Students | Pharmacoepi

Students on the pharmacoepidemiology program pursue a wide range of research areas in their graduate studies supported through faculty-led research grants, graduate research assistantships at UNC and external fellowships in industry (including members from the Center for Pharmacoepidemiology), contract research organizations and federal agencies. Descriptions of current students and their work are provided below.

Catie Wiener is a fourth-year PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology at UNC, a previous predoctoral fellow with the Center for Pharmacoepidemiology. Catie is a triple Tarheel, with a BA in Mathematics & English and a Masters in Biostatistics also from UNC.

Catie has broad research interest include methodological developments in causal inference, including the selection of appropriate estimands and the handling of competing events to align analyses with actionable causal questions. She applies these methods to evaluate drug safety and effectiveness in understudied populations (e.g. pregnant individuals, people living with HIV) using secondary data source for real-world and regulatory applications. Outside of work she enjoys biking, listening to Broadway cast recordings, reading (Dune is a one of her favorites) and spending time with her dogs.

Catie Wiener

Jeanny Wang is a fourth-year PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology at UNC, a previous predoctoral fellow with the Center for Pharmacoepidemiology.

Jeanny’s research interests include pharmocoepidemiology with substantive interests in cancer and has also worked on the role of environmental exposures on treatment access and outcomes.

Jeanny Wang

Maddy Ponder is a fifth-year PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology at UNC. She also earned her BSPH in environmental health sciences and MPS in biomedical & health informatics at UNC. Prior to beginning this program, she was a data analyst and product manager for Higgs Boson Health, a health tech start-up that develops and supports mobile applications to assist patients preparing for and recovering from surgical interventions.

As a doctoral student, Maddy has enjoyed working with clinicians and epidemiologists alike to tackle antimicrobial stewardship and infection prevention efforts at UNC Medical Center. Her research interests are broadly centered around studying the safety and effectiveness of antimicrobial medications including antimicrobial stewardship, improving prescribing to prevent antimicrobial resistance. Specific research topics include early transition from intravenous to oral antimicrobial therapies among patients with serious infections, desirability of outcome ranking (DOOR) methodology, and outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy. In her free time, Maddy enjoys reading for fun, spending time with friends and family, cooking, playing with her dog, playing Zelda, and staying active.

Jacob Kahrs is a fifth-year PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology at UNC and a current predoctoral fellow with the Center for Pharmacoepidemiology. Prior to joining the UNC Epi Department, Jacob earned his BA in Biology with a concentration in Public Health from Williams College. He first joined the Epidemiology department in 2019 as an MPH student in the Applied Epidemiology program. 

During his time at UNC, Jacob’s research has focused on both substantive and methodologic questions related to the clinical care of pregnant people and children. His research interests include dynamic treatment interventions and precision medicine, measurement error and validation studies, and comparative safety and effectiveness questions in patient groups who are commonly excluded from randomized clinical trials. He also collaborates with the Department of Emergency Medicine and has been a research assistant for Merck & Co., Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline. Outside of school, Jake enjoys trail running, climbing, watercolor painting and spending time with friends.

Clement Acheampong is a fourth-year PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a previous predoctoral fellow with the Center for Pharmacoepidemiology, and a current Global Health Economics & Outcomes Research predoctoral fellow at Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Clement holds a Bachelor of pharmacy degree from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana, and a Master of Public Health degree from Missouri State University. Before starting his PhD, he worked as a public health analyst with RTI International, an epidemiologist with the Community Partnership of the Ozarks and the CDC Foundation, and as a medical representative with Glaxosmithkline Ltd, Ghana. In these roles he engaged in various projects involving real-world evidence generation, pharmacovigilance activities, policy evaluation, substance use prevention, and occupational health research.

Clement’s research interests include comparative effectiveness and safety studies of antihyperglycemic agents (particularly incretin-based therapies) in geriatric populations, evaluation of treatment patterns and drug utilization in geriatric populations with comorbidities, and epidemiology methods for causal inference. His dissertation project is focused on the association between glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists and obstructive sleep apnea incidence using United States Medicare data. Outside of academics, Clement enjoys watching soccer, playing video games, and spending time with friends and family.

Recent and upcoming ICPE Student Presentations (2024-2025)

Jonsson Funk M, Wang JH, Acheampong C, Carmichael B, Wiener C. (2024). Using Generative AI to More Efficiently Conduct Systematic Reviews, Solve Coding Problems, and Communicate Research Findings: A Student-Led Workshop

Wang J et al. Dipeptidyl Peptidase-4 Inhibitors and Inflammatory Bowel Disease Risk: Impact of Study Design Differences on Treatment Effect. Poster presentation

Wang J et al. Spotlight Poster presentation: Climate vulnerability and utilization of electricity-dependent durable medical equipment among Medicare beneficiaries in North Carolina. Spotlight Poster presentation.

Wiener C et al. Comparing causal estimands from a sequential nested trial emulation with a treatment decision design to a conventional single point randomized trial: A simulation study (Lightning oral)

Wiener C et al. Identifying the average treatment effect in the treated: Illustration using the Northwest Germany Stroke Registry (poster)

Kahrs Jacob C., Latour Chase D., Delgado Megan, Ponder Madison, Suarez Elizabeth A., Peacock-Hinton Sharon, Zhou Baijun, Kucirka Lauren M., Wood Mollie E. Comparison of 4 algorithms to prospectively identify pregnancies in electronic health record data. Annual Meeting of the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology. Washington, D.C. 2025.

Zhou Baijun, Latour Chase D., Simmons Elizabeth, Olawore Oluwasolape, Delgado Megan, Kahrs Jacob C., Kucirka Lauren, Suarez Elizabeth A., Peacock Hinton Sharon, Wood Mollie E. Algorithms for identifying pregnancies and their outcomes in a US Claims Database. Annual Meeting of the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology. Washington, D.C. 2025.

Acheampong C, Buse J, Klein KR, Kim LT, Evron J, Kahkoska A, Thompson CA, Pate V, Leese P, Stürmer T. (2024). Investigating the association between incretin-based therapies and thyroid cancer Incidence using United States Medicare data 2007-2019

Acheampong C, Buse J, Fan Z, Lund J, Thompson CA, Pate V, Stürmer T. (2025). Investigating the association between glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists and obstructive sleep apnea incidence using United States Medicare data 2007-2019

Recent Publications from Center Fellows (2024-2025)

Wang JH, Rabkin CS, Engels EA, Song M. Associations between eosinophils and cancer risk in the UK Biobank. Int J Cancer. 2024 Aug 1;155(3):486-492. doi: 10.1002/ijc.34986. Epub 2024 May 2. PMID: 38695391; PMCID: PMC11164628.

Wang T*, Wang JH,* Song Z, Miller E, Pate V, Her Q, et al. Caution in Handling Switchers in Pharmacoepidemiologic Studies Estimating Treatment Effects: The Example of Dipeptidyl Peptidase-4 Inhibitors and Inflammatory Bowel Disease. American Journal of Epidemiology. 2025. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwaf044.

Volesky-Avellaneda KD, Pfeiffer RM, Shiels MS, Castenson D, Miller JM, Wang JH, et al. The burden of COVID-19 mortality among solid organ transplant recipients in the United States. American Journal of Transplantation. 2025;25(3):602-10. doi: 10.1016/j.ajt.2024.10.004.

Schranz, A., Swartwood, M., Ponder, M., Boerneke, R., Oosterwyk, T., Perhac, A., Farel, C., Kinlaw, A. (2024). Quantifying the Time to Administer Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy: A Missed Opportunity to Compensate for the Value of Infectious Diseases. CID. 2024;79(2):348-350. doi:10.1093/cid/ciae262

Kahrs, J.C., Nickel, K.B., Wood, M.E., Dublin, S., Osmundson, S., Stwalley, D., Suarez, E.A., Butler, A.M. (2025) Development of a Pregnancy Cohort in Commercial Insurance Claims Data: Evaluation of Inpatient Versus Apparent Outpatient Deliveries, Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety

Latour, C.D., Kahrs, J.C., McCoy Miller, E., Van Wickle, K., Wood, M.E. (2024). Re “Emulating a Target Trial of Interventions Initiated During Pregnancy with Healthcare Databases: The Example of COVID-19 Vaccination”. Epidemiology

Simmons, L., Dissanayake, M., Kahrs, J.C., Latour, C.D., Olawore, O.M., Kucirka, L., Wood, M.E., (2024), Defining, Measuring, and Evaluating Prenatal Care in Insurance Claims Data. Current Epidemiology Reports

Latour CD, Delgado M, Su I, Wiener C, Acheampong CO, Poole C, Edwards JK, Quinto K, Stürmer T, Lund JL, Li J, Lopez N, Concato J, Jonsson Funk M. (2024). “Use of Sensitivity Analyses to Assess Uncontrolled Confounding from Unmeasured Variables in Observational, Active Comparator Pharmacoepidemiologic Studies: A Systematic Review.” American Journal of Epidemiology.