CSR’s primary role is to handle the receipt and review of ~ 75% of the grant applications that NIH receives. NIH separates the review process from funding decisions.
For Reviewers
Reviewers are critical to our mission to see that NIH grant applications receive, fair, independent, expert, and timely scientific reviews. We appreciate the generosity with which reviewers give their time.
News & Policy
The latest news and policy updates from CSR. Read about our outreach programs and publications.
Study Sections
Applications are reviewed in study sections (Scientific Review Group, SRG). Review Branches (RBs) are clusters of study sections based on scientific discipline.
Review Panels & Dates
Applications are reviewed in study sections (Scientific Review Group, SRG). Review Branches (RBs) are clusters of study sections based on scientific discipline.
Dr. Lisa DeRoo earned her Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of Washington and her M.P.H. in international health from Emory University. Following her graduate work, she studied breast cancer and migrant health at the University of Geneva Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland. She joined the…
Dr. Lisa Steele serves as Chief of the Epidemiology and Population Health Review Branch (EPH RB).Dr. Lisa Steele received her Ph.D. in immunology from Harvard University with an emphasis on CD8 T cell responses to microbial pathogens. Following her graduate work, she entered CDC as a CDC/APHL…
Dr. Melinda Harrison Krick received her Ph.D. in chemistry from Duquesne University, where she studied heavy metal-binding proteins using quantum and molecular modeling and spectroscopic techniques. Dr. Krick then studied biosensors at the University of Bern, Switzerland. Prior to joining CSR, she…
Dr. Michelle M. Timmerman is the Associate Director/Guide Liaison Officer at the Division of Receipt and Referral (DRR) at CSR.Prior to joining DRR, she served in the Office of Extramural Research as the Acting Director and Guide Policy Officer of the NIH Guide to Grants and Contracts. She also…
Dr. Rass M. Shayiq received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from India, he then finished postdoctoral training in the Department of Animal Biology, at the University of Pennsylvania. His research has focused on the biochemical and molecular characterization of a group of six constitutive and inducible…
Dr. Angela Thrasher received her Ph.D. in health behavior from the University of North Carolina (UNC) Gillings School of Global Public Health. Dr. Thrasher completed postdoctoral training in health disparities, social determinants of health, and minority aging research at the University of…
Dr. Brittany Mason-Mah received her Ph.D. in psychiatry from King’s College London, working in both the Institute of Psychiatry and the Institute of Pharmaceutical Science, with an emphasis on physiology and blood-brain barrier regulation. She then completed postdoctoral training in preclinical and…
Dr. Roger Bannister began his Ph.D. studies in biology at the University of Iowa and completed his thesis at Utah State University. He received his post-doctoral training in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Colorado and was then appointed to a tenure-track faculty…
Dr. Sharon Isern received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) where she developed viral vectors for gene therapy applications. Dr. Isern conducted her postdoctoral work at UAB and at Tulane…
Dr. Siddhartha Roy received his DrPH degree from Georgia Southern University in public health with a focus on community health behavior and education. He completed his post-doctoral training at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, FL, where he assisted in the development and implementation of community…
Dr. Sulagna Banerjee received her Ph.D. in life sciences from the Bose Institute, Jadavpur University, India. She then completed her post-doctoral research on glycosylation of parasitic protozoa in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at Boston University, MA. She went on to the University…
Dr. Vandana Kumari earned her Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry, specializing in structure-based drug discovery at the College of Pharmacy, Ohio State University. She pursued her postdoctoral training at the Center for Structural Biology (formerly Macromolecular Crystallography Laboratory), National…
Dr. Victoria Virador received her Ph.D. from the University of California at Davis where she studied grape polyphenol oxidase, a ubiquitous enzyme that catalyzes oxidative browning. As a postdoctoral trainee at the NCI, Dr. Virador developed in-cell assays to study pigmentation modifiers, and…
Dr. Ganesan Ramesh obtained his doctorate from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, where his dissertation focused on the role of TGF-βs in pre-implantation embryo development and its regulation by steroid hormones in the uterus. His expertise is in kidney pathophysiology and…
Dr. Jennifer C. Villa received a Ph.D. in pharmacology from Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences and conducted her thesis research on gamma-secretase regulation of notch signaling in hypoxic breast cancer at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She received postdoctoral training…
Dr. Jian Cao received his M.D. from Zhengzhou University School of Medicine in China and an M.S. from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. He had postdoctoral training in the field of molecular and cellular biology of cancer at Kanazawa University in Japan and then at Stony Brook University (…
Dr. Steven Frenk came to CSR after serving as an epidemiologist at CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics where he managed the questionnaires of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Study (NHANES). While at CDC, he also served as an advisor for the National Death Index and as a…
Dr. Hope Cummings is a Senior Social Science Analyst who supports CSR’s research and evaluation efforts. Dr. Cummings received her Ph.D. in communication studies from the University of Michigan and did post-doctoral training in the Harvard School of Public Health. As a social and behavioral…
Dr. Juraj Bies received his Ph.D. in cancer genetics from the Scientific Council for Molecular Biology and Genetics, Slovak Academy of Sciences and Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. He did his postdoctoral training in the field of viral oncogenesis at NIH in the Laboratory of Genetics…
Dr. Khalida Shamim earned her Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from Indiana University, Bloomington, where she focused on the total synthesis of natural products and published her research on stemona alkaloids as well as the quinone methide macrolide, kendomycin. She subsequently joined…
Dr. Abdelouahab Aitouche is the Scientific Review Officer for the CSR’s Physiology and Pathobiology of Organ Systems Study Sections. He coordinates the review process of various fellowship grant application mechanisms.
Dr. Aitouche did his undergraduate studies in his native country Algeria. He…
Dr. Anthony Chan received his veterinarian training at National Taiwan University and his Ph.D. in Endocrinology and Reproductive Physiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he received training in assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) and developed a gene transfer method to…
Dr. David Filpula received his Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Minnesota and completed postdoctoral training in protein chemistry and molecular genetics at Stanford University and the University of California, San Diego. Subsequently, he served for nearly three decades as a research…
Dr. Eleni Liapi received her M.D. at the University of Ioannina Faculty of Medicine, Greece, and residency training in diagnostic radiology, in Greece. She completed a post-doctoral research fellowship in interventional radiology at Johns Hopkins University and was subsequently appointed as faculty…
Dr. Emily Kilroy earned her Ph.D. in occupational science with a concentration in neuroscience from the University of Southern California (USC). She also holds a Master of Science from University College London and Yale University, specializing in developmental neuropathology. Dr. Kilroy has…