Instructors

Leah Carter is a Jaharis Health Law Institute Fellow and a regulatory manager in the University of Chicago’s Cancer Center Clinical Trials Office. With a focus on FDA law, ethics, and the intersection between regulatory compliance and access to healthcare, Leah has more than twelve years’ experience writing on regulatory and compliance issues. Her published work discusses interventional cures, stigma, hepatitis C treatments, and advocacy. She earned her MS in Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Regulatory Sciences from the University of Georgia. She is a current J.D. candidate at DePaul University College of Law.

Lori De Milto, MJ, is a freelance medical writer who helps her clients engage their audience(s) through targeted medical content. By focusing on marketing, De Milto began earning six figures within eighteen months of launching her freelance business. She has published three books on marketing for freelancers, most recently 7 Steps to High-Income Freelancing: Get the clients you deserve (2017). A fellow of the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA), De Milto has also received the President’s Award and frequently presents on marketing for freelancers at AMWA conferences. De Milto has two degrees in journalism from Temple University.

Barbara Gastel teaches Fundamentals of Substantive Editing and Publication Ethics for UChicago's Medical Writing and Editing certificate program. She is also a Professor of Integrative Biosciences and Medical Humanities at Texas A&M University, where she coordinates the graduate program in science communication. She is first author of the current edition of How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper and has published three other books. She has also played lead roles in international projects to train medical editors and teach scientific writing, and for a decade she edited the Council of Science Editors periodical, Science Editor. Her honors include a teaching award from the American Medical Writers Association and designation as an Honored Editor in the Life Sciences. Her MD and MPH are from Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Howson is a medical writer and qualitative researcher. She creates evidence-based education content for health professionals that is grounded in principles of adult learning and evaluates continuing education outcomes using qualitative methodologies. Initially trained in Scotland as a Registered General Nurse, Dr. Howson is an experienced educator (Universities of Edinburgh, Aberdeen and UC Berkeley Extension), a medical sociologist with an international peer review publication record, and an author of several books, including widely used university texts. Her bi-weekly podcast, Write Medicine, explores the minds, motivations, and practices of people who create content that connects with and educates health professionals.

Laura King has been a full-time freelance medical editor for more than eighteen years. Formerly, she worked as the director of copyediting for JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association. As a freelancer, she currently works for the American Academy of Pediatrics PREP self-assessment courses and for Elsevier as a copyeditor for Clinical Therapeutics, American Journal of Pathology, Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, and Annals of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. She is the author of the AMA Manual of Style Quizzes and a frequent contributor to the AMA Style Insider blog. Her MA is from Northwestern University, and her MFA is from Hollins University. She is a board-certified editor in life sciences.

Tom Lang is an international consultant and trainer in medical communications. Formerly Manager of Medical Editing Services at the Cleveland Clinic, he has long been involved in developing reporting standards for evidence-based medicine. His books, How to Report Statistics in Medicine and How to Write, Publish, and Present in the Health Sciences are standard references in medical writing. He has received teaching awards from the American Medical Writers Association, the American Statistical Association, and the University of Chicago. He has an MA in communication from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California.

Dr. Donna Stroup has over twenty-five years of international experience in building high-performing research teams, spearheading epidemiology programs, and impacting public health worldwide. She is currently the founding director of Data for Solutions, Inc., a scientific research firm. She served as senior consultant for UNAIDS and WHO on estimating the sizes of populations at risk of HIV and AIDS in southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and the Caribbean.

Dr. Stroup holds an MS in community medicine from Cambridge University, a PhD in statistics from Princeton University, an MS in mathematical statistics from the University of North Carolina, and a BA in mathematics from Vanderbilt University, She serves on numerous editorial boards and scientific review committees and is the author or coauthor of more than 200 publications.

Rachel Wedeward, MS, is Research Project Manager for the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) in Chicago.

A professional librarian, Wedeward has previously worked at the American Hospital Association (AHA) as a research information specialist and at the American Library Association (ALA) as a research coordinator.

In her current and previous roles, her primary responsibilities have been to conduct research, manage research projects, and teach end users on using healthcare technology resources and database searching.

She received her BA in anthropology, politics, and government from Ripon College in 2014 and an MS in library and information science from Dominican University in 2016.