Our Current Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellows
Third Year Fellows
- Fellow, Infectious Diseases
Alaina Halbach
Languages
- English
Departments
Biography
I was born in North Carolina but was whisked away to New England at 4 years of age when I started to develop a southern accent. I grew up in a small town in rural New Hampshire but got a taste of metropolitan life during my 6th grade year when I lived in Paris with my parents. I went to college on the Maine coast at Bowdoin where I majored in French but managed to complete my pre-med requirements. I studied abroad in Senegal during my junior year where I was introduced to the concept of public health and where I was also introduced to my husband, a fellow study-abroad student from Idaho. We maintained a long-distance relationship for the remainder of our undergrad and graduate school years.
I graduated from Johns Hopkins with my master’s degree in Global Disease Epidemiology and took a job as an epidemiologist for the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Branch for four years before going back to school. I completed medical school and my pediatric residency at University of Maryland and am now very excited to dive back into the realm of infectious diseases and public health as a CBER ID fellow here at Children’s National! I spend my free time wrangling my two young kids and enjoy day trips around the Baltimore/DMV area whenever we can get organized enough to leave the house. My favorite pathogen is poliovirus because our global effort to eradicate it represents an amazing public health success and because it is still a major area of focus requiring new strategies to ultimately achieve our goal.
- Fellow, Infectious Diseases
Antigone Kraft
Languages
- English
Departments
Biography
- I am originally from Salt Lake City, which remains my favorite place in the world. I have moved progressively east across the country – Chicago for residency, and now D.C. for fellowship as a CDER fellow. I was drawn to this program because of the dynamic clinical experience it offers and the warmth I experienced from the people in the division. My interests in infectious diseases are still broad and I am excited about the opportunities it offers. When I'm not at the hospital, you can find me exploring restaurants and wandering outside with my husband and baby girl. My favorite microbe is the variola virus (the virus that causes smallpox) because you probably haven't heard of it! I see this as evidence of how important the infectious diseases field is because this illness has been eradicated!
Second Year Fellows
- Fellow, Infectious Diseases
Sarah Benke
Languages
- English
Departments
Biography
- I grew up in Colorado but moved to the Bay Area in Northern California, which I consider to be my hometown. I did most of my schooling and training in California and was ecstatic to move to the East Coast for fellowship and finally experience four seasons again! I have a background in the biopharmaceutical industry and this program felt like a perfect fit with its opportunity to work for the FDA and experience strong clinical training at a large children's hospital. I have really enjoyed the brief time that I have spent in the D.C. area so far and getting to work with such a wonderful and welcoming team of co-fellows and faculty. I enjoy playing the electric guitar, hiking, and doing art projects and hope to join a local community sports league - pickleball anyone? If I had to pick a favorite organism, it would be Pseudomonas aeruginosa because when it grows on the plate, it has a shiny metallic sheen and who doesn’t need a little sparkle in their life.
- Fellow, Infectious Diseases
Roya Gordji
Languages
- English
Departments
Biography
- I was born and raised in Mississippi and attended medical school in Jackson. I moved to Texas for pediatric residency and loved the experience of diversifying my training, which is why I knew I wanted to live somewhere new for fellowship. DC is the perfect place as Children’s offers a fantastic training experience with the unique opportunity to gain a new skillset by working at the FDA, in a city with so much history, art, and culture (and food!). My interests within ID are broad, so I’m looking forward to finding my niche over the next few years. My favorite pathogen is Clostridium botulinum because it’s great that modern science has used a neurotoxin that can be so deadly to treat medical conditions.
First Year Fellows
- Fellow, Infectious Diseases
- Fellow, Infectious Diseases
- Fellow, Infectious Diseases
NIH/Children's National Med-Peds Fellows
- Fellow, Infectious Diseases
Ian Drobish
Languages
- English
Departments
Biography
2nd year
I was born and raised in western Michigan, spending most of my childhood running around outside and reading every book I could find. I went to a small liberal arts college in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and eventually decided to go to medical school at Michigan State University (Go Green!). At that point, my wife and I felt that finding a warm and sunny location for residency would be a nice change of pace, and we headed to the University of California, San Diego for my residency in Med Peds. In residency, I got more and more interested in global health, ID, and critical care, and was fortunate enough to find a place that would allow me to have my cake and eat it too, and so I am incredibly thankful to the NIH and Children's National for allowing me to do Adult Critical Care and Med Peds ID. I absolutely love DC and the surrounding area, especially the restaurants, parks, and museums. With most of my free time you'll find me playing pickleball with my wife or holding on to our baby boy! For my favorite bug - I am particularly partial to Pseudomonas aeruginosa and all the many ways it develops antibiotic resistance.
- Fellow, Infectious Diseases
Rachel Strength
Languages
- English
Departments
Biography
3rd year
I was born and raised in New Orleans, LA, the home of king cakes and crawfish. I then moved to St. Louis where I went to Washington University for college and majored in biomedical engineering. I moved back to New Orleans for a couple of years and then decided to switch things up by going to LSU in Shreveport, LA for medical school. After that, I did Med-Peds residency at University of Tennessee with some of the best human beings ever. I’m a Med-Peds ID fellow here, and this community could not be more welcoming. On my interview day with the NIH and Children’s National, I loved everyone’s enthusiasm for learning, and every single person I met seemed like someone I would genuinely enjoy hanging out with. I moved here with my husband and 2 (very spoiled) cats, and we are loving DC so far. My hobbies include anything arts and crafts related (currently mostly quilting and sewing), traveling, and playing board games. Oh yes, and my favorite organism is none other than THE Great Imitator, Treponema pallidum! It’s been around forever, it’s constantly driving doctors crazy, and there is still so much to learn about it!
- Fellow, Infectious Diseases
Bennett Waxse
Languages
- English
Departments
Biography
4th year
I spent the first 18 years of my life in Omaha, NE, which we were told used to be the Telecommunications Capital of the World due to the neutral accent. Over the ensuing years, I picked up “y’all” from undergrad and medical school in Texas, “cheers” from graduate school in England, “What do you do?” from graduate school in DC, and “dibs” from residency in Chicago. Now, I’m delighted to return to the District to learn infectious diseases in this richly diverse and international city as an NIH-CNH Med-Peds ID Fellow (and to see if the Silver Line will ever reach Dulles Airport). My clinical interests center on clinical decision-making and in the lab, I’d like to use systems biology to aid in diagnosis of infectious diseases. My favorite bug is the ancient obligate human pathogen and master of immune subversion, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Out of work, I love exploring DC’s food, cocktail, music, hiking, and yoga scenes with my wife and our Min Pin, Kiwi.
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