CTTI’s staff leads the day-to-day operations that drive our mission forward. They manage the development and execution of projects, support the dissemination of results, and coordinate the activities of both the Executive and Steering Committees.
Below is a list of the dedicated professionals who make up our team.
CTTI Staff
Erin Bland
Biography
Ms. Bland designs and manages all member communication and engagement activities for CTTI. She also oversees management of all CTTI events.
Ms. Bland has 20+ years of experience in global event management and facilitating the seamless end-to-end delivery of executive learning and development programs. Prior to joining CTTI, she spent seven years at Duke Corporate Education, where she worked as a senior program manager and served clients such as Boehringer Ingelheim, AbbVie, Sanofi Pharmaceuticals, Citibank, and Rolls-Royce. Ms. Bland also worked as an account manager for Digiton Corporation, where she oversaw the communication and compliance account for Glaxo SmithKline. Prior to this work, Ms. Bland was the event manager of the Walk for Hope and assistant executive director for Foundation of Hope, helping to raise money for treatment of mental illnesses. She has a BA in communication and public relations from North Carolina State University and is a certified functional medicine health coach through FMCA.
Sara Bristol Calvert
Biography
Dr. Calvert is responsible for senior operational leadership and oversight for the core activities of the CTTI projects group. She collaboratively develops and implements strategies to support CTTI’s project managers and multistakeholder project teams as they develop solutions to improve clinical trials, and ensures the alignment of project objectives with CTTI’s mission, vision, and goals.
Prior to joining CTTI, Dr. Calvert was a clinical pharmacist and project leader in the Outcomes Group at the Duke Clinical Research Institute. At the DCRI she managed projects, conducted a randomized intervention to improve medication adherence, and served as the anticoagulation monitor for a multicenter clinical trial. She also practiced as a clinical pharmacist at the Duke Outpatient Clinic from 2007 to 2015. Dr. Calvert received a PharmD from the University of Pittsburgh and completed a specialty residency in primary care pharmacy practice at Duke University Medical Center and Health System.
Monica Epps
Biography
Ms. Epps provides support to CTTI’s project management team. She coordinates and implements research and administrative strategies essential to the design, management, and completion of projects on clinical trial methodologies conducted by CTTI.
Ms. Epps is an experienced clinical research professional with a strong background in research project management and clinical trial oversight. Previously, she was a clinical research coordinator, successfully managing numerous clinical trials across various therapeutic areas. Ms. Epps is adept at coordinating multi-disciplinary teams, facilitating communication between investigators, sponsors, and participants, and streamlining study operations to enhance efficiency. She holds a Masters Degree in Biomedical Research from Morehouse School of Medicine.
Hannah Faulkner
Biography
Ms. Faulkner works collaboratively with CTTI’s strategic communications manager, leadership, and projects team to develop and execute internal and external communication strategies for CTTI projects that resonate across the clinical trials enterprise.
Prior to her current role, Ms. Faulkner served as a communications specialist at the Wake Forest Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) where she crafted compelling narratives for complex medical research projects. She also served in a similar role in the Dean’s Office at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, delving deeper into the realm of academic medicine, maintaining collaborative relationships with faculty members, researchers, and other healthcare professionals. She holds a BA in communications from Campbell University.
Taré Floyd
Biography
Ms. Floyd manages the development and implementation of CTTI projects. Along with her colleagues, she is accelerating progress towards the Transforming Trials 2030 Vision.
Prior to joining CTTI, Ms. Floyd was a Clinical Study Manager at W.L. Gore where she managed global aortic post-market device studies. She also served as Clinical Trial Manager at IQVIA, implementing protocols in varying therapeutic areas from global biotech and med-tech clients. In her prior role at Sana Health, Inc., she developed neurological and mental health medical device trials and oversaw neurological drug studies.
Earlier in her career, Ms. Floyd worked as a Clinical Research Coordinator at Penn Medicine and Accel Research Sites. She also worked as a Research Assistant in Perelman School of Medicine, where she focused on genetics and ovarian cancer therapeutics. Ms. Floyd earned her BA from the University of Pennsylvania.
Kelly Franzetti
Biography
Ms. Franzetti manages the development and implementation of CTTI projects. In collaboration with team leaders, she creates project plans and budgets, and manages the implementation of those plans.
Prior to joining CTTI, Ms. Franzetti was a senior scientist for Merck where she planned, executed, statistically analyzed, and reported on infectious disease studies from discovery through testing in support of antibacterial development. Earlier in her career, she worked in clinical research, first as a research technician and later as a study manager at Charles River Laboratories, where she was responsible for complex preclinical research studies. She also worked as a research associate for the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, where she planned and executed all in vivo bacterial and viral studies. Ms. Franzetti has a BS in Biotechnology and Conservation from Delaware Valley University.
Zach Hallinan
Biography
Mr. Hallinan manages the development and implementation of CTTI projects. In collaboration with team leaders, he creates project plans and budgets, and manages the implementation of those plans.
Prior to joining CTTI, Mr. Hallinan directed patient communication and engagement programs at the nonprofit Center for Information and Study on Clinical Research Participation, where for five years he led efforts to help the research enterprise better understand and meet the needs of the participants who make research possible. Among his other initiatives, Mr. Hallinan worked with leading industry sponsors to implement programs for routinely providing plain-language summaries of clinical trial results to research participants in more than 40 countries. His experience also includes science curriculum development at the Education Development Center, as well as basic research in organic chemistry and biology. He earned a BA in Biology and a BA in Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania, has been recognized by CenterWatch as an innovator changing the face of the clinical trials industry, and has also been a National Science Foundation IGERT fellow as well as an AmeriCorps volunteer.
Morgan Hanger
Biography
Ms. Hanger coordinates with the Executive Committee in the development and execution of strategies to accomplish CTTI’s mission. She provides senior oversight and management of CTTI operations and organizes efforts to leverage the participation of member organizations and external stakeholders.
Ms. Hanger has deep experience convening organizations to solve complex problems related to evidence generation and is passionate about data ethics and transparency. Prior to CTTI, she worked at health technology companies focused on patients. Notably, she served as vice president of the online patient research network PatientsLikeMe (PLM), where she led partnerships to utilize patient-generated health data in life sciences and regulatory settings. Prior to PLM, Ms. Hanger worked in advisory services for Avalere Health, where she helped biotech, pharma, and professional societies create more effective research strategies. She has also held positions within the Health Outcomes Group at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and at the Congressional Budget Office. Ms. Hanger graduated summa cum laude from New York University with a Bachelor of Arts in Politics and holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley.
Lisa Heegaard
Biography
As part of the engagement team, Ms. Heegaard helps develop, implement and coordinate strategies essential to the management of engagement projects and community-building initiatives conducted by CTTI. She works closely with CTTI team members, leadership and membership to conduct membership and engagement related research, track and analyze data, and make recommendations to inform planning and strategy development. She also develops communications for promoting CTTI to key audiences in support of CTTI’s mission to increase clinical trial quality and efficiency.
Previously, Ms. Heegaard worked across multiple industries, gaining valuable experience in strategic marketing, community engagement, and project management. Her background includes leading successful marketing campaigns, building strong community relationships, and managing complex projects from inception to completion. She holds a B.A. in communications from the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, IL and has completed a Certified Customer Success Manager Level 1 certification with SuccessCOACHING.
Lindsay Kehoe
Biography
Ms. Kehoe manages the development and implementation of CTTI projects. She has convened teams around Disease Progression Modeling, Embedding Trials into Health Care Settings, and the use of digital health technologies to advance Novel Endpoint Acceptance. Along with her CTTI colleagues, Ms. Kehoe is accelerating progress towards the Transforming Trials 2030 Vision. As Lead for Emerging Programs, Ms. Kehoe manages CTTI strategy and activities regarding innovations in the clinical trials enterprise. This includes investigating and sharing clinical trials trends with the internal CTTI team, convening external thought leaders to ideate around emerging topics, recommending how the emerging topics/themes can be incorporated into CTTI’s work, and developing and maintaining partnerships with internal partners and external organizations regarding CTTI activities.
Ms. Kehoe has over ten years of experience in clinical research. Prior to joining CTTI, she was a rare disease specialist in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health and served as a clinical trial lead at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where she coordinated both physician-driven and industry-sponsored trials. She also served on the hospital’s institutional review board, where she reviewed human research protocols to ensure they met relevant ethical standards. Ms. Kehoe is a genetic counselor with extensive experience in both pediatric and adult genetic counseling. Early in her career, she worked in the pharmaceutical industry, first in early phase drug development at Millennium Pharmaceuticals (now Takeda Oncology) and then in post-marketing laboratory surveillance at Sanofi Genzyme. Ms. Kehoe has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and a masters in genetic counseling from Boston University School of Medicine.
Sabrena Mervin-Blake
Biography
Ms. Mervin-Blake manages the development and implementation of CTTI projects. Her CTTI work includes a survey of decentralized approaches during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Convergence Project, the Collaborative Strategies for Proportionate Enrollment project, and management of the Patient Engagement Collaborative.
Ms. Mervin-Blake joined CTTI from the Duke Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), where she served as senior staff director for community engagement and equity in research cores. Over her 21-year career in clinical research, she has served as director of research recruitment at both Duke and UNC NC TraCS Institute, as a project leader with the Clinical Events Classification group at the Duke Clinical Research Institute, and as a certified clinical research coordinator. Earlier in her career, she worked in industry with the small biotech company Karobio, where she focused on the discovery of novel oncology therapeutics; with the CRO PPD Discovery, where she focused on preclinical research and writing clinical development plans; and she spent 10 years in basic science as a research analyst. Ms. Mervin-Blake received a Bachelor of Science in biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Master of Science in clinical research from the Campbell University College of Pharmacy.
Susan Morris
Biography
M
Ms. Morris currently oversees all of CTTI’s events, including the planning and execution of in-person and virtual meetings and conferences. She collaborates with communications managers, project managers and multi-stakeholder project teams to coordinate and budget all events logistics.
Ms. Morris has more than 16 years of experience in Graduate Medical Education program and project management. She joins CTTI from Duke’s Department of Anesthesiology where she managed the anesthesiology fellowships for the past six years. Prior to joining Duke, she worked as an administrative specialist with the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Michigan for nine years. Ms. Morris received a Bachelor of Science in communications and sociology and a Master of Science in human resources and organizational development from Eastern Michigan University.
Cassandra Royal
Biography
Ms. Royal provides administrative support to CTTI’s project managers and project teams. She has been with Duke University for over 15 years, working initially with the Department of Orthopaedics. Her administrative experience includes working in clinical research and finance.
Summer Starling
Biography
Dr. Starling manages the development and implementation of CTTI projects and CTTI strategic operations. Along with her colleagues, she is accelerating progress towards the Transforming Trials 2030 Vision.
Dr. Starling has more than 15 years’ experience in public health. She joins CTTI from within the Duke University School of Medicine, where she led mixed methods research studies with clinical investigators at Duke to understand and improve patient experiences in clinical research. Earlier in her career, she was a senior scientist and a Ford Foundation Doctoral Fellow with the Public Health Institute in Oakland, CA, conducting research on adolescent health and decision-making. She has also worked as a consultant for Johnson & Johnson and other healthcare companies, where she led client-centered research programs and organizational change campaigns.
Dr. Starling received a Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Masters in Public Health (MPH) in sociomedical sciences from Columbia University.
Damon Williams
Biography
Mr. Williams manages operational support for CTTI. He works to ensure CTTI and its coordinated teams have the data, systems, and operational support needed to conduct our work efficiently and effectively. He develops, implements, and maintains systems to streamline workflows and enhance membership experience, including logistics management for the annual membership renewal process and driving the adoption and maintenance of CTTI’s first shared work management tool.
Mr. Williams’s prior work involves several years in project management and program coordination for the NC Department of Health and Human Services, where he developed and implemented compliance programs, provided communications support, and designed and applied projects cross-functionally. He holds a Master’s degree from Duke Divinity School and a graduate certificate from Church Divinity School of the Pacific.