Issue 21 Our July 2026 newsletter is out! 

As we enter the second half of 2026, the Cochrane ECPN is pleased to announce that the network is growing. We have new members, new chair and new projects with an opportunity to give external participants a chance to get involved. See below our latest updates!

Soumya Shivananda appointed as Cochrane ECPN Chair

"I joined the Cochrane Early Career Professionals (ECP) Steering Group in 2023. When I first joined, I took on the role of Newsletter Coordinator, supporting communication and engagement across Cochrane and the early career community. I am now honored to serve as Chair of the Cochrane ECP Steering Group and to work alongside such a dedicated and inspiring team of early career professionals. I am delighted to welcome our new members and encourage anyone interested in becoming involved with Cochrane as an early career professional to get in touch by emailing ecp@cochrane.org."

ECPN new members

Madaline Witort

Madaline Witort is a PhD student in Clinical and Translational Science at Case Western Reserve University, USA with bachelor’s degrees in communication science and Disorders and Cognitive Science. Her work focuses on acquired brain injury, virtual reality therapy, and functional outcomes. 

Alvina Vadassery 

Alvina Vadassery is a medical doctor specialized in radiation oncology and clinical epidemiology. She currently serves as a medical fellow and PhD candidate at EORTC, Brussels, focusing on oncology trial optimization. Her primary academic and clinical interests lie in evaluating treatment efficacy and safety and quality of life outcomes in oncological research.

Jehath Syed

Jehath Majid Syed (PharmD/PhD) is a clinical pharmacist currently serving as an Assistant Professor and researcher in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Dr. Vishwanath Karad MIT World Peace University, Pune, India. She is also a certified Age-Friendly Pharmacist.

Pawel Jemiolo

Paweł Jemioło has an interdisciplinary background and is currently pursuing a PhD in medical meta research. He is a researcher working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and evidence-based medicine. He is the co-convenor of the Cochrane AI initiative and is actively involved in GRADE AI and the International Collaboration for the Automation of Systematic Reviews.

Madaleen van der Merwe

Madeleen van der Merwe is a Senior Research Assistant at the Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare, Bond University, Australia and a higher degree researcher focusing on statistical errors in health research. Her work spans from systematic reviews, health system evaluations to large-scale data analysis.

Luisa Fernanda Murcia

Luisa Fernanda Murcia-Soriano is a pharmacist, epidemiologist, and researcher at the Research Center and the Evidence Synthesis Unit of Hospital Universitario Mayor – Méderi in Bogotá, Colombia. She is involved in the development of evidence synthesis products and training initiatives in evidence synthesis for healthcare professionals in the Global South.

Augusta Chiugo Okpara

Augusta Chiugo Okpara is based in Italy and has a BSc in Medical Rehabilitation and a MSc in Peace Building Management. She has worked with the United Nations. Augusta is currently collaborating with the Cochrane Rehabilitation, Functioning and Disability, and the Global Consortium for Stroke Rehabilitation and is now part of the ECPN newsletter team.

Hebatullah Abdulazeem

Hebatullah is a family physician and a health scientist, with expertise in systematic review methodology. She currently participates in research projects as an associate researcher at the School of Medicine and Health at the Technical University of Munich. Her research interests include primary health care, women's health, and the implementation and sustainability of digital health.

Aoife O'Mahony

Aoife O’Mahony is a postdoctoral researcher at University College Cork. Her current research focuses on barriers and enablers to vaccine implementation in Ireland. Her interests span implementation science, evidence synthesis, and meta-research, particularly in relation to research transparency. She has recently been appointed as Associate Convener of the Cochrane Qualitative and Implementation Methods Group.

Join Cochrane ECPN

More information about our scope can be found here: Cochrane ECPN

For any questions, contact ecp@cochrane.org.

New ECPN Projects

The following projects are now on the group’s agenda, we shall expand on them as we progress through the year.  

Systematic Review Skills Accelerator: A modular training pathway to address skills gaps and support step-by-step growth. This project aims to differentiate between beginners, intermediate, and advanced early-career researchers, acknowledging that global early-career researchers have highly variable training backgrounds.

Arabic-speakers ECP Mentorship Hub: A structured, practical, and accessible support system for Arabic-speaking early-career researchers across the Middle East and North Africa, as well as globally relocated Arabic-speaking researchers. This project reflects the Cochrane ECP values of global inclusivity, accessibility, and capacity building, helping more people enter the Cochrane learning system.

Geriatric Clinical Evidence Summaries for Resource-Limited Settings: This project aims to enhance the accessibility and usability of existing Cochrane Reviews related to geriatric care by developing concise, plain-language summaries tailored for early career clinicians and researchers, particularly those working in low- and middle-income countries.  

You are welcome to express your interest by reaching out to our team today!  

Member Highlights

Call to support sustainable digital health implementation

What shapes healthcare professionals' adoption of digital health tools such as EHRs, telemedicine, monitoring devices? This 3–5 minute anonymous survey is open worldwide to physicians, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, physiotherapists, and other patient-facing professionals, regardless of training country or current workplace.

Your input will help identify barriers and enablers to digital health adoption, informing future training and implementation strategies for global digital health integration.

Created and conducted as part of Hebatullah Abdulazeem's ethically approved doctoral project at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany.

Graduation and Publishing

Reem Fakak recently graduated summa cum laude with a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Nicosia Medical School and published a peer-reviewed case report in Clinical Case Reports (Wiley), examining the management of tachy-brady syndrome. These achievements reflect her commitment to evidence-based medicine and to advancing the translation of research evidence into clinical practice, in keeping with the aims of the Cochrane Early Career Professionals Network. Dr. Fakak is now working in the Department of Neurology in Norway, where she is commencing her specialist training while continuing to develop her interests in clinical research and evidence synthesis.

ECPN Member Launches PRISM: A New Open-Source Pharmacovigilance Tool 

Dr. Jehath Syed, Steering Group Member of the Cochrane Early Career Professionals Network (ECPN), and co-developer Dr. Sri Harsha Chalasani (Associate Professor, JSS Academy of Higher Education & Research, Mysuru) have launched PRISM (Pharmacovigilance Real-time Integrated Signal Monitor) — a free, open-source (AGPL-3.0) web platform for pharmacovigilance research using the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS).

PRISM offers three core analyses:

• Single Drug Analysis – real-time disproportionality metrics (ROR, PRR, χ², IC), forest plots, demographic summaries, and reporting trends.

• Comparative Analysis – compares adverse event profiles between two drugs against the same FAERS background.

• Reverse Signal Search – finds drugs most often reported as the primary suspect for a given adverse event, via MedDRA terms or keyword search.

Built to support transparent, reproducible pharmacovigilance research, PRISM gives early-career professionals an accessible way to generate safety-signal hypotheses for systematic reviews and pharmacoepidemiology studies.

🔗 Freely available at: https://prism-pharmacovigilance.org   

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