Jessica has been a Microbiology Medical Technologist for 20 years. She is currently a technologist in the Microbiology department at Northwestern
Memorial Hospital. She has worked there since 1999. Jessica is competent in all the bacteriology benches as well as the specialty labs. She serves as a lead technologist for the Mycobacteriology lab. She has many responsibilities in the lab, but she gets the greatest satisfaction in heading the educational program for the Microbiology department. Jessica organized and participates in the "Take your child to work" program. She serves as the liaison for the lab and the students and pathology residents that rotate through the lab.
Teaching others is one of the best parts of working in a teaching hospital lab.
Before coming to Northwestern, Jessica was a senior technologist in the
Microbiology lab at Mt. Sinai Hospital again specialized in the
Mycobacteriology lab. She worked there for seven years. She attended undergraduate school at Western Illinois University and received a Bachelors of Science in Biology where she majored in Microbiology and minored in
Zoology. She entered the Medical Technology program at Rush University and graduated under the direction of Dr. Herb Miller in 1992 and became
ASCP accredited that same year. Jessica is a member of the ASCP. Jessica was an honorary faculty member of Finch Medical School in 1995-1998.
She lectured on Mycobacteriology at Indiana University for their Medical
Technology program. She had a small part of a publication in the
LABMEDICINE October 2011 article on Digital Pathology. Jessica is a guest speaker for the career assembly at Argo Community High School in Summit,
IL. She has served on the ISM committee as an Academic Councilor for two years. She enjoys donating her time to her field because she believes in the future of microbiology.
Amanda Harrington is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology and Director of the
Clinical Microbiology Laboratory at University of Illinois at Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. In

addition to clinical service and research interests, Dr. Harrington trains pathology residents, pharmacy residents and fellows, infectious diseases fellows, and medical students.
Dr. Harrington earned her doctoral degree in Microbiology and her Bachelor of Arts degree in
English and Biology from the University of Kansas. She did her post-doctoral fellowship in
Clinical Microbiology at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA, and she is a board certified diplomate of the American Board of Medical Microbiology.
Dr. Harrington is a long-time member of ASM, participating at both the national level and at the regional level as an organizing member of the Northwest ASM Regional Branch annual meetings. She recently left the VA Puget Sound Health Care System in Seattle, WA to join the team at UIC and is looking forward to getting involved at the regional level here in Illinois as a member of both ISM and SCACM.
Chao Qi came from China to start the doctoral program at Northwestern
University Medical School in 1995. Under the direction of Dr. Janardan K.
Reddy, she studied transcription regulation by nuclear receptors. She gained new perspectives on her career choice when she completed the grad program and planed for a future professional course. In 2003 she was introduced to the Clinical Microbiology field by Dr. John Warren as a postgraduate follow at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. After completing the training in 2005, she served as the Assistant Director of Clinical Microbiology Laboratory at
Northwestern Memorial Hospital from 2005 to 2012. Dr. Qi is now director of the laboratory. She is board certified by the American Board of Medical
Microbiology. She served as Academic Councilor for ISM from 2009 to 2011.
Joyce is currently the supervisor at RUSH University Medical Center in
Chicago where she has worked for the past 10 years. Prior to RUSH she worked at Genesis Clinical Laboratory for five years in the Microbiology department. She has also worked at Loyola University Medical Center,
Maywood for 4 years. Joyce has lived on the East coast and worked at the
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and at the University of Connecticut.
She graduated from the University of St. Francis in Joliet with a Bachelors of
Science Degree. Joyce belongs to ASM. She is looking forward to serving as a
Clinical Councilor for ISM.
Nancy is currently the Microbiology Section Chief at Elmhurst Memorial
Hospital. This position involves supervising a full service microbiology,

molecular and special immunology testing area. Prior to this position, Nancy worked as a Field Application Specialist with Biomerieux, assisting labs with implementation and training in the use of newly purchased microbiology equipment. Nancy received her B.S. in Medical Technology from Northern
Illinois University and has been a Medical Technologist for over 30 years at various community hospital labs. She holds memberships in ISM, SCACM and ASM and has previously served as ISM Industrial Councilor (2009-
2011).
Patricia is a Medical Technologist who received her undergraduate degree from Pontificia
Universidad Javeriana, Bogota, Columbia and her specialization in medical microbiology from
Universidad de los Andes; she received additional training in Health Service Management from
Universidad Cooperative, Columbia. Patricia then worked as a Medical Technologist generalist at the Medical Laboratory at Pereira, Columbia for 15 years, where she managed all technical and financial aspects of laboratory operation. In 2000 she moved to the US, where she worked at Lab Corp for 2 years in their Immunology dept. She then worked in Microbiology at UIC for the next four years. Currently Patricia works in the Microbiology laboratory at Loyola Hospital
Medical Center.
Robert has been a clinical microbiology supervisor and manager for over thirty years. He earned his bachelor degree in biology at Northern Illinois University and his MS in clinical microbiology from the University of Minnesota at Mayo.
Robert’s career began at Fairbanks Community Hospital in Fairbanks, AK, and he has worked in community, VA, and university hospitals as well as in a national commercial reference lab setting across the nation. Robert is currently the Supervisor of Microbiology and Molecular
Diagnostics at Rockford Memorial Hospital. He is a previous NY director for the Northeast
Association for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Disease (NACMID) and was an active member of the Wisconsin branch of CLMA. He is currently a member of ISM and ASM.
Kara is currently a Technical Sales Representative for Thermo Fisher
Scientific Microbiology Division (Remel, Oxoid, and Trek products) covering the greater Chicagoland area. She began her career with the Microbiology
Division at Remel, Inc. headquarters in Lenexa, KS where she was an
Internal Sales Specialist for 2 years before moving to her Chicago field position which she has held for the last 3 years. Kara has a B.S. in biology

from the University of Kansas and is a member of ISM and ASM. She is looking forward to this opportunity to work for the ISM membership in the role of Industrial Councilor.
Brad received his B.S. in Biology from UIC. He then attended Evanston
Hospital’s School of Medical Technology, and went on to work in their microbiology lab. While mycology was hsi favorite lab, he rotated through all areas of the microbiology department. Brad’s industrial experience began in the sales force at Gibco Laboratories, a manufacturer of plated media, tissue culture, and kits. He then transitioned into capital equipment sales with Leitz microscopes, but after a few years moved on to Meridian
Bioscience. For the past 25 years he has called Meridian home. His current position at Meridian is Molecular Implementation Coordinator, providing technical assistance to labs getting started with Meridian’s Illumigene DNA amplification system. This position brings Brad into contact with hospital labs, reference labs, public health departments, and veterinary labs. Brad has been active with ISM in the past as an elected Industrial Councilor.
Bruce has worked for 20 years in the Microbiology and Molecular Biology
Division at IIT Research Institute where he is currently Senior Scientist and
Section Head. His research emphasis has been animal models of infection, detection of environmental microbes, and vaccine development for biodefense-related agents. He has been a member of ISM for 18 years and has served in various Society capacities such as Guest Lecturer, Industrial

Councilor (twice), Pasteur Committee Chair, and President from 2009-2011.
He received ISM’s Tanner Shaughnessy Award in 2010.
Kristy Shanahan, MS, MLS (ASCP) CM received her BS degree in Medical
Technology from the University of Wisconsin. She received a master's degree in medical technology from the College of Health Professionals/Rosalind
Franklin University and a second master's degree in biotechnology from Johns
Hopkins University in 2005. Her work experience includes several years as a clinical laboratory scientist, supervisor, and chief tech in hospitals and clinics in both Wisconsin and Illinois, mostly in microbiology and immunology/serology. Kristy also taught at Oakton Community College from
1989 until 2007 in their Medical Laboratory Technology program and at
Rosalind Franklin University in their bachelor’s and master’s level clinical laboratory science program. She has served as president of the Chicago
Society for Clinical Laboratory Science and for the American Society for
Clinical Laboratory Science-Illinois. She also was the president, from 2007-
2009, of the Illinois Society for Microbiology and has served in numerous other positions in the ISM. She was selected as an American Society for
Microbiology Scholar-in-Residence from 2006-2007. At Rosalind Franklin
University, Kristy now holds a full time appointment within the College of
Pharmacy, where she is responsible for teaching about the clinical laboratory, clinical laboratory testing, microbiology, and immunology among other duties.