How did a soil-dwelling parasite infiltrate a New York care facility? Hosts Jess and Nicki dig into a real-life outbreak of Strongyloides stercoralis with experts Kelly Barrett and Dr. Geetika Sood. What began as an unexpected lab finding spiraled into 17 confirmed infections across residents and staff. Tune in for sharp insights, big data talk, and infection prevention lessons you won’t want to miss.
Guests:
- Kelly Ann Barrett, MPH, Infectious Disease Epidemiologist, New York State Department of Health
- Geetika Sood, M.D., ScM, Medical Director, New York State Division of Epidemiology
Article:
Kelly A. Barrett
Kelly A. Barrett, MPH is an infectious disease epidemiologist with extensive federal and state public health experience. She is a regional epidemiologist at New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) where she provides technical guidance about communicable disease investigations for nine local health departments in the metropolitan area (outside New York City). During the pandemic she conducted epidemiology and infection control assessments at New York State COVID-19 testing sites and led a team of epidemiologists deployed to conduct case investigations and contact tracing.
Prior to her work at NYSDOH, Mrs. Barrett was employed at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 10 years, where she conducted surveillance for foodborne diseases and antimicrobial-resistant organisms. Mrs. Barrett has been actively engaged with the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologist and the New York State Public Health Association. She has presented her work at numerous national conferences and has published 12 peer-reviewed journal articles.
Geetika Sood
Geetika Sood, M.D., ScM, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, Medical Director in the Division of Epidemiology at New York State, and Associate Hospital Epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. She completed her medical training, residency in Internal Medicine, and fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Temple University School of Medicine. Dr. Sood served as an Associate Program Director and Student Clerkship Director in Internal Medicine at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia before moving to Abington Memorial Hospital, where she was the Hospital Epidemiologist. She was recruited to Johns Hopkins University in 2011 and has served as the Hospital Epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, leading several successful process improvement initiatives, especially in the burn intensive care unit, for which she received the Armstrong Clinical Excellence Award in Patient Safety in 2015. In 2023, she was recruited to New York State, where she leads long COVID projects and collaborates with the Bureau of Healthcare-Associated Infections. She is a member of the Maryland Healthcare-Associated Infections Advisory Board and the Health Service Cost and Utilization Performance Measurement Workgroup.
Additionally, she previously served as co-chair of the Patient Safety Committee at the National Quality Forum and chaired the Quality Metrics Task Force at the Society for Healthcare Epidemiologists of America. She has taught at the SHEA fellows’ course from 2015 to 2025 and was vice-chair and chair for the SHEA/CDC training course from 2019 to 2021. Her research interests include using big data and machine learning algorithms to predict risks for developing healthcare-associated infections.