Meet Our Team

Kenneth N. Olivier, MD, MPH

UNC Health

Chapel Hill, NC

Principal Investigator

Expertise: Bronchiectasis, nontuberculous mycobacteria, primary ciliary dyskinesia

Richard Boucher, MD

UNC Health

Chapel Hill, NC

Principal Investigator

Expertise: Airway surface liquids, epitheleal ion transport in human airway disease, gene therapy, novel therapy development for human lung disease

Gang Chen, PhD

UNC Health

Chapel Hill, NC

Co-Investigator

Expertise: Lung stem/progenitor cells, airway mucins, inflammation in health and diseases

Hong Dang, PhD

UNC Health

Chapel Hill, NC

Co-Investigator

Expertise: Bioinformatics, genetics, molecular biology, high-throughput data analysis, biological databases and data mining, biostatistics, computer system administration

Stephanie Davis, MD

UNC Health

Chapel Hill, NC

Co-Investigator

Expertise: Cystic fibrosis, primary ciliary dyskinesia, impact of preterm birth on lung disease

Katherine (Alex) Despotes, MD

UNC Health

Chapel Hill, NC

Co-Investigator

Expertise: Cystic fibrosis, non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis, modulator therapy

Charles Esther, MD, PhD

UNC Health

Chapel Hill, NC

Co-Investigator

Expertise: Cystic fibrosis, chronic lung disease, exhaled breath condensate, airway inflammation

Thomas Ferkol, MD

UNC Health

Chapel Hill, NC

Co-Investigator

Expertise: Cystic fibrosis, primary ciliary dyskinesia, non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis

Alexandra Freeman, MD

National Institutes of Health

Bethesda, MD

Co-Investigator

Expertise: Primary immunodeficiencies, STAT3-Hyper IgE syndrome, inborn errors of immunity

Mehmet Kesimer, PhD

UNC Health

Chapel Hill, NC

Co-Investigator

Expertise: Airway mucin, mucus biochemistry, proteomics, chronic lung disease

Feng-Chang Lin, PhD

UNC Health

Chapel Hill, NC

Co-Investigator

Expertise: Development of novel statistical methods for modeling recurrent events

Alessandra Livraghi-Butrico, PhD

UNC Health

Chapel Hill, NC

Co-Investigator

Expertise: Animal models of inflammatory and obstructive lung diseases, lung mucosal immunology, mucus biology, ex vivo phenotyping of human muco-inflammatory lung diseases

Gerry McElvaney, MBBCh, FRCPI, DSc

Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland

Dublin, Ireland

Co-Investigator

Expertise: Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD), cystic fibrosis, proteases, anti-proteases, lung inflammation

Wanda O'Neal, PhD

UNC Health

Chapel Hill, NC

Co-Investigator

Expertise: Molecular genetics, molecular biology, animal models of muco-obstructive lung disease, cystic fibrosis, asthma, COPD, PCD, bronchiectasis, airway epithelial cell biology, pulmonary disease

Adam J. Shapiro, MD

McGill University

Montreal, Quebec

Co-Investigator

Expertise: Primary ciliary dyskiensia, non-CF bronchiectasis, clinical phenotyping, chronic respiratory disease in Indigenous populations

Donald Vinh, MD, FRCPC, FACP

McGill University

Montreal, Quebec

Co-Investigator

Expertise: Primary immunodeficiencies/inborn errors of immunity (i.e. humoral immuno deficiencies/HID), molecular genetics, functional immunology, novel therapies

Matthew Wolfgang, PhD

UNC Health

Chapel Hill, NC

Co-Investigator

Expertise: Respiratory microbiome, respiratory infection biology, airway cell culture models of infection, pseudomonas aeruginosa pathogenesis, antibiotic treatment failure

Joseph Hatch, MPH

UNC Health

Chapel Hill, NC

Project Manager

Gabriella Keller

UNC Health

Chapel Hill, NC

Project Manager

Kelli Sullivan, MPH

UNC Health

Chapel Hill, NC

Project Manager