Infectious Disease Fellowship
Scholarly Activity during ID Fellowship
Year One
Approximately 8 months of the first year are assigned to clinical rotations. The remaining 4 months provide time for study, grand rounds preparation and to explore scholarly interests and career paths with the Scholarship Navigator and other program leadership. Introductory sessions between the fellows and faculty within the division occur early in the academic year so that faculty can share their scholarly interests. Under a selected faculty member’s mentorship, we anticipate that by the end of year 1 the fellow will propose a project(s) to program leadership.
Scholarly work of fellows in the Clinician/Clinician Educator Track will likely focus on : a) publishing case reports, case series or clinical reviews with ID faculty as mentors; b) developing ID training curriculum.
Scholarly work of fellows in the Healthcare Services & Healthcare Quality Track will likely focus on planning and executing projects from the following areas: ID-related Quality Improvement, Antimicrobial Stewardship, Health Services/Hospital Epidemiology, data science projects with a focus on the epidemiology of infections or Clinical Microbiology.
Scholarly work of fellows in the Physician Investigator Track will focus on basic science, translational science or clinical trials.
Year Two
Approximately 4 months of the year are dedicated to clinical rotations. Thus, the second year of fellowship allows for about 7 months to execute a scholarly project (including activities within the AMS/HE subtracks) or to participate in clinical electives. A mentor(s) will guide the scholarly project(s), and a research committee or co-mentor will provide additional guidance for those fellows who anticipate pursuing additional research training after clinical fellowship. The proposals and results of the fellows’ scholarly work will be presented during the ID Faculty and Fellows’ Conference. We strongly encourage fellows to present their work at IDWeek or regional meetings or through peer-reviewed publications.
Year Three/Four
A third (and often a fourth) year of advanced fellowship training may be available for those who plan a career in academics and seek advanced training in various aspects of Healthcare Quality or Healthcare Services research.
Several funding opportunities are listed below for trainees who want a third (and often a fourth) year of training as research/scholarly fellows. Tuition support for graduate work has historically been available for fellows during their research years.
- VA Quality Scholars Program (limited to non-visa holders)
- VA Health Services Research Fellowship (limited to non-visa holders)
- T32 Training Grant (awaiting information in June/July 2026 about renewal)
Research Areas
The Division of Infectious Diseases offers a broad range of research opportunities. Faculty members conduct basic science laboratory research in innate immunity, host-pathogen interactions, parasitology, and virology. There are also opportunities for projects in medical microbiology, antimicrobial stewardship, hospital epidemiology and infection prevention, healthcare delivery and outcomes, quality improvement, the epidemiology of infections and with the Vaccine Trials Unit. See below for more detailed information about specific programs or faculty members.
- The Inflammation Program: An interdisciplinary multi-faculty basic science research program that studies innate immunity and host-pathogen interactions. [see the Inflammation Program website]. For faculty names see specific research interests.
- Dr. Appenheimer and Dr. Kaewpoowat are involved in fellow educational initiatives.
- Dr. Barker is involved in medical education initiatives.
- Dr. Carvour has an interest in clinical Ortho ID, Ortho ID clinical research and community-engaged research for patients with ID diagnoses.
- Dr. Goto is a member of CADRE at the VA. He studies ID-related healthcare outcomes and healthcare quality using VA databases and machine learning to develop better antibiograms. He is trained in bio-informatics.
- Dr. Herwaldt is the PI for a CDC Infection Prevention Epi Center grant. Care components include projects in antimicrobial stewardship and infection prevention. She is a PI for a second CDC grant in infection prevention and patient safety.
- Dr. Ince, director of the Transplant Infectious Disease program, also is the physician champion of the UI Health Care Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (AMS) and is active in the IDSA AMS curriculum committee and clinical trials for solid organ transplant.
- Dr. Kaewpoowat is involved in a state telehealth program to provide ID care to patients with infections related to substance use disorders.
- Dr. Livorsi researches healthcare quality and delivery, with a focus on antimicrobial stewardship. He is a member of the VA CADRE group and a Medical Co-Director of the VA AMS team.
- Dr. Meier studies basic mechanisms of CMV pathogenesis and latency, and he conducts HIV clinical research.
- Dr. Non conducts transplant ID quality improvement projects and other scholarly work.
- Dr. Ohl is a member of the VA Comprehensive Access & Delivery Research & Evaluation Team (CADRE). He has developed innovative models to provide HIV care to veterans and Hep C care in rural settings via telehealth. He studies healthcare quality and delivery. He participates in the Addiction Medicine program.
- Dr. Peterson applies innovative statistical modeling to infectious diseases and other categories of illness. His proposals leverage cross-collegiate collaborations with Biostatistics and Computer Science.
- Dr. Polgreen is the cofounder of the interdisciplinary Computational Epidemiology Program at the University of Iowa, which applies bioinformatics to infectious diseases. He is the director of the Emerging Infections Network (EIN), an infectious disease physicians' network for North America sponsored by the CDC to surveille and gather information on various emerging infections.
- Dr. Prasidthrathsint oversees Clinical Micro projects.
- Dr. Sekar specializes in Ortho ID at UI Health Care and is involved in scholarly and quality improvement projects related to MSK infections.
- Dr. Stapleton studies the interactions between flaviviruses and immune cells, GB virus C and co-infection and SARS-CoV-2.
- Dr. Suzuki is a members of CADRE at the VA and conducts research in healthcare delivery and antimicrobial stewardship.
- Dr. Tan studies polyomavirus infections in immunocompromised hosts; she conducts clinical therapeutic trials and vaccine trials.
- Dr. Tholany is the Hospital Epidemiologist at the VA and conducts quality improvement projects and research in AMS/health services.
- Dr. Wilson studies the pathogenesis, biology, immunology, and genetics of Leishmania. She has collaborative projects in Brazil with two adjunct Infectious Diseases faculty members (Drs. Jeronimo and Carvalho). She coordinates global health clinical and research experiences for trainees and mentors research projects.
- Dr. Winokur leads the University of Iowa Vaccine Trials and Education Unit and the Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS).