Working together to enhance recovery

Connected person web, hands in a circle, virus icons

The RECOVER Initiative brings together patients, caregivers, clinicians, community leaders, and scientists from across the nation to understand, prevent, and treat PASC, including Long COVID. This group is called the RECOVER Consortium.

RECOVER Consortium

The Consortium represents and supports more than 100 researchers who are leading studies on Long COVID at more than 200 places around the country. These studies have a diverse group of participants, including adults, pregnant people, and children.

RECOVER Consortium
RECOVER Leadership RECOVER Researchers RECOVER Infrastructure

RECOVER Leadership

The Consortium collaborates with patients, caregivers, and community representatives across all levels of the initiative, including in national leadership roles and within local communities in study locations.

RECOVER leaders serve on the:

The Executive Committee directs the overall RECOVER Initiative strategy and ensures that RECOVER meets its scientific objectives and mission by

  • Leading and overseeing the operations
  • Evaluating the progress of studies and advising the NIH and the Steering Committee if any changes are necessary
  • Offering recommendations to the NIH on matters regarding high-level processes, procedures, plans, and strategy

Voting Members

Gary Gibbons, MD Senior Oversight Committee Co-Chair

Director, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)

Walter J. Koroshetz, MD Senior Oversight Committee Co-Chair

Director, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)

Anthony Fauci, MD Senior Oversight Committee Co-Chair

Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)

Andrea Lerner, MD, MS Senior Oversight Committee Co-Chair Designee

Medical Officer, Office of the Director, NIAID

Amy Patterson, MD Senior Oversight Committee Co-Chair Designee

Deputy Director, Clinical Research and Strategic Initiatives, NHLBI

Clinton B. Wright, MD, MS Senior Oversight Committee Co-Chair Designee

Director, Division of Clinical Research, NINDS

Diana Bianchi, MD Senior Oversight Committee Member

Director, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

Patricia Flatley Brennan, RN, PhD Senior Oversight Committee Member

Director, National Library of Medicine

Carlos A. Pardo-Villamizar, MD External Expert

Professor of Neurology and Pathology

Director, Transversa Myelitis Center

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Betty Diamond, MD External Expert

Director, Institute of Molecular Medicine & Maureen and Ralph Nappi Professor of Autoimmune Diseases, Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research

Professor, Molecular Medicine and Medicine, Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell Health

Mitchell S.V. Elkind, MD, MS, MPhil External Expert

Professor of Neurology and Epidemiology

Chief of Neurology Clinical Outcomes Research and Population Sciences

Columbia University Irving Medical Center

Mitchell Miglis, MD External Expert

Clinical Associate Professor, Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Clinical Associate Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine

Wendy Post, MD, MS External Expert

Professor of Medicine

Director of Cardiovascular Research

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Professor of Epidemiology

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Felicia Davis Blakley Co-Chair, RECOVER National Community Engagement Group

President and CEO, Chicago Foundation for Women

Heather Yates Co-Chair, RECOVER National Community Engagement Group

Program Coordinator, Office of Student Conduct at West Virginia Clinical & Translational Science Institute

Ex-Officio, Non-Voting Members

Andrea S. Foulkes, ScD MPI, RECOVER Data Resource Core

Director of Biostatistics, Massachusetts General Hospital

Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Professor of Biostatistics, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health

Stuart D. Katz, MD MPI, RECOVER Clinical Science Core

Director, NYU Langone Health Heart Failure Program

Professor of Advanced Cardiac Therapeutics, NYU Grossman School of Medicine

Nedra Whitehead, PhD, MS PI, RECOVER Administrative Coordination Center

Senior Genetic Epidemiologist

RTI International

Jeffrey Burns, MD, MPH Co-chair, RECOVER Steering Committee

Chief of Critical Care

Chair, ICU Governance Committee

Chair, International Health Services

Boston Children's Hospital

Professor of Anesthesia and Pediatrics

Harvard Medical School

Serena Spudich, MD, MA Co-chair, RECOVER Steering Committee

Gilbert H. Glaser Professor of Neurology

Division Chief, Neurological Infections & Global Neurology

Co-director, Center for Neuroepidemiology and Clinical Neurological Research, Yale School of Medicine

Lee A. Fleisher, MD

Chief Medical Officer and Director, Center for Clinical Standards and Quality

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

Michael F. Iademarco, MD, MPH

Rear Admiral and Assistant Surgeon General

U. S. Public Health Service

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Science and Medicine

Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

Peter Marks, MD, PhD

Director, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER)

U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Sam Posner, PhD

Acting Director, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD)

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Janet Woodcock, MD

Acting Commissioner of Food and Drugs

U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Nakela L. Cook, MD, MPH

Executive Director

Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)

The Steering Committee ensures that RECOVER studies work toward the overall goals of the RECOVER Initiative by

  • Checking on progress and performance to make sure that study activities are completed on time
  • Reviewing reports on the quality and completeness of study data
  • Reviewing reports from the other Committees and Boards
  • Considering any new information from sources outside of RECOVER that may be relevant to the studies

The Steering Committee reports to the Executive Committee as needed on:

  • New challenges and opportunities that arise
  • Requested changes to daily operations or procedures for RECOVER studies
  • Any other issues that might impact the scientific goals and/or budget
Jeffrey Burns, MD, MPH Co-Chair

Boston Children's Hospital

Serena Spudich, MD, MA Co-Chair

Yale School of Medicine

Thomas (Tony) Minor Patient representative

Adult Cohort

Brittany Taylor Patient representative

Adult Cohort

Charles Bailey, MD, PhD Electronic Health Records Study

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

R. Graham Barr, MD, DrPH Adult Cohort

Columbia University

Hassan Brim, PhD Adult Cohort

Howard University

Sandra Brown, PhD Pediatric Cohort

University of California, San Diego (Jernigan)

Alexander Charney, MD, PhD Adult Cohort

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Mine Cicek, PhD PASC Biorepository Core

Mayo Clinic

John Crary, MD, PhD Tissue Pathology Study

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Sean Deoni, PhD Adult Cohort

Rhode Island Hospital

Jamie Elifritz, MD Tissue Pathology Study

University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center

Aloke Finn, MD Tissue Pathology Study

CVPath Institute

Thomas Flotte, MD PASC Biorepository Core

Mayo Clinic

Andrea Foulkes, ScD Data Resource Core

Massachusetts General Hospital

Melissa Haendel, PhD Electronic Health Records Study

University of Colorado

James Heath, PhD Adult Cohort

Institute for Systems Biology

Rachel Hess, MD Adult Cohort

University of Utah

Sally Hodder, MD Adult Cohort

West Virginia University

Leora Horwitz, MD Clinical Science Core

NYU Langone Health

Vanessa Jacoby, MD, MAS Pregnancy Cohort

University of California, San Francisco

Elizabeth (Beth) Karlson, MD Data Resource Core

Brigham and Women's Hospital

Stuart Katz, MD Clinical Science Core

NYU Langone Health

Rainu Kaushal, MD Electronic Health Records Study

Cornell University

Lawrence Kleinman, MD, MPH Pediatric Cohort

Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

Jerry Krishnan, MD, PhD Adult Cohort

University of Illinois at Chicago

Emily Levitan, PhD Adult Cohort

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Bruce Levy, MD Adult Cohort

Brigham and Women's Hospital

Jeffrey Martin, MD, MPH Adult Cohort

University of California, San Francisco

Grace McComsey, MD, FIDSA Adult Cohort

Case Western Reserve University

Torri Metz, MD Pregnancy Cohort

University of Utah

Shawn Murphy, MD, PhD Data Resource Core

Partners Healthcare

Jane Newburger, MD, MPH Pediatric Cohort

Boston Children’s Hospital

Lisa Newman, MSPH Administrative Coordinating Center

RTI International

Igho Ofotokun, MD, MSc Adult Cohort

Emory University School of Medicine

Sairam Parthasarathy, MD Adult Cohort

University of Arizona

Thomas Patterson, MD Adult Cohort

University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

Ross Reichard, MD Tissue Pathology Study

Mayo Clinic

Upinder Singh, MD Adult Cohort

Stanford University

Jessica Snowden, MD Pediatric Cohort

Arkansas Children's Research Institute

Melissa Stockwell, MD Pediatric Cohort

Columbia University Irving Medical Center

James Stone, MD, PhD Tissue Pathology Study

Brigham and Women's Hospital

Stephen Thibodeau, PhD PASC Biorepository Core

Mayo Clinic

Andrea Troxel, ScD Clinical Science Core

NYU Langone Health

David Warburton, OBE, DSc, MD, MMM, FRCP, FRCS, FRCPCH Pediatric Cohort

Children's Hospital Los Angeles

Nedra Whitehead, PhD Administrative Coordinating Center

RTI International

The Steering Committee roster does not include ex officio members, nor does it include NIH noncommittee member attendees.

The RECOVER Initiative’s National Community Engagement Group (NCEG) helps ensure that RECOVER research meets the needs of patients, caregivers, and community members. NCEG works closely with RECOVER study leaders and other RECOVER groups to guide them on the best ways to engage with participants and the community. The NCEG is made up of patients and caregivers affected by COVID and Long COVID. It also includes people who work with communities affected by COVID, such as Black and Tribal communities.

NCEG members will:

  • Share thoughts from the patient and community point of view about the experience of people affected by Long COVID.
  • Help decide what are the important research questions.
  • Review and give feedback on study materials.
  • Provide advice about the best way to collect information from participants.
  • Look at the study findings and think about how to share them.
  • Ensure RECOVER study leaders follow the guiding principles below when engaging with the public and participants.

Guiding Principles for RECOVER’s Community Engagement

These guiding principles are values that RECOVER staff, leaders, and NCEG members follow when engaging with people interested in joining a study, with participants, and with the public.

  • Inclusivity and diversity: We will include a diverse group of people in the RECOVER study, including study staff, leaders, and participants. The goal is to include people of many races and ethnicities, ages, genders, jobs, education levels, incomes, U.S. locations, and those who have different health conditions.
    We will think carefully and often about who isn’t involved in RECOVER and how we can engage and involve them.
  • Transparency: We will openly share information about the RECOVER study and its findings with participants and the public.
  • Accessibility: We will share information about the RECOVER study in a way that people can easily find and understand it. This includes sharing information in different languages and in different formats, such as print (like brochures and flyers), videos, and online (on a website).
  • Two-way communication: Communication between RECOVER staff and the public, including participants, will be two-way so that both groups can send, receive, and share information:
    • We will ask participants and the public for their input and questions about the RECOVER study and use their feedback to improve the study.
    • Participants and the public can send us their questions and we will listen carefully and answer them.
  • Accountability: We will hold RECOVER staff and leaders responsible for making sure RECOVER follows research standards and ethics, including to do no harm.

NCEG Co-Chairs

Felicia Davis Blakely
President and CEO of Chicago Foundation for Women

Felicia leads the Chicago Foundation for Women’s strategic efforts, investing in women and girls as catalysts for change. She has spent most of her career in public service, first as a member of the Chicago Police Department as a police officer and a violent crimes detective. Later, she served as the inaugural Executive Director of the Office of Public Engagement in Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration, and as Interim President of Olive-Harvey College, where she was a leader in developing, maintaining, and evaluating academic programs. Felicia was also an appointee to the Illinois Senate’s Sexual Discrimination and Harassment Awareness and Prevention Task Force and a member of Governor JB Pritzker’s Inauguration Committee. Currently, she serves on the Board of Regents for Mercy Home for Boys and Girls, iHeartMedia Chicago’s Local Advisory Board, and the University of Chicago, Court Theatre Board of Trustees. Felicia is a founding member of the Chicago Foundation for Women’s South Side Giving Circle.

Heather Yates
Case Manager, Office of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity, West Virginia University

Heather works for West Virginia University as a Case Manager for the Office of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity. She is originally from Beaver, Pennsylvania, but currently resides in Morgantown, West Virginia. Heather is a 1995 graduate of Edinboro University. She is the mother of two, Jordan, 26, and MacKenzie, 21. She worked in social service for over 20 years, 10 of which she served as Executive Director of CASA of Beaver County, PA. Heather has a passion for advocacy and helping others, which explains her enthusiasm for her volunteer work within the RECOVER Initiative. As a PASC patient, Heather hopes that her participation in the study will help the medical community better understand why specific individuals are more susceptible to Long COVID and how to successfully treat the wide range of symptoms. In addition to her participation in the study and NCEG, Heather is also a member of the RECOVER Executive Committee and serves on the RECOVER National Community Advisory Board.

Tony Minor, DMin
Manager for Faith-Based Outreach at MetroHealth Medical System

As the manager of Faith-Based Outreach at the MetroHealth Medical System in Cleveland, Tony manages a communitywide network of faith-based organizations to collaboratively improve the health of community members. He also currently operates Project Thrive, a faith-based initiative designed to equip faith communities to respond to community trauma, toxic stress, and grief. He recently served as the Director of Advocacy for the Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry, focusing on public policy issues impacting vulnerable populations. Tony also served as the director of Project Safe, an HIV prevention program, and as the Co-Manager of Father and Families Together at the Center for Families and Children. He also developed the Safe Streets/Safe Schools project that is designed to address issues related to community violence and trauma. Tony has a bachelor’s degree in English from Morehouse College, a Master of Divinity from the Inter-Denominational Theological Center, and a Doctor of Ministry from the United Theological Seminary in Dayton.

Brittany D. Taylor, MPH, CDF
Project Director, Georgia Community-Engaged Research Alliance (CEAL) Against COVID-19 Disparities

Brittany is a public health practitioner with 13 years of experience overseeing and implementing projects focused on maternal health, chronic disease management and prevention, infectious disease control, tobacco cessation, and health equity advancement. She has served in leadership positions on several grants and research projects funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Preventive Health and Health Services (PHHS) Block Grant, and the Health Resources and Services Administration. She has held leadership positions with the National Million Hearts Initiative, Deloitte, CDC Diversity & Inclusion Team, and the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors, Cardiovascular Health Leadership Council. Brittany is a graduate of the College of Charleston where she received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and of Mercer University where she earned her Master of Public Health. She is also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

NCEG Members

NCEG members are listed with permission. This roster is not a comprehensive list of NCEG membership, as some participants prefer to contribute to the NCEG without being listed publicly and we honor their preference.

Teresa Akintonwa

Jamila Boyd

Heather Elizabeth Brown

Megan Carmilani

Marta Cerda

Felicia Davis Blakely*

Whitney Fields

Roberto Garcia

Yvonka Hall

Kevin Kondo

Fadwa Lawrence

Jacqui Lindsay

Christine Maughan

Thomas Tony Minor*

Marjorie Roberts

Nitza Rochez

Chimére Smith

Brittany Taylor*

Heather Yates*

*NCEG Co-Chairs

Ex-Officio, Non-Voting Members

Stephanie Albert, PhD

Natasha Williams, EdD, MPH

Learn more about how RECOVER research works and the role of patients, caregivers, and community representatives.

Pathobiology is the study of why diseases happen in the body. In large research studies, a task force is a group of experts organized for a specific task. Because COVID can affect many parts of the body, we need experts in all types of diseases and body systems to help us learn why. Each RECOVER task force has experts in different kinds of health problems and body systems. One thing each Pathobiology Task Force will do is keep researchers up to date on the latest science about how COVID may be causing health problems. This will help RECOVER leaders to get the best results from RECOVER studies.

Each task force includes patient, caregiver, and community members from across the country. They are like the people taking part in the RECOVER studies and can be a voice for study participants. As part of the task force, they share their thoughts, feelings, experiences, and advice, including how COVID has affected their loved ones, their communities, and more.

The 12 Pathobiology Task Forces are:

This group helps the RECOVER studies answer questions about how COVID may cause long-term problems that affect the heart, blood vessels, and lungs.
This group helps RECOVER studies answer questions about what is similar or different among the long-term problems caused by COVID and problems caused by other viruses.
This group helps look at how RECOVER can:
  • Answer questions about why some people are more likely than others to have long-term problems with COVID, which may be because of things such as where they live, how much money they have, or how hard it is for them to get healthcare.
  • Best collect information from COVID patients and their caregivers to find out how COVID is affecting them.
  • Work with people and leaders from different communities to influence how the study is done and who is involved.
This group helps RECOVER studies answer questions about how COVID may cause
  • damage to the immune system, which would make it harder for our bodies to fight infections and other diseases; or
  • problems with blood, such as blood clots.
COVID can affect many areas of the body, from the smallest parts (such as cells) to many of the major organs, such as the heart and lungs. This group helps RECOVER studies answer questions about how COVID affects different parts of the body at the same time or one after another, and how this can lead to long-term problems.
This group looks at how researchers can study medications and treatments that may treat or prevent the long-term effects of COVID.
This group helps RECOVER studies answer questions about what happens at each step after an infection with the virus that causes COVID. These steps include how the virus attacks cells and causes the various diseases we see after COVID infection.
This group helps RECOVER studies answer questions about how people with metabolic disorders—like diabetes (high blood sugar)—may be at higher risk of long-term effects from COVID. They will also think about whether long-term effects from COVID may put people at higher risk of these types of health problems.
This group helps RECOVER studies answer questions about the virus that causes COVID. They look at how the virus causes COVID infection, how the virus is changing, and ways it may cause long-term harm to our bodies.
This group focuses on how COVID may cause changes in the brain and nerves that can lead to short-term or long-term mental health problems.
“Omics” is short for the types of science that end with the letters -omics—like genomics, the study of genes. This group will look at how RECOVER studies can do medical or scientific tests on different body systems to learn more about the long-term effects of COVID.
This group helps RECOVER researchers think about how to measure and track the long-term effects of COVID in large groups of people.

These groups help monitor and support RECOVER studies. This includes helping study leaders, teams, and study participants.

The Oversight Committees help make sure the research studies meet the RECOVER project goals, help researchers fix any problems, and protect those taking part in the studies. Groups will include researchers, experts, patients, caregivers, and community members.

The 6 Oversight Committees are:

This group helps RECOVER leaders decide how to put study participants into different groups depending on their COVID symptoms and other tests. They also look at study results and help decide what the results mean in real life. And they help decide if harmful events have happened to any study participants. And if so, whether the events are because of the study. If they are, they help decide how those events will be reported.
Beyond the RECOVER studies, there are many other COVID studies going on around the world that are looking at COVID and its long-term effects or other illnesses that act or look like COVID. This group looks at other studies to see how they match up with the RECOVER studies and for similarities or differences in study goals.
This group works to make sure that study participants have a good experience in the study. They ask for comments, thoughts, ideas, and advice from people in the study and from community members and researchers. They also find ways for communities to take part and be active in the project.
This group makes sure that any reports about the RECOVER project are shared in a way that most people can find and understand them. They also make sure that decisions about who can be authors are made fairly. The group will review what people are reporting on about RECOVER and will help decide what study results are most important and should be written about first.
This group makes rules to double-check the quality of information collected by RECOVER and its studies. This includes making sure the study results are accurate and complete.
This group helps researchers plan, set up, and do the RECOVER studies. They make sure each study’s goals are the same and are in line with the overall goals of RECOVER. They also find ways to encourage people to join and stay in the studies.

RECOVER Researchers

The RECOVER Consortium represents a national study population of diverse research volunteers. It will support studies that are part of an intensive effort to learn about the recovery process following infection with SARS-CoV-2 and why some individuals have prolonged symptoms.

The RECOVER Cohort will include awardees across multiple focus areas, including adults, pediatrics, pregnant participants, tissue pathology (autopsy studies), and real-world data.

RECOVER Infrastructure

The four RECOVER Cores and the Administrative Coordinating Center facilitate coordination and provide the RECOVER Initiative's infrastructure, or organizational framework, around which the research is conducted.

Together, their primary role is to build and support the RECOVER Initiative, its participant pool and team of investigators, and to ensure that data are standardized and effectively shared among researchers and with the public.

Clinical Science Core, NYU Langone Health

Build the RECOVER Consortium—a group of lead investigators among the research awardees—to harmonize and coordinate data, develop methods for monitoring protocols, and guide communication and engagement with key stakeholders such as patients and clinicians. Learn more about NYU Langone Health's role.

Data Resource Core, Massachusetts General Hospital

Help enable tracking and searchability across all data sources and provide expertise in statistical analyses and data standardization, access, and sharing.

Biorepository Core, Mayo Clinic

Receive, manage, and make available to researchers a diverse range of biospecimens obtained from RECOVER research studies.

Administrative Coordinating Center, RTI International

Provide oversight and monitoring support in addition to communication, work group, protocol development, and implementation support. Learn more about RTI International's role.

Find Studies near you at:
studies.recovercovid.org
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