Clinical Scientist Training Program Director and Co-Directors

Program Director

Gwendolyn B. Scott, MD is the CSTP Program Director.  She is a Professor of Pediatrics and the Director of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease and Immunology.  She is Board Certified in Pediatrics and in Pediatric Infectious Disease and has been a faculty member at the University of Miami since 1978.  Dr. Scott is nationally and internationally known for her work in Pediatric HIV/AIDS.  She was among the first to describe HIV infection in children and participated in the initial clinical trials using antiretroviral agents in infants and children and in pregnant HIV infected women for the interruption of perinatal transmission.  She has been the recipient of several National Institute of Health funded grants to evaluate the natural history of HIV infection in children, maternal factors associated with perinatal transmission, neurodevelopment in HIV infected children and viral and immune factors contributing to the progression of pediatric HIV disease.  In addition, she is the Principle Investigator for the Pediatric AIDS Clinical Trials Unit funded since 1987.  She has been the Principle Investigator of two training grants: and NIH AIDS Postdoctoral Fellowship Training Grant and a Fogarty International AIDS Postdoctoral Fellowship Training Grant which was funded for ten years until the termination of the grant program.  She is on several local, state, and national committees dealing with the problem of pediatric HIV/AIDS and she has been a consultant to the CDC, NIH, and the World Health Organization.  Dr. Scott is a past member of the NIH AIDS Advisory Committee and was a member of an AIDS related research grant review committee.  She is also co-chair of a consensus panel which has developed written guidelines for the management of antiretroviral therapy in HIV-1 infected children as well as being a member of the NIH/Public Health Service taskforce for the development of Guidelines for the Prevention of Perinatal Transmission of HIV Infection.  Dr. Scott has received several teaching awards and was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha as a faculty member in recognition of her teaching contributions to the medical students.  She has served as a mentor for several Fellows in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease. Dr. Scott is the 1999-2000 recipient of the Dean’s Research Award in the category of Senior Clinical Research that recognizes her research and her continued commitment to the University of Miami.  More recently, she was selected to be one of three recipients of the 2004 Lois Pope Life Research Award from the University of Miami School of Medicine for her contributions to research and to the University. 

CSTP Co-Director and Chairperson, Mentor Task Force

Dr. Tracie Lea Miller is Professor of Pediatrics and the Director of a newly formed Division of Pediatric Clinical Research.  Dr. Miller has gained international recognition for her work related to the prevention of chronic diseases during childhood.  Dr. Miller received her medical degree from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. She then went on to complete her pediatric internship, residency, and fellowship in Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition at Children’s Hospital Boston and the Harvard Medical School. After joining the full-time faculty at Children’s Hospital Boston and the Harvard Medical School Dr. Miller received a graduate degree in Clinical Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Miller has been continuously funded by the United States National Institutes of Health as a principal investigator throughout her entire faculty career. In addition, Dr. Miller has had foundation and industry grants and awards recognizing her leadership in this area. Dr. Miller’s research has been published in the finest peer-reviewed journals in her field and she is sought for national and international committees and panels in her area. Part of Dr. Miller’s work has defined the causes and impact of malnutrition in HIV-infected infants and children, one of the most visible and significant manifestations of this disease, as well as demonstrating that this malnutrition can be successfully prevented and treated resulting in a higher quality of life and outcome for these children and their families. Dr. Miller has focused on nutritional and physical activity interventions for both prevention and treatment of pediatric chronic illnesses. For the seven years prior to assuming the leadership of this new Division in Miami Dr. Miller was the Chief of the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition and Director of the Pediatric Cardiac Rehabilitation Program at the Department of Pediatrics of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and their Golisano Children’s Hospital at Strong. In that position, Dr. Miller created an approved training program for pediatricians in specific aspects of clinical research, provided leadership to the NIH-funded pediatric clinical research center, and was recognized by receiving the University’s highest service award in this area and a rarely-awarded full academic sabbatical award to further develop pediatric clinical research.

CSTP Co-Director and Course Director, Medical Epidemiology I & II

James D. Wilkinson, M.D., M.P.H. is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health of the University of Miami School of Medicine, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Pediatrics.  He received his Bachelor of Arts in chemistry and his medical doctorate from the University of South Florida, and his Master of Public Health from the University of Miami. He completed a pediatric residency at the State University of New York Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, N.Y. and a post-doctoral fellowship in Pediatric Intensive Care and Anesthesiology at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D. C. His clinical career in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine was centered mainly at The New York Hospital/ Weill Cornell Medical Center and later at Children’s National Medical Center/George Washing University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C. His clinical research interests focused on health outcomes and resource utilization by populations of critically ill children with associated publications in major medical journals. Currently, he is Director of Graduate Programs for the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health that enroll approximately 45 master’s students and 22 doctoral students. His current extramurally funded research interests are the epidemiology of cancer and AIDS, and the results of his research have been frequently published in the journal Cancer as well as other journals. Dr. Wilkinson also serves as medical director for the Florida Cancer Data System (Florida’s state population-based cancer registry) and Director of HIV/AIDS Surveillance at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center. He has significant teaching responsibilities in both the Graduate and Medical Schools of the University of Miami, and has received several teaching awards from both schools. He currently participates in three NIH-funded and one foundation-funded training grants, as well as an Institute of Medicine Workgroup on training public health professionals in the 21st Century.