Program Leadership
Dr. Jennifer Sullivan, PhD
Director of ROAR | Co-Principal Investigator of ROAR Leadership Advisory Core |
Co-Investigator for the Community Enhancement Core (CEC) |
Principal Investigator on Scientific Project #1
(706) 721-9796
Dr. Jennifer Sullivan serves as the Director of ROAR, co-principal investigator of the ROAR Leadership Advisory Core, co-investigator for the Community Enhancement Core (CEC), and the principal investigator on scientific project #1. She will oversee all aspects of ROAR, coordinate interactions between the different components and research site locations, and coordinate the outreach pipeline in the CEC. She is the Interim Provost and Dean of the Graduate School at Augusta University and a Professor of Physiology at the Medical College of Georgia.
Dr. Sullivan is an internationally recognized expert and leader in the field of sex differences in cardiovascular physiology and pathophysiology. Her work has been continuously funded by the NIH and the American Heart Association since becoming a tenure-track faculty member in 2008. Dr. Sullivan consistently publishes her work in the top journals in the field of hypertension, with over 115 peer-reviewed articles that have been cited over 2400 times. For her outstanding work, Dr. Sullivan has received numerous prestigious awards including the Ernest H Starling Distinguished Lectureship award from the WEH section of the American Physiological Society, the Inaugural John Laragh Research Award from the American Journal of Hypertension, the Mid-Career Award for Research Excellence from the American Heart Association Hypertension Council, and an Outstanding Faculty Member Award from the Graduate School.
As further evidence of her status in the scientific community, Dr. Sullivan has active leadership roles in national scientific societies such as the American Physiological Society and American Heart Association, serves on the editorial board and as associate editor for leading peer-reviewed journals, and currently is the chairs of a standing NIH grant study section. Dr. Sullivan serves as an Associate Editor for Clinical Science and serves on the editorial board for leading journals in her field including Hypertension, American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory and Integrative Physiology, American Journal of Physiology: Renal Physiology Journal of Hypertension, and Biology of Sex Differences.
In addition to her scientific achievements, Dr. Sullivan is an exceptional educator and mentor, with a demonstrated commitment to the training of undergraduate, graduate, and medical students, as well as postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty members. She creates a challenging and collaborative training environment for all of her trainees while focusing on the needs of each individual. To date, she has successfully mentored 5 postdoctoral fellows, 8 PhD students as major advisor, 12 PhD students as a thesis committee member, 8 undergraduate students and 4 medical students. Dr. Sullivan’s trainees routinely earn prestigious fellowships, travel awards, and research recognition honors, and all are currently engaged in biomedical science-related careers.
Dr. Michael Ryan, PhD
Co-Principal Investigator of ROAR Leadership Advisory Core |
Co-Investigator Community Engagement Core |
Principal Investigator on Scientific Project #3
Dr. Michael Ryan serves as the co-principal investigator of the ROAR Leadership Advisory Core, a co-investigator for the Community Engagement Core, and the principal investigator on scientific project #3. He will be directly involved with various components of ROAR including the SABV workshop, mentoring academy, summer research, and general administration of the program’s activities.
Dr. Ryan is the Associate Chief of Staff for Research & Development at the Columbia VA Medical Center in Columbia, SC. He is also a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology, Physiology and Neuroscience at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine.
Dr. Ryan serves as the Editor-in-Chief (interim) for Clinical Science, a high impact international scientific journal, and served or currently serves on the editorial board for leading journals including Hypertension, American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory and Integrative Physiology, Frontiers in Vascular Biology, Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine, Journal of Hypertension, and Gender Medicine. He also served as guest editor for Advances in Physiology Education and on the American Physiological Society, Life Science Teach Resource Community Review Board.
Dr. Ryan served and continues to serve in multiple national leadership capacities. He served on the Leadership committee for the Council on Hypertension of the American Heart Association (AHA), and recently completed terms as the Chair and Treasurer/Secretary for the Water & Electrolyte Homeostasis (WEH) section of the American Physiological Society (APS). In addition, he served on multiple committees for the APS, including the Science Policy Committee, Education Committee, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. Dr. Ryan also provides expertise to scientific study sections having chaired the AHA Cardiorenal study panel and serving on peer review panels for the National Institutes of Health, Veterans Administration, and Department of Defense.
He received several awards throughout his career including the 2019 Clifford Barger Underrepresented Minority Mentorship Award from the APS, and the 2019 State of Mississippi Institute of Higher Learning Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Award while faculty at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC). He also was awarded the UMMC TEACH Prize in 2019, the top educational honor given at UMMC, and was also inducted into the UMMC Norman C. Nelson Order for Teaching Excellence.
Dr. Ryan has published over 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts, book chapters, and editorials in leading journals for the field of hypertension research and cardiovascular and renal physiology. Work from his laboratory specifically contributes to understanding how immune system activation promotes the pathogenesis of hypertension. Evidence suggests that human hypertension is associated with immune dysfunction including the production of autoantibodies commonly associated with autoimmune disease. Using experimental models of the autoimmune disorder systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), Dr Ryan’s laboratory generates new knowledge related to both renal and vascular mechanisms during SLE, and how they are influenced by inflammatory cells and mediators. His research has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association and Veterans Affairs since the beginning of his academic career in 2004.
Dr. Daria Ilatovskaya serves as the Director of the Career Enhancement Core (CEC) of the ROAR-SCORE. She has long-standing interests in sex differences in renal physiology, and strong commitment to training the next generation of researchers; she coordinates the holistic SCORE-based training for predoctoral and postdoctoral fellows, as well as early career faculty interested in SABV research. She is passionate about advocacy and outreach which aligns with and fuels the cardiovascular disease awareness campaign that has been developed for the CEC in collaboration with the AHA, community leaders, population scientists, the medical illustration program, clinicians, local schools and undergraduate institutions.
Dr. Ilatovskaya is a tenured Associate Professor of Physiology at AU. She is a recognized leader at AU and in the hypertension research community, in the field of BP research with an emphasis on sex differences in renal mitochondrial function. Dr. Ilatovskaya has over 10 years’ experience in biomedical education; she has taught in medical and graduate core curricula as well as graduate-level courses. As the Physiology Graduate Program Director, she extensively serves the MCG-AU education mission, notably in Recruitment and Admissions.
Dr. Ilatovskaya received her PhD in 2012 at the Institute of Cytology (St. Petersburg, Russia), pursued postdoctoral training at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and following her early career faculty years at the Medical University of South Carolina was recruited to Augusta University in 2021. She has published over 80 high-impact peer-reviewed publications in journals such as Nature Rev Nephrol, Compreh Physiol, FASEB Journal, J Am Soc Nephrol, J Biol Chem, PNAS, Clinical Sci, Kidney Int, JCI Insight, Scientific Reports, AJP Renal, AJP Cell and others.
Dr. Ilatovskaya has been continuously supported by Foundational and NIH grants and has served and continue to serve in multiple elected leadership positions in professional societies, including Chair of the Membership and Communications Committee and member of the Leadership Committee with AHA Kidney in Cardiovascular Disease Council, the Renal Section Treasurer of the APS, Program Working Group Representative (APS), and is currently the Physiology Graduate Program Director at AU. Dr. Ilatovskaya serves on Editorial boards for multiple journals, and grant review panels for NIH, DOD, AHA and other funding agencies. She has been honored with multiple awards throughout her career, including outstanding presentation awards, and most recently the prestigious 2024 APS Renal Section Young Investigator Award and the 2023 Augusta University Emerging Scientist Award.
Dr. Erin Taylor is the principal investigator on Scientific Project #2. Dr. Taylor is currently an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Physiology and Biophysics and Medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC). She also serves as the Director of the Flow Cytometry and Cell Sorting Core Facility at UMMC. Dr. Taylor received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Mississippi State University and subsequently earned her PhD in Microbiology and Immunology at UMMC in 2015.
Dr. Taylor has published more than 40 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals and has been an author on more than 40 abstracts. She has received several notable awards in her career, including a scholarship from the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation as an undergraduate, the Caroline tum Suden/Frances Hellebrandt Professional Opportunity Award, and the Juan Carlos Romero and Water & Electrolyte Homeostasis Section Postdoctoral Research Recognition Award from the American Physiological Society. She also received the Gold Award from the UMMC Office of Research for securing over one million dollars in extramural funding as well as the Early Career Achievement Award from the UMMC Alumni Association in 2023. In addition, Dr. Taylor has been continuously funded as a trainee or independent researcher for more than 10 years with grants and fellowships from the USDA, AHA, and NIH.
Dr. Taylor’s primary research interest is to understand the role of the immune system in the development of hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Dr. Taylor’s current projects include 1) elucidating mechanisms of vascular dysfunction in an experimental model of systemic lupus erythematosus, 2) Characterizing the role of immune system dysfunction in heart failure development after myocardial infarction, and 3) examining the role of obesity and leptin in the development of autoimmune-associated hypertension.
Educational & Community Outreach
Brittany Pinkerton is an Assistant Professor at Augusta University within the Department of Kinesiology and instructs general health and wellness courses. Her background is in community youth and sport development and positive youth development. She enjoys fitness and wellness and sharing such information with others.
Amanda Behr is a board-certified Medical Illustrator and Certified Clinical Anaplastologist who serves the Department of Medical Illustration as Chair and Professor. Amanda is passionate about creating the best illustrations to help ROAR reach out to the communities of interest.
Dr. Marlo Vernon is an Associate Professor at the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University with appointments in the Departments of Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology, and a member of the Georgia Cancer Center, the Institute for Public and Preventive Health and the Georgia Prevention Institute. She is the Community Engagement Coordinator for the ROAR project.
Her research focuses on family-based approaches to healthy behavior change, community cancer prevention, and maternal mortality and morbidity prevention. She is the Principal Investigator on the Cancer Health Awareness, Navigation and Screening (CHANGE) project (funded by the American Cancer Society and Pfizer) and VidaRPM – a remote self-monitoring application for blood pressure and mental health with care coordination for pregnant and postpartum women (funded by the Georgia Department of Public Health and HRSA). She also co-directs the HRSA funded Access to Services for Pregnant and Postpartum Persons in Northeast Georgia (ASPiriNG) project and leads a breastfeeding support and community engagement project, Mothers Informed Lactation Knowledge and Support, funded by NACCHO.
Dr. Vernon is the mother of seven children – six of whom are girls. Promoting and supporting women’s health is a lifetime passion.
