Sikora Lab
Our vision is data-driven comprehensive medication management for all critically ill patients.
We strive to be a supportive and inclusive environment that values the synergistic role of team science, mentorship networks, and layered learning as essential for both scientific discovery and personal and professional development. We value cross-collaboration and working with a variety of established teams, including the MRC-ICU Investigator Team, OPTIM Investigator Team, UGAC3, and more.
To read more on this philosophy, please follow the following links:
Meet Our Team
Andrea Sikora, PharmD, MSCR, FCCP, FCCM
Principal Investigator
Andrea Sikora, PharmD, MSCR, BCCCP, FCCM, FCCP is an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and adjunct faculty at the University of Georgia (UGA) College of Pharmacy. Dr. Sikora graduated from UGA College of Pharmacy, completed her PGY1 Pharmacy Residency and PGY2 Critical Care Pharmacy Residency at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Medical Center in Chapel Hill, NC, and completed her Master of Science in Clinical Research from Emory University. She is a founding member of the UGA Critical Care Collaborative (UGAC3) and the UGA Generative AI Initiative. She has mentored 75+ trainees on 100+ scholarly works over the course of her career. She has received several federal grants evaluating applications of artificial intelligence for optimized medication use in the intensive care unit (ICU) and is an author of the book Pay It Forward: A Map to Mentorship in Medicine and InteGREAT: How to make great healthcare teams.
The MRC-ICU Investigator Team is named for the medication regimen complexity-intensive care unit (MRC-ICU) scoring tool, a foundational concept for providing data-driven comprehensive medication management to all patients. This award winning team has received two teamwork awards from the Georgia Clinical and Translational Science Alliance President's Award for Team Science and University of Georgia Teaming for Interdisciplinary Research Award, three national literature awards (ASHP Publication of the Year - 2023, ACCP Critical Care PRN Publication of the Year - 2021, 2022), in addition to numerous AHRQ and professional society grant awards. Most importantly, more than 30 pharmacy students, residents, graduate students, and post-doctoral fellows have been involved with this work, resulting in various travel, poster, and scholastic awards. This team is a highly diverse, interdisciplinary, and multiprofessional team that includes pharmacists, physicians, biostatisticans, computer scientists, and more.
Susan E. Smith, PharmD, BCCCP, FCCM
Erin Barreto, PharmD, BCCCP, FCCM
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Many others have helped along the way in a variety of capacities!!
Brian Murray, PharmD, BCCCP
MRC-ICU Investigator Team
OPTIM Investigator Team
The OPTIM Investigator Team is led by four founding members (Susan E. Smith, PharmD, BCCCP, FCCM, Kelli Henry, PharmD, BCCCP, Mojdeh Heavner, PharmD, BCCCP, FCCM, and Andrea Sikora, PharmD, MSCR, FCCM, FCCP) and includes 100+ investigators from 71 centers across the globe evaluating how healthcare professional workload in the ICU impacts patient-centered outcomes.
UGAC3
The University of Georgia Critical Care Collaborative (UGAC3) was formed in 2017 with a mission of fostering critical care research and education across the state of Georgia. The UGAC3 is composed of clinical faculty members at the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy. This team collaborates to stimulate professional development, scholarship, and teaching. This team strives to promote innovative critical care education in the pharmacy curriculum and to conduct clinical research that will improve the outcomes of critically ill patients in Georgia and beyond. For updates on group initiatives, follow on X @UGAC3 and Instagram @uga_c3.
