Catching Up with Pilot Grant Recipients Bre Biondi and Fiona Gispen

Fiona Gispen: I am currently an instructor of infectious diseases at Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM). When I got my pilot grant, I was a 3^rd year infectious diseases fellow at WCM, completing my research year of the fellowship.

Bre Biondi: I am currently a postdoc at the University of Chicago where I’m conducting research focusing on Medicaid enrollees and managed care organizations (MCO). When I received my award in 2024, I was a PhD candidate working on my dissertation. Most of my pilot grant funding was used to purchase data for my dissertation which looked at postpartum HCV care after the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA).

Gispen: For my project, I used nationwide Medicaid data to look at drug use associated-infective endocarditis in people who use drugs. The initial plan was to conduct a comparative-effectiveness study to compare different types of antibiotics, such as IV and oral, to no antibiotics, on various health services outcomes, like readmissions and mortality. During the project, I pivoted to focus on patient-directed discharge. We basically found that about 20% of patients had patient-directed discharge and only 15% of these patients filled antibiotics after discharge; odds of readmission were much lower if they filled. This finding supports clinical interventions like providing medication at bedside at the time of discharge or using long-acting antibiotics prior to discharge.

Biondi: During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE), the FFCRA prevented states from disenrolling Medicaid enrollees, including postpartum enrollees. So essentially, pregnancy-related Medicaid coverage changed from 60 days to one-year postpartum. I found that after the policy change, treatment for HCV increased. It’s quite interesting because prior research found that among everyone with HCV, treatment rates declined during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gispen: My sponsor was my WCM fellowship mentor, Dr. Shashi Kapadia. He is an assistant professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences at WCM, a previous CHERISH pilot grant recipient, and continues to work with CHERISH. I worked closely with him to solidify my idea and aims and put the grant application together. I had no prior experience applying for a grant, so I learned a lot throughout this process. Shashi’s mentorship was invaluable.

Biondi: Similar to Fiona, I had known and worked with my sponsor previously. My sponsor was Dr. Rachel Epstein, who was also part of my dissertation committee. I met her years prior and we had been collaborating on a handful of projects. She was heavily invested in helping me write the grant and make edits alongside other committee members. It was nice having a handful of mentors to help me with everything.

Gispen: I was on an NIH T32 research grant while I had the CHERISH grant, so I didn’t have to allocate funding for my time. However, I had a research analyst. So, we paid a portion of his time through the grant. I also budgeted for publication fees, conference registrations, and travel, which then paid for my attendance at ID Week this year. My funding allocation didn’t change throughout the year.

Biondi: A large part of my budget was used for data acquisition. I wasn’t funded for the fifth year of my PhD, so I used some of my CHERISH pilot grant to fund my time. I also allocated funds for general technology which helped me get a new laptop battery. I budgeted for conference and travel fees, but I didn’t get a chance to do that.

Gispen: I presented an abstract of my project at ID Week 2025 and at an internal Weill Cornell conference. I plan to submit my manuscript to an infectious disease journal and am applying for a K award and two pre-K awards at Weill Cornell. I’m definitely using the experience and skills that I gained during the CHERISH grant period to support my grant applications.

I also had no experience using Medicaid data prior to this. So, I had a lot of support from my mentor and our data analyst. I’m hoping to continue using Medicaid data analysis in my K award and future applications.

In terms of soft outcomes, during our mid- and end-of-year presentations, I met multiple people outside of my institution who share my interests. It was great to chat with them about research ideas, and I hope to collaborate with them in the future.

Biondi: My first goal was to finish my dissertation, which was completed in July, so that is very exciting! I’m working on conference presentations and aiming to submit my dissertation paper by the end of the year.

As for soft skills, working with people like Bonnie, a communications manager, and Rachel, my mentor, as well as other news groups to get your work out there or learn how to promote your work was incredibly beneficial. I also had a lot of meetings with Brandon and Jared who were super helpful.