Moderator & Presenter: Cindy Hou, DO, MA, MBA, FACOI, FACP, FIDSA

Infection Control Officer, Jefferson Health New Jersey

Dr. Cindy Hou is an infectious diseases specialist and serves as the Infection Control Officer for Jefferson Health New Jersey and Jefferson Medical Group. Locally, she is the physician lead for the hospital’s Antimicrobial Stewardship Committee, Infection Control Committee, Infection Prevention Task Force and Sepsis on the Floors Task Force. In 2018, she was the recipient of a national award as a Hero of Infection Prevention in Patient Safety from the Association of Professionals in Infection Control (APIC), and in 2019, she became the first infectious diseases physician to serve on the national Sepsis Alliance’s Advisory Board. Dr. Hou graduated from Yale University. She received her MA and MBA from Boston University, and D.O. from the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine. She is fellowed by the American College of Osteopathic Internists, the American College of Physicians, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

Dian Baker, PhD, RN

Professor, School of Nursing, California State University, Sacramento 

Dr. Baker obtained her PhD from the University of Hawaii and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in healthcare leadership at the University of California, Davis. She was the academic partner and researcher with the Sutter Health System Team that was awarded the 2018 California Healthcare Quality Institute's C. Duane Dauner Quality Award for excellence in quality and safety for their work on non-ventilator hospital-acquired pneumonia. In 2020, Baker was part of the team awarded the Award for Publication Excellence from the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology and the American Journal of Infection Control. Baker and her colleagues formed the Hospital Acquired Pneumonia Prevention, Intervention, Research, and Education (HAPPIER) collaborative that includes nurse leaders, researchers, and partners in the UK. She is currently working to promote prevention of nonventilator hospital acquired pneumonia in hospitals worldwide and is a consultant for the VA National HAPPEN program. She is co-chair of a research workgroup for the National Organization to Prevent Hospital Acquired Pneumonia (NOHAP).

Michael Klompas MD, MPH 

Hospital Epidemiologist, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Professor of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School 

Dr. Michael Klompas is an Infectious Disease physician and the Hospital Epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston as well as Professor of Population Medicine in Harvard Medical School. He has published widely on surveillance, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of hospital-acquired pneumonia, ventilator-associated events, Covid-19, and sepsis. He was a member of the ATS-IDSA guideline panel on Management of Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia, is currently co-chair of the SHEA panel on Strategies to Prevent Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia, and serves on the Surviving Sepsis Campaign guideline panel. 

Alice Guh, MD, MPH, FIDSA 

Medical Officer, CDC, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion 

CDR Alice Guh, MD, MPH, is a U.S. Public Health Service Medical Officer in the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (DHQP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases. CDR Guh first joined CDC in 2007 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer, where she was assigned to the Connecticut State Department of Public Health. She joined DHQP in 2009, where she provided technical expertise in investigations of healthcare-associated outbreaks and management of infection control breaches. In August 2014, CDR Guh assumed leadership of the Clostridioides difficile infection surveillance activity, which covers a population of 12 million persons, conducted through the CDC Emerging Infections Program. In this capacity, she leads special projects to advance C. difficile research and provides subject matter expertise on C. difficile epidemiology and surveillance.

John Mazuski, MD, PhD 

Professor of Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine

John E. Mazuski, MD, PhD is a Professor of Surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He received his medical degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1981. He completed surgical residency in 1990, a fellowship in surgical critical care, and a PhD degree in biochemistry in 1993, all from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Mazuski is board certified in surgery and in surgical critical care by the American Board of Surgery. Dr. Mazuski’s clinical practice is centered on surgical critical care. He is the previous co-director of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. His research interests focus on surgical infections, particularly intra-abdominal and soft tissue infections, and antimicrobial stewardship in surgical patients. Dr. Mazuski has been active in the development of evidence-based guidelines for the treatment of surgical and critically ill patients; these include several guidelines for the management of intra-abdominal infections, sepsis and septic shock, and prevention of surgical site infection. Dr. Mazuski is a past president of the Surgical Infection Society and has been recognized as a Master of Critical Care Medicine (MCCM) by the American College of Critical Care Medicine.

Uzma Syed, DO, FIDSA 

Infectious Disease Specialist, Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center

Dr. Uzma Syed is a board-certified Infectious Disease specialist, Chair of the COVID-19 Task Force, and is the Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Center of Excellence at Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center. Dr. Syed is well-published in pneumonia-related research and has been leading several COVID-19 clinical trials. She teaches students of all ages as well as medical residents about her specialty. Dr. Syed is a member of the Inclusion, Diversity, Access & Equity Task Force of the Infectious Disease Society of America. Dr. Syed has been featured on several media outlets as an expert in Infectious Diseases.