Jane O'Bryan

Jane is a fourth-year medical student at the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University in North Haven, CT. She graduated in 2015 from Yale University, where she majored in Latin American Studies and subsequently pursued a Master of Public Health degree in Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases from the Yale School of Public Health (2016), with a concentration in Global Health. After medical school, she is planning to pursue residency training in the field of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She aspires to a career as a physician scientist working at the intersection of infectious diseases and maternal-fetal medicine. She is honored to be a recipient of the Benjamin Kean Fellowship and excited to gain clinical experience in tropical medicine and laboratory skills for infectious diseases research as she executes her Fellowship project to study leptospirosis in the Peruvian Amazon.

What does the Kean Fellowship mean to you?
My research interests have evolved over time to span different academic and research disciplines, but a common thread has consistently united them: infectious diseases. My research foci to date within the field of infectious diseases have been tick-borne illnesses such as babesiosis and Lyme disease and, separately, the surgical and antimicrobial management of prosthetic joint infections. I am interested in exploring different areas of tropical medicine and diversifying my research involvement to include topics impacting global populations with an emphasis on neglected diseases that primarily impact patients in low-resource settings. The Benjamin Kean Fellowship has provided me with this unique opportunity to explore and build on my existing experiences through invaluable hands-on clinical exposure to tropical medicine as a fourth-year medical student. I will carry this knowledge forward into my residency training and beyond, and I am deeply honored and grateful to have been selected.

What do you anticipate learning?
Working with the clinical team on the infectious diseases service during my fellowship will provide me with firsthand exposure to neglected tropical diseases rarely encountered in the northeastern U.S., where I am completing my medical school training. This learning experience will be invaluable to me as a medical student and aspiring physician-scientist. I will also have the opportunity to gain experience in the laboratory-based, diagnostic aspects of tropical medicine.

What interests you about tropical medicine and what problems are you interested in solving?
I see tropical medicine as a means of alleviating inequity, protecting vulnerable populations that are disproportionately affected by diseases of poverty, and furthering our collective knowledge of infectious diseases in an increasingly globalized world with a rapidly changing climate. I am interested in neglected tropical diseases, infectious diseases in the post-disaster context and the intersection of infectious diseases with maternal-fetal medicine. As a current fourth-year medical student and aspiring OB/GYN resident, I am particularly interested in helping to solve unanswered research questions about the pathophysiology and management of infectious diseases in pregnancy, trans-placental infection transmission, and how we can best prepare to protect vulnerable populations including pregnant people if and when we face the next global pandemic.