Meet our team

Marianne Yohn, MHA

Marianne is a project manager within the Obesity Institute focusing on phase II/III clinical trials in the therapeutic areas of NASH and obesity treatment. She comes to Geisinger with a unique background of experience from both the pharmaceutical and investigative site side of clinical trials. Marianne’s credentials include a master’s of management in health care administration from Penn State University, a hematology specialty from American Society of Clinical Pathology (ASCP) and professional certification in clinical research from the Society of Clinical Research Associates (SOCRA).

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Craig Wood, MS

Craig began his career at Geisinger in 1997 after earning an MS in Biostatistics at the University of Michigan. He has expertise with interpreting and analyzing data originating from the electronic health record (EHR). He currently works as a Biostatistician within the Obesity Institute. His primary focus is on evaluating outcomes associated with various weight loss interventions.

He specializes in converting statistical prediction algorithms into simple, personalized, patient-centered prediction tools. Recent work includes collaborations for developing DiaRem (a Diabetes Remission predictor for bariatric surgery patients), creating personalized weight loss goals after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, and the co-development of the Get-2-Goal app.

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Weixing Shi, MS

Weixing received her bachelor's degree from China Pharmaceutical University, and her MS in biochemistry from Hiroshima University. She started working at Geisinger in 2000 as a research technician in Weis Center for Research, and is now a research coordinator for the Obesity Institute. She has worked in molecular and cell biology research labs for over 30 years at different universities/institutes and has accumulated extensive research experiences.

Her research responsibilities in the Obesity Institute include processing samples, extracting DNA/RNA/protein, performing genetic analysis like SNP assay/qPCR experiments.

Jamie Seiler MPAS, PA-C

Jamie is a native of central Pennsylvania. She received a Bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor in art history from Lycoming College, where she completed an honors thesis in cell signaling at the University of Texas Medical Branch. She then studied erythropoietin and iron signaling at the Pennsylvania State University for a year before pursuing clinical education via Marywood University’s physician assistant program. She has been a certified physician assistant since 2006, and provided direct patient care for several years in Geisinger’s Nutrition and Weight Management Clinic. She was awarded the Geisinger Victor J. Marks, MD Award for Service Excellence in 2009 as the mid-level provider receiving the highest patient satisfaction scores.  

Jamie now uses her clinical and research backgrounds to provide administrative oversight to the Obesity Institute, overseeing strategic, financial, and collaborations to advance the Obesity Institute’s mission and goals.  

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Chris Seiler, MBA

Chris is a native of central Pennsylvania and earned his bachelors in computer analysis and design from Pennsylvania College of Technology before pursuing a Master’s in Business Administration from Bloomsburg University. He started his career at Geisinger in 2004 and has served in several departments including finance, eHealth and now research. Chris currently splits his time between the Obesity Institute and Institute for Advanced Application.  

His areas of focus include IT and workflow optimization leveraging the EHR, use of IT to translate research findings to clinical practice, oversight and development of the Get-2-Goal app, leading the design, build, integration and implementation of patient reported data/outcomes and research study project management.

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Allison Naylor, RD, LDN

Allison attended Pennsylvania State University and received a Bachelor’s degree in Nutritional Sciences. She then completed her Dietetic Internship at Geisinger Medical Center. She currently works as a Registered Dietitian for both Obesity Institute and Nutrition and Weight Management for Geisinger. She spends half of her time counseling outpatient weight management and bariatric patients and the other half providing medical nutrition therapy as a research dietitian. She specializes in weight management (for any age group or disease type), bariatrics and home tube feeding. 

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Jake Mowery

Jacob is a Project Manager in the Geisinger Obesity Institute. He received his Bachelors of Arts in History from Susquehanna University in 2011. He began as a research assistant at Geisinger in the Henry Hood Center for Health Research in 2012 and has been involved with a plethora of various research projects which include topic areas such as obesity and environmental epidemiology.

Currently, he manages projects focusing on childhood obesity and maternal and pediatric outcomes. Jake’s research interests include coordination of care for pediatric and maternal populations, electronic health record IT interventions and integration of patient-provider platforms, and the utilization of shared decision-making between providers and their patients.

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Shawnee Lutcher

Shawnee grew up in McEwensville, Pennsylvania and attended Bloomsburg University where she completed her bachelors in exercise science. During her senior year she interned with the Obesity Institute, which turned into full time job as a research assistant. She is currently a senior research assistant focusing on pediatric and maternal studies and is an integral member of the SWIFT Trial team.

Megan Lamotte

Originally from Danville, Megan returned to the area after receiving her bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Women & Gender Studies at the University of Delaware. She is currently a research assistant focusing on clinical trials, grant-funded studies, investigator-initiated studies and tissue sample collection in support of the bariatric database.

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Samantha M.R. Kling, PhD, RD

Samantha is a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Lisa Bailey-Davis. In 2016, she completed her PhD at the Pennsylvania State University in the Department of Nutritional Sciences and was a fellow in the United States Department of Agriculture’s Childhood Obesity Transdisciplinary Training Program (COPT). Samantha also earned a Bachelor of Science in Dietetics in 2011 and participated in the dietetic internship program in 2016 at Iowa State University. She has been a Registered Dietitian since 2017.

Her research interests include systematically evaluating environmental factors that influence eating behavior and obesity as well as translating these results to implement effective obesity prevention or treatment interventions in the clinical and community settings.

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Scott Jamieson, MS, EP-C

Scott serves as the Metabolic Phenotyping Laboratory Manager for the Obesity Institute and the Center for Nutrition & Weight Management. He is an exercise physiologist by trade having received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in exercise physiology from both East Stroudsburg University and The University of Akron.

Scott’s research interests focus on the areas of metabolic and exercise testing, energy expenditure, body composition methodology and analysis, and physical function status in older adults and patients with obesity.

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Krystal Cunningham

Krystal grew up in Lafayette, Indiana and attended Mansfield University where she completed her bachelors in Sociology and Anthropology. She is currently a research assistant focusing on clinical trials, grant-funded studies, investigator-initiated studies and tissue sample collection in support of the bariatric database.

Adam Cook

Adam graduated from Bloomsburg University with a Bachelor’s degree in statistics in 2010. He jump-started his career when he began working for Geisinger Health Plan with the Provider Network Management team in 2011 and Clinical Informatics team in 2013. In 2014, Adam joined the research team at Geisinger as a data analyst. Initially, his work included collaborations with the Molecular Genomic Medicine team on projects including the MyCode DNA Database.  

Adam’s research focus changed in 2016 from Genomic Medicine to Obesity. Under the direction of biostatistician G. Craig Wood MS, Adam has had the opportunity to work on obesity research studies that involve both adult and pediatric obesity.

Xin Chu, PhD

Dr. Chu has over 30 years experiences in molecular biology and genetics research areas supported by a wide range of molecular biology and genomic research projects at Geisinger with many investigators. Currently he is a staff scientist and is responsible for the Geisinger Obesity Institute Bio-Repository and Research Laboratory. Dr. Chu has conducted research experiments like genome-wide association studies, large-scale SNP genotyping, gene expression/protein profiling, and whole genome sequencing and worked with many collaborators from Temple University, U Penn, Yale, NYU, Penn State, Boston University, and U. Maryland, etc. for successful grant applications and publications.

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