Alison Jane Martingano

Alison Jane Martingano, Ph.D., is a social psychologist specializing in empathy and communication. Her postdoctoral research in the Social and Behavioral Research Branch at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) is focused on how to effectively communicate genomic concepts and improve empathy in physician-patient interactions. She is also a passionate educator and science communicator. In her role as outreach liaison for the NIH Fellows Committee (FELCOM), she writes profiles of postdoctoral researchers investigating the mysteries of human biology in NIH labs.

Posts By This Author

Postdoc Profile: An Engineer Among Epidemiologists

Dr. Shuai Xie Brings a New Perspective to Research on Environmental Exposures

By Alison Jane Martingano

Monday, December 13, 2021

“Engineering is about solving problems,” says IRP postdoctoral fellow Shuai Xie, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Dr. Xie speaks from experience. One of the problems she was interested in solving during her graduate studies in chemical and environmental engineering was how to accurately measure the way airborne contaminants adhere to and release from indoor building materials. This is a particularly important problem to solve because those interactions can affect measurements of indoor air pollution, potentially rendering them inaccurate. Of course, Dr. Xie was not trying to solve this engineering problem for its own sake; accurately gauging contamination of indoor air is important for human health.

Postdoc Profile: COVID-19 Provides New Opportunities for Virus Science

Dr. Alberto D. López-Muñoz Pivots to New Research Focus Amidst Pandemic

By Alison Jane Martingano

Thursday, September 23, 2021

Like all virologists, IRP postdoctoral fellow Alberto D. López-Muñoz, Ph.D., knew a global pandemic was sadly inevitable. No one could predict exactly when, but it was just a matter of time until a novel virus would make its way around the globe. Nevertheless, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, caused by a virus called SARS-CoV-2, even Dr. López-Muñoz was surprised by how rapidly his career transformed as he switched gears study the novel contagion.