People

Faculty

Karen R. Jacobson, MD, MPH

Dr. Karen Jacobson is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Section of Infectious Diseases, Boston University School of Medicine, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health. Her expertise is in studying TB transmission and outcomes. She has been funded by NIH grants as PI and site PI since 2011. Her work has been highly multidisciplinary, with results cited in World Health Organization TB guidelines and by Uptodate. She is the Medical Director of the Boston Medical Center Tuberculosis Clinic and has 15 years’ experience collaborating with researchers in South Africa designing and executing complex prospective clinical studies. Her work has particular emphasis in understanding how substance use impacts TB transmission and response to therapy.

Tara C. Bouton, MD, MPH

Dr. Tara C. Bouton is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and an attending physician in the Section of Infectious Diseases at Boston Medical Center. Dr. Bouton’s research focuses on the impact of HIV infection on evolution and transmission of drug resistant tuberculosis and improving outcomes in both diseases. She is also working to better understand transmission and viral dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 variants. She has lived and worked in Brazil, Ghana, Botswana, and South Africa.

Jeffrey I. Campbell, MD, MPH

Dr. Campbell is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and an attending pediatric infectious diseases physician at Boston Medical Center. He received his MD from Harvard Medical School and his MPH from Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. His research focuses on health services delivery and access to care for children with TB infection.

Samantha Malatesta, PhD

Dr. Malatesta is a biostatistician and Instructor of Medicine at Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine. She earned her PhD in Biostatistics from Boston University, where she focused on developing statistical methods to analyze data collected through respondent-driven sampling with applications to tuberculosis and HIV. She also developed a model to classify tuberculosis disease severity for persons initiating TB treatment that integrates multiple diagnostics. As a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Jacobson, she contributed to statistical methods for understanding tuberculosis transmission that integrates whole genome sequencing data and individual-level clinical data. She is particularly interested in settings with both a high TB and HIV burden where community transmission is common.

Boston Research Team

Natalia Gnatienko, MPH

Clinical Research Director

Lydia Carlson, MPH

Research Project Manager

Madelyn Eippert, MS

Research Coordinator

Former Team Members