash Investigator, primarily organizing materials and helping prepare for team meetings and regularly scheduled case reviews.
Kevin Jones, Crash Investigator
Mr. Jones joined the UAB CIREN Center in early 2013 as Crash Investigator. His primary responsibility involves professionally reconstructing motor vehicle collisions involving trauma patients seen at UAB. The investigator makes frequent trips to crash scenes, tow yards, and police/state trooper offices to take pictures and measurements, extract vehicle EDR data, and acquire police accident reports. Mr. Jones has a long history of crash reconstruction with consultant and insurance companies, and brings specific prior experience with NHTSA and NASS. He has completed several courses and obtained certifications related to his crash data retrieval and scene investigation responsibilities. Mr. Jones is a primary contributor to monthly case reviews.
Marilyn Doss, Research Assistant
Ms. Doss joined the Mercedes-Benz CIREN Center at UAB in July 1999 as a crash investigator and remains a member of the CIS. Formerly, her experience included over fifteen (15) years of working with the NASS in Tuscaloosa Alabama, first as a research assistant, then as a researcher and finally as team leader. In 1989 she completed NASS training at the Transportation Safety Institute in Oklahoma City. She is a certified Child Passenger Safety Technician and a Crash Data Retrieval Systems Operator. Over the years, Ms. Doss has developed and maintained very good working relations with law enforcement, EMS agencies, auto salvage and towing facilities throughout the state of Alabama. She also has been involved in outreach programs with area high school health and driver education classes in Birmingham and the surrounding counties. After retiring as crash investigator in 2013, Ms. Doss soon returned to continue support of crash scene investigations and help maintain the integrity of accumulated CIREN data. She remains an integral member of the UAB CIREN Team and is responsible for a number of tasks including collecting injury related data from pre-hospital, emergency department and hospital records; conducting patient interviews to obtain demographic and socio-economic information (e.g., date of birth, education level, marital status, etc...), history of motor vehicle crashes, comorbidity factors, anthropomorphic measurements, and clothing type (if possibly associated with injury. She also assembles all relevant information for CIREN case reviews.
{tab=Affiliated Faculty}
Loring W. Rue, III, M.D.
From 1999 through April of 2004 Dr. Rue directed the Mercedes-Benz CIREN Center at UAB. Dr. Rue obtained his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He undertook his residency in general surgery at UAB and pursued a clinical and research fellowship at the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research in San Antonio Texas. During that time he conducted both clinical and basic research investigations concerning shock and burn resuscitation. In January 1992, Dr. Rue returned to the faculty at UAB and is currently a Professor of Surgery, Anesthesiology, and Civil and Environmental Engineering. He has held several administrative positions relative to trauma and surgical critical care as well as having been actively involved in the undergraduate medical education programs at UAB. He is currently Vice Chairman for Clinical Affairs in UAB's Department of Surgery; Chief, Division of Trauma, Burns, and Surgical Critical Care; and Director of the CIS. His major research areas include motor vehicle collision related epidemiologic research and trauma system development.
Alan W. Eberhardt, Ph.D.
Dr. Eberhardt is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, with secondary appointments in Materials and Mechanical Engineering, and in Civil Engineering. He is Director of the Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Program. He is also the Director of the UAB Musculoskeletal Mechanics Laboratory and oversees both graduate and undergraduate research in biomechanics. His current research activities include the biomechanical response of the pelvis in side impacts; the biomechanics of the pelvis in the presence of metastatic bone lesions; and the study of wear in total joint replacements. Most recently, he has been invited to participate as a Center of Excellence in the new Global Human Body Modeling Consortium (GHBMC), a consortium of nine automakers and two suppliers (Chrysler LLC, Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., Honda R&D Co., Hyundai Motor Co., Nissan Motor Corp. Ltd., PSA Peugeot-Citroën, Renault s.a.s., Takata Corp., Toyota Motor Corp. and TRW Automotive), to consolidate their individual research and development activities in human body modeling into a single global effort to advance crash safety technology. GHBMC plans to build over several years a family of virtual humans, from children to elderly. Dr. Eberhardt has participated in numerous research activities with the UAB CIREN Center, including participation in case reviews, attending national CIREN meetings and co-advising of student research projects associated with motor vehicle related injuries.
Paul MacLennan, M.P.H., Ph.D.
Dr. MacLennan is a Research Assistant Professor in UAB's Department of Surgery and serves as the co-director of the Research Support Services Unit (RSSU) in the CIS. He has published several studies that have examined injury risks (principally concerned with restraint system usage) of occupants involved in motor vehicle crashes using NASS, CDS and GES databases. Through this work experience Dr. MacLennan has become familiar with the injury (AIS and ICD9) and crash variables types used in CIREN. In addition, he has published injury related clinical research and has collaborates extensively with Dr. McGwin on work conducted through the CIS.
Russell L. Griffin, Ph.D.
Dr. Griffin, an Assistant Professor with the UAB Department of Epidemiology, joined the CIREN Center at UAB in 2012 with a specific focus on the application of Advanced Automated Crash Notification (AACN) Systems relative to crash investigations. Prior to that time, Dr. Griffin supported CIREN by handling the analysis requests for all CIREN-related studies as a lead statistical analyst, and in his role as the co-director of the Research Support Services Unit (RSSU) and Director of Data Management for the CIS. He collaborates extensively with Drs. McGwin and MacLennan and has extensive experience with study protocol development and the design of data collection instruments (e.g., mail- and web-based surveys). Dr. Griffin has a well-established record as an injury epidemiologist having authored or co-authored 29 manuscripts over the past four years, all in the area of injury prevention and control.
Greg Davis, M.D., M.S.P.H.
Dr. Davis is a board certified forensic pathologist, an Associate Coroner with the Jefferson County Coroner/Medical Examiner Office (JCCMEO) and Professor of Pathology at UAB. He has extensive expertise in the area of injury causation and maintains a research interest in motor vehicle related injuries. Dr. Davis will participate in UAB CIREN Center case reviews.
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