Prior to her recent appointment as Director of Clinical Research at Merck, Dr. Carmelle Norice-Tra was a Medical Officer of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health (NIH), in Bethesda, Maryland. She also provided infectious diseases specialty care to underserved patients at Community of Hope clinics in the District of Columbia. She is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases by the American Board of Internal Medicine. Carmelle volunteers extensively in church-based community health outreach, addressing health disparities with education, screenings, and referrals to programs for the medically uninsured. “It has been an honor to serve our nation as a Medical Officer at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Carmelle says. “I have been involved in the development and scientific review of three NIAID-sponsored COVID-19 clinical research trials. These trials are set to make significant contributions to public health, spanning the spectrum of COVID-19 management from vaccination to treatment. This unprecedented time has made my career path especially rewarding, and I am very proud to represent the Ron Brown Scholar Program at the cutting edge of biomedical science!”

Carmelle earned a Bachelor of Science in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology cum laude, with college and departmental honors from the University of California, Los Angeles. She obtained a dual MD and PhD degree in Cellular, Molecular and Biomedical Studies at Columbia University and completed internship and residency training in internal medicine at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. She completed subspecialty fellowship training in infectious diseases and postdoctoral research training in molecular parasitology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH.