Samantha Xavier: Hi! My name is Samantha Xavier and I am joining PharmaSafe as a Postdoctoral Researcher. I recently earned my PhD from the Institute for Clinical Medicine at UiT the Arctic University of Norway and my thesis investigated P-selectin as a biomarker for venous thromboembolism using population-based cohorts from northern Norway. I also have a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Master of Science in Biomedical Science from the University of Galway in Ireland.
Aside from my interest in registry-based epidemiology, I am passionate about science communication and health policy and have previously worked for a nonprofit advocating for increasing federal funds for medical research in Washington, D.C.
I will be joining the UiO Real-World Evidence convergence environment and will be predominantly focusing on vaccine effectiveness and adverse drug reaction studies. I look forward to getting to know my new colleagues and contributing to the PharmaSafe research group.
Petrica-Ioan Olteanu: My name is Petrica-Ioan Olteanu, but everybody calls me Peter. I am a Romanian-born researcher working in pharmacoepidemiology and pharmaceutical data science. I came to research from the medical devices and pharmaceutical industries and hold a master's in health economics. Previously I worked at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI) on pregnancy-related research.
My PhD, part of the UiO:Real-World Evidence environment at the University of Oslo, uses nationwide registry data to study the real-world effectiveness and safety of monoclonal antibodies, combining pharmacoepidemiology, causal inference, and machine learning. Outside work I run ultramarathon trail races, now at the 100-mile distance, snowboard, and watch far too many films.
Mina Karkhi: I have a bachelor’s in Radiology Technology from Iran University of Medical Sciences and a master’s degree in International Community Health from the University of Oslo. In my master’s thesis, I used registry data to study the association between air pollution and fracture risk in children.
During my master’s degree, I worked part-time as a student representative and teaching assistant at the University of Oslo, and enjoyed taking on administrative and representative responsibilities in these roles.
I first joined PharmaSafe last summer to do a summer research project on simulated datasets, which strengthened my interest in pharmacoepidemiology, and gave me the opportunity to get to know the research group.
I am very happy to now work with PharmaSafe as Research Coordinator, where I will support various aspects of the group’s work, and I am looking forward to getting to know everyone!