Program Director

Naomi L. Luban, M.D., is Chair of the IRB, the Medical Director of the Office of Protection of Human Subjects at Children's National Hospital, Director of the Blood Donor Center, Associate Program Director for the General Clinical Research Center and Vice Chair for Faculty Affairs at Children's National. She has been an attending physician at Children’s National for more than 30 years.

Dr. Luban has published more than 140 peer-reviewed journal articles and more than 40 book chapters. She has edited seven texts in pediatric transfusion medicine and is an editorial board member for Transfusion and the American Journal of Hematology. In addition, Dr. Luban is a peer-reviewer for Transfusion, JAMA, Immunohematology, the Journal of Pediatrics, Pediatric Blood and Cancer and other publications.

Currently, Dr. Luban is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the chair of the Committee on Blood Disorders in Childhood of the American Society of Hematology and a member of the board of trustees of the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology. Her clinical interests are focused in inherited platelet disorders and hemophilia.

Co - Principal Investigator

Dr. Triplett is currently an Associate Professor in the Center for Neuroscience Research at Children’s National Hospital Associate Professor, an Associate Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Pharmacology & Physiology at The George Washington University School of Medicine, and an in the Neuroscience & Cognitive Science Graduate Program at the University of Maryland. He obtained his PhD in Cellular and Integrative Physiology from the Indiana University School of Medicine.

Dr. Triplett has been with the program since 2023, being one of our mentors for the METEOR scholars. At CNH, the Triplett Lab studies how the visual system wires up during development and how these processes are disrupted in neurodevelopmental disorders.

Program Manager

Rachel Smilow is the Program Manager for the METEOR and Science Journeys programs. She has a Bachelors from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland in History and a Masters from The Johns Hopkins University in Museum Studies. Previously Rachel has served as the Education and Program Manager at The Stephen Decatur House. She has has worked at The Phillips Collection, White House Historical Association, and the Sewell Belmont House. In her free time, she has volunteered at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and currently volunteers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Program Lead

Lisa Bochey is the Program Lead for the METEOR program at Children’s National Hospital. She holds a B.A. in Communicative Disorders and Spanish from The University of Alabama and a M.A. in International Development from American University in Washington, D.C. Previously, Lisa was a former educator and Teach For America corps member (Alabama ’13). She taught high school Spanish in Sumter County, Alabama and later served as Spanish teacher in Washington, D.C. for grades PS – 8.  Lisa is an alumna of the Fulbright Program, where she taught English at La Universidad Femenina del Sagrado Corazón in Lima, Peru. Lisa enjoys working with youth of all ages and backgrounds, and enjoys supporting future doctors, scientists, and medical professionals through the METEOR Program.

Program Coordinator

Annika Hvide is a special educator with a Bachelors in Childhood Education and Childhood Special Education from New York University and a Masters in Educational Transformation from Georgetown University. Previously, she has worked at Georgetown University, the US Commission on Civil Rights, the House of Representatives, and as a classroom teacher in Maryland.

Education Specialist

Nicholas Apato is the Education Specialist at Children's National. He has a Bachelors from the Temple university in Math Education. Previously Nick has worked at Drexel Hill Middle school as a math teacher before coming to Maryland as a substitute teacher in Howard County.