PAIR Center Students Complete Summer Research 2026

Our approach

Our approach to student mentorship includes an orientation to the Center, clinical shadowing opportunities, and team-building events. Students have the ability to learn from qualitative methods workshops, participate in small group “ask me anything” sessions with PAIR Center Core Faculty, and attend a curated Summer Speaker Series.

This year’s Speaker Series included a line-up of PAIR Center Core Faculty, Affiliated Faculty, trainees, and research staff. These stellar clinicians and researchers spoke to our students about their career journeys and how their unique paths have led to their current research interests. Thank you to all of this year’s presenters and panelists: Dr. Scott Halpern, Dr. Hao Tong, Dr. Anessa Foxwell, Dr. Meeta Kerlin, Dr. Kathryn Connell, Aerielle Belk, and Jasmine Silvestri.

This summer, the PAIR Center was fortunate to have ten students join us to work on a variety of projects in serious illness, palliative care, and health services research.

Berkman Summer Internship in Palliative Care

The Berkman Summer Internship in Palliative Care is a clinical and research fellowship for medical students that provides early exposure to hospice and palliative medicine. The three Berkman Scholars participated in research activities with Core Faculty at the PAIR Center and summarized their work in final presentations on August 7^th.

Natalie Aceves, second year student at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine & Science, was mentored by Dr. Stephanie Van Decker, a Clinician Leader for Penn PORTAL, a learning health system science research and training program. The project is titled, “Enhancing Equitable and Consistent Access to Language Services to Patients at Penn Medicine.” As part of this project, Natalie supported focus groups conducted in Spanish, including recruiting participants, documenting participant responses, and learning about the importance of language access for patient-centered care.

Samir Oza, second year student at Drexel University College of Medicine, was mentored by Dr. Joanna Hart. Samir contributed to Dr. Hart’s project seeking to understand the impact of integrating a child life specialist service to support patients’ loved ones in three adult medical ICUs. Samir was tasked with developing the surveys and interview guides for data collection, which he and another Penn medical student will administer to research participants over the next few months.

Kayla Posley, second year student at University of Missouri School of Medicine, was mentored by Bethany Sewell and Rebecca Kirch, the Engagement Co-Leads of Comparing Optimized Models of Primary and Specialist Services for Palliative Care (COMPASS-PC). Kayla interviewed members of the study’s Patient and Caregiver Advisory Committee to learn more about how they became involved in advocacy work and what motivates them to continue doing this work, particularly for the COMPASS-PC trial.

Summer Undergraduate Mentored Research (SUMR) Program

The SUMR Program through the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI) introduces talented undergraduate students to research in the fields of health services, population health, and clinical epidemiology. The Program culminates in a five-day symposium where the students present about their mentored research projects.

This year the PAIR Center worked with Tulah Jefferson, a rising junior at Emory University pursing a Human Health major and Public Policy Analysis minor. Tulah was mentored by Dr. Scott Halpern and presented her work on Project LEARN of the Behavioral Economics to Transform Trial Enrollment Representativeness (BETTER) Center. Tulah worked closely with the study team to develop a study dissemination plan and produce a letter to share study results with participants.

Penn Access Summer Scholars (PASS) Program

The PASS Program is a pre-medical enrichment program that supports the recruitment of students to the Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM) who show promise of having an impactful career in medicine. PASS scholars spend two consecutive summers of eight weeks on Penn’s campus conducting mentored research and engaging in premedical enrichment.

As part of PASS, Brian Roper, Jr., a rising junior at Morehouse College, worked with Dr. Joanna Hart this summer on two projects: SERENE and FOCUS. On SERENE, a mechanistic clinical trial examining how a coping skills intervention for people with COPD and their family caregivers helps reduce distress, Brian reviewed electronic health record data to identify eligible patients for enrollment. On FOCUS, a longitudinal study looking at the impact of financial hardship following critical illness, Brian contributed to longitudinal participant follow-up and data collection. Brian will return to the PAIR Center next summer to continue his work with Dr. Hart.

Additional summer students

The PAIR Center also provides mentored research opportunities to students outside of the Berkman, SUMR, and PASS programs. This summer, we would like to acknowledge Sam Gerber (post-baccalaureate student from Bard College) and Christian Porter (second year medical student at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine) who worked with Dr. Joanna Hart, and Jared Miller (undergraduate student at Pennsylvania State University), Abhi Pandey (second year medical student Thomas Jefferson University), and Freya Gulamali (first year medical student at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine) who worked with Dr. Gary Weissman.

Finally, we extend our sincere thanks to the many research staff whose dedication and expertise made these mentored research experiences possible. Their shared commitment to our summer students’ growth is instrumental in shaping the success of our program. A special thanks to Aerielle Belk, Nicholas Bishop, Shira Blady, Emma Britez Ferrante, Daniel Carter, Bethany Sewell, Jasmine Silvestri, and Eric Underwood for their guidance and support throughout the summer.

Congratulations to all students and their mentorship teams on successful completion of their summer projects!