DE-INBRE Summer Scholars See Where Research Can Lead at ChristianaCare

“Going into the summer, I knew I wanted to become a physician assistant,” said University of Delaware senior Braden Hicks. “Coming out, I can see a path to actually becoming one myself.”

That path became clearer while Hicks worked with Kim Gannon, M.D., Ph.D., FAHA, FACP. She made sure he understood the purpose behind his research rather than simply entering data, introduced him to physician assistants, speech-language pathologists, neurosurgeons and other healthcare professionals and invited him to join her on clinical days. Hicks said he called his mother almost every weekend to share something new he had learned.

Hicks was one of 12 undergraduate scholars who spent the summer conducting research at ChristianaCare through the 2026 Delaware IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Summer Student Research Program. The cohort was supported by 24 mentors from across the health system, with a dual-mentor model designed to expose students to people and disciplines beyond their individual projects.

DE-INBRE, supported by the National Institutes of Health and the state of Delaware, with its ChristianaCare component managed within the Research Institute (iREACH), helps strengthen biomedical research capacity across the state. Scholars at ChristianaCare also participated in clinical shadowing, networking and educational experiences, including visits to the Gene Editing Institute and the Caregiver Wellbeing Garden.

Claire Rudolph, MSM, CPHQ, DE-INBRE research program manager at ChristianaCare, said that cross-disciplinary exposure is intentional.

“Research doesn’t happen in isolation,” Rudolph said. “It happens in collaboration across disciplines, departments and people who bring different perspectives to solving complex healthcare challenges.”

Susan Smith, Ph.D., RN, DE-INBRE site principal investigator at ChristianaCare and director of Technology & Research, said the program helps build research capacity to make scientific discoveries possible, sustainable and meaningful for the communities ChristianaCare serves.

“ChristianaCare is the largest healthcare system in Delaware and provides an extensive training ground for translating research into practice,” Smith said. “Combined with the resources, mentorship and infrastructure provided by DE-INBRE, we are helping develop the next generation of scientists.”

That support extends behind the scenes. ChristianaCare’s iREACH works with teams across the health system to provide the regulatory, administrative and operational infrastructure needed to support National Institutes of Health-funded programs such as DE-INBRE.

RELATED: Research Drives Real-World Questions for ChristianaCare and Collaborators

The scholars approached that work from a range of academic backgrounds. Delaware State University public health student Alexis Bailey worked with Marshala Lee-McCall, M.D., MPH to examine food insecurity and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy using the national All of Us Research Program database. University of Delaware English major Cole Bilbrough used the same database to study how often advance care planning was documented after heart failure appeared in a patient’s medical record.

Lee-McCall said she starts by understanding what students already care about. Bailey’s interest in maternal health and social drivers of health helped shape the question she ultimately investigated. Lee-McCall also described mentorship as a two-way exchange.

“This summer I had two awesome interns who not only learned a few things from me, they taught me some computer programming and data analysis skills and pushed me as a mentor,” she said.

For scholar Lauren Alston, the program connected research with another career possibility. The Temple University senior studies musical theater and plans to take pre-med courses after graduation while continuing to audition.

Alston worked with Bridget Peters, D.O., PhD, and Rosemary Polomano, PhD, RN, FAAN. She presented a poster on Polomano’s collaborative nursing research initiative spanning 17 medical-surgical units at ChristianaCare’s Newark Campus. The study is examining why some nursing care goes unfinished and how interventions might improve care delivery. Polomano said the work is part of a broader national effort to focus attention on the value nurses provide.

Other projects addressed questions students could encounter in clinical practice and in their communities. University of Delaware senior Bhavini Shah examined the relationship between Delaware’s expanded adult Medicaid dental coverage and hospitalizations for serious dental infections. University of Delaware sophomore Christopher Cephas studied a proposed adaptive radiation therapy workflow that could reduce the need for repeat CT scans, potentially saving time for patients and staff.

Shah said working with mentors from different areas of medicine — Daniel Meara, M.D., DMD, an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, and Alfred Bacon, M.D., FACP, an infectious disease and wound care specialist — helped her see dentistry in a broader clinical and research context.

“I’d done a lot of shadowing in dental clinics, but I had never experienced dentistry from the research side,” Shah said. “Working with mentors from different specialties helped me see how dentistry connects with other areas of medicine and gave me a much broader perspective on the kind of work I could do in the future.”

For ChristianaCare, DE-INBRE gives clinicians and researchers a way to share their expertise with students while helping strengthen Delaware’s future research and healthcare workforce. The program is one part of ChristianaCare’s broader research enterprise, which connects scientific inquiry with patient care and community needs.

At the Aug. 12 recognition ceremony, Gannon was named the program’s 2026 Mentor of the Summer based on student nominations. She pointed to the mentors who had invested in her own career.

“I love mentoring students and sharing my enthusiasm for neurology,” Gannon said. “It’s so rewarding to pay it forward to the next generation. My mentors took me under their wing, and I love doing that same thing.”

For Delaware State University student Ava Lee, who studied barriers to completing an initial outpatient palliative care appointment, the summer also changed how she thought about the people behind research data.

“The most important thing I learned this summer is that meaningful research is built on empathy and the understanding that every participant’s story has the potential to improve future patient care,” Lee said.

FOR STUDENTS: Learn more about the Delaware INBRE Summer Student Research Program. Medical students and other health-professions students interested in clinical learning opportunities can also explore Undergraduate Medical Education at ChristianaCare.

2026 DE-INBRE Summer Scholars

• Wasma Ali, University of Delaware
  Mentors: Daniel Meara, M.D., DMD; Adrienne Holloway, Ph.D.
• Lauren Alston, Temple University
  Mentors: Bridget Peters, D.O., PhD; Rosemary Polomano, PhD, RN, FAAN
• Alexis Bailey, Delaware State University
  Mentors: Marshala Lee-McCall, M.D., MPH; Claire Rudolph, MSM, CPHQ; Susan Smith, Ph.D., RN
• Soham Bhatt, Pennsylvania State University
  Mentors: David Chen, M.D.; Lauren Skelly, Ph.D.
• Cole Bilbrough, University of Delaware
  Mentors: Marshala Lee-McCall, M.D., MPH; Darrell Dow, FACHE, FACHDM
• Christopher Cephas, University of Delaware
  Mentors: Hank Chen, MS; James LaRosa, M.D.; Kim Williams, DrPH, MPH
• Alicia Davies, Delaware State University
  Mentors: Sangeeta Das Bhattacharya, M.D., MPH, FACP; Claire Rudolph, MSM, CPHQ; Susan Smith, Ph.D., RN
• Aanya Gupta, Duke University
  Mentors: Wayne Duffus, M.D., Ph.D.; Michele Johnson, RN
• Braden Hicks, University of Delaware
  Mentors: Kim Gannon, M.D., Ph.D., FAHA, FACP; Christopher Parronchi, M.D.
• Ava Lee, Delaware State University
  Mentors: Zugui Zhang, Ph.D.; Sarah Matthews, M.D.; Patricia Pawlow, Ph.D., ACNP-BC
• Naveena Rajeev, University of Delaware
  Mentors: Asanthi Ratnasekera, D.O.; Pamela Bailey, D.O., MPH
• Bhavini Shah, University of Delaware
  Mentors: Daniel Meara, M.D., DMD; Alfred Bacon, M.D., FACP