Scientists who have run the studies

Denis Nash, PhD, MPH

Denis is an infectious disease epidemiologist with more than 25 years of experience building and running studies and surveillance systems. He is Distinguished Professor of Epidemiology at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy and Executive Director of the CUNY Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health.

He began his career as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer at the CDC and later directed HIV/AIDS surveillance at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. He has led large cohort studies in the United States and sub-Saharan Africa, including the CHASING COVID Cohort and Project PROTECTS, and helped build New York's hospital wastewater surveillance program. He spent 2025 to 2026 as a Fulbright visiting professor at Sorbonne Université in Paris. His work has been covered by The New York Times, NPR and the Associated Press.

More at denisnash.com

Sarah Kulkarni, MPH

Sarah has more than twenty years of research and program experience in the United States and internationally. She is Associate Director of the CUNY Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health, where she leads strategic planning and operations, and she built the recruitment, fulfillment and retention systems that make national at-home specimen collection work.

Her experience spans deploying large study teams, site assessments, data collection instruments and protocols, data management systems, and regulatory compliance in domestic and international settings. She previously worked at the U.S. Department of State as part of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). She holds an MPH from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.