Lab Members

Jennifer Bannon got her start in nursing informatics as the nursing team lead on an electronic health record implementation at a small community hospital in 2002. Her education includes a BS in Nursing and an MS in Health Informatics. Before working in informatics, she worked in nursing in inpatient, outpatient and home health settings. Other healthcare experiences include quality improvement, education and case management.

Jennifer has provided Practice Facilitation expertise in the AHRQ Evidence Now study, Healthy Hearts in the Heartland, which focused on improving cardiac health outcomes in the Midwest region, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative study, Great Lakes Practice Transformation Network. Her skills include facilitating workflow assessment, team-based care, change management and learning collaboration.

Lacey Gleason, MSPH, is a program administrator at the Center for Health Information Partnerships (CHIP) with experience in health services research, healthcare quality and practice improvement. Before joining CHIP, Lacey earned a Master of Science in Public Health in Health Policy and Health Services Research from Emory University and a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Columbia University. Lacey has worked on research, quality improvement and strategic planning projects at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Penn Medicine. She is also an AmeriCorps alumna who served in the Community HealthCorps.

Vijeeth is a current Northwestern University Medical Scientist Training Program student in the Health Sciences Integrated PhD Program's Health and Biomedical Informatics track. He received his BS in Computer Science and Biological Chemistry with a concentration in Neuroscience from Grinnell College in 2021. During his PhD, Vijeeth is interested in exploring how medical data can be leveraged in predictive contexts that can be translated into tangible clinical practice improvements. He hopes to combine his training from PhD and medical school to come up with new ways of thinking about and taking advantage of the abundance of available medical data. Outside of school and lab, Vijeeth enjoys playing video games and board games and going to various shows in the Chicago area with his friends.

Jennifer Heinrich, MHA, is a research project manager and center administrator for the Center for Health Information Partnerships (CHIP). She works as a project manager for the NHLBI-funded research project Community Intervention to Reduce CardiovascuLar Disease in Chicago (CIRCL-Chicago). CIRCL-Chicago focuses on strategies to support the Kaiser bundle's adoption, faithful implementation and sustainability in a Chicago community with a high burden of hypertension. She also works on the research program INSPIRE and has provided assistance and outreach for the Illinois Medicaid and Medicare quality incentive payment programs. Before joining CHIP, she worked as a practice facilitator on projects, including the CMS Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative and the Healthy Hearts in the Heartland research program at Telligen, a CMS Quality Innovation Network. She earned a Master of Health Administration degree from Governors State University.

Shashi Salavath, a student at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, is an aspiring computer scientist. He specializes in networks, machine learning and human-computer interaction. At the Center for Health Information Partnerships (CHIP), Shashi applies his expertise by harnessing the power of natural language processing and computer vision to discover new insights from large sets of clinical data. His work revolves around novel techniques to integrate artificial intelligence with EHR data. Shashi's aim is to enhance support for clinical treatment decisions and mitigate risks associated with immunological responses to cancer therapy. He also aims to develop efficient techniques for better using computation in medicine. Beyond his work at CHIP, Shashi has contributed to various AI initiatives at Westlake University in Hangzhou, China, where he recently stayed to pursue his research, as well as projects at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Illinois State University. In his free time, Shashi enjoys playing a game of chess, partaking in a soccer match or going on a refreshing run.

Steven Tran is an MD/PhD student in the Center for Health Information Partnerships at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He researches how to apply medical concept embedding and longitudinal modeling techniques to phenotype cancer patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors. He also studies the subsequent immune-related adverse events (irAE) in electronic health record data. He is interested in developing these technologies for scalable surveillance of irAEs and the discovery of archetypal patient medical trajectories of irAE development. Outside of school and lab, Steven enjoys cooking (but mostly eating), 3D printing, leather crafting, archery and gaming.

Sachleen Tuteja, a freshman at Northwestern University majoring in Data Science and Statistics, is an undergraduate research assistant at the Walunas Lab. Focused on phenotyping complex conditions such as lupus and preeclampsia, she aims to enhance diagnostic accuracy and efficiency. Sachleen aspires to contribute to the intersection of analytics and human health to drive advancements in personalized medicine. Beyond the data realm, she has a passion for dynamic storytelling through video production, podcasting and photography. Off-screen, Sachleen enjoys experimenting with diverse kombucha flavors.

Eva Winckler, MPH, has a background in marketing, communications and public health. As senior program manager for the Center for Health Information Partnerships and the Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, she oversees the center's and institute's communications strategy. Eva joined the team as part of the Chicago Health IT Regional Extension Center (CHITREC) before CHIP's establishment. Before joining CHITREC, Eva gained experience building capacity for community-academic research teams. She also managed communications for a non-profit breast cancer support organization. She earned a Master of Public Health from the University of Illinois at Chicago and holds an undergraduate degree from Northwestern University.