About

Dr. Hua Wang received her B.S. degree in microbiology from Fudan University, M.S. from Utah State University, and Ph.D. in food science and nutrition from the University of Minnesota, specializing in lactic acid bacteria genetics. She was a recipient of the NIH/NIGMS biotechnology traineeship for her Ph.D. training and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at NIH in 1999. Before joining Ohio State University as a faculty member in 2001, she served as an FDA Consumer Food Safety Officer. Dr. Wang has held leadership roles such as Chair of the Food Microbiology Division of the American Society for Microbiology and Chair of the Biotechnology Division of the Institute of Food Technologists. She has also served on various panels and editorial boards, including the USDA Food Safety Panel, NIH study sessions, and the editorial board for the Journal of Food Protection. Her research focuses on antibiotic resistance, host and food microbiota, food fermentation, biofilms, lactic acid bacteria, and rapid microbial detection. Her laboratory's main research interests include improving fermentation starter culture performance, developing rapid molecular detection methods, understanding microbial persistence and resistance mechanisms, and uncovering the drivers of antibiotic resistance and gut microbiota disruption. Her pioneering work has contributed to the understanding of how beneficial bacteria facilitate horizontal gene transmission, the impact of gut-impacting drugs on antibiotic resistance, and strategies for mitigating antibiotic resistance as a major global health threat.

Research topics

• Internal medicine
• Medicine
• Intensive care medicine
• Emergency medicine
• Pathology
• Gastroenterology
• Immunology
• Virology
• Endocrinology
• Cardiology

Selected publications

• Community Acceptance of a Pediatric Prehospital Exception From Informed Consent Trial

  Academic Emergency Medicine · 2026-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  BACKGROUND: Federal Exception from Informed Consent (EFIC) regulations allow emergency care research without a priori consent under limited conditions by integrating feedback from community consultation and notification of communities through public disclosure (CC/PD) activities (21 CFR 50.24). Our objectives were to evaluate community acceptance of a pediatric emergency care trial using a commercial survey tool and to determine the characteristics associated with supportive respondents. METHODS: The Pediatric Prehospital Airway Resuscitation Trial (Pedi-PART) is an EFIC trial designed to compare pediatric prehospital airway management strategies. Pedi-PART conducted community consultation/public disclosure (CC/PD) activities in March-April 2024. The CC/PD process used a commercial marketing research platform (Qualtrics Inc.) to provide study information and solicit feedback via an 18-question survey. Participants indicated support for the study through three specific questions and provided demographic characteristics. We determined the predictors of trial approval among survey respondents. RESULTS: A total of 6753 individuals completed surveys. The median age was 42 (IQR: 30-59) years, 62% were female, 13% were Black, and 15% were Hispanic. Survey respondents indicated support for conducting Pedi-PART in their community as follows: 90% of males, 91% of females, 89% of Blacks, 92% of Hispanics, 92% of Whites, 90% of other race/ethnicities, and 93% of parents of a child < 18 years. Among respondents with less than a high school education, 84% approved of the study compared to 93% in those with a post-graduate degree. Among those with an annual household income < $20,000, 85% approved of the study compared to 94% of those with an > $100,000 annual household income. In multivariable analysis, higher education and being the parent/guardian of a minor child were associated with support of the trial. CONCLUSIONS: Survey respondents largely supported the Pedi-PART trial. Respondents who were parents or who had higher education were more likely to support the trial.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Local Surface Wind Sensors Complementing Radio-Networked Smoke Sensors for Public Air Quality Insights at Prescribed Burns

  2026-03-02

  articleOpen access

  In light of increasingly frequent and severe wildfires over the past decade, the state of California intends to significantly scale up the use of prescribed fires and other controlled burns in the next decade. These burns emit smoke that can travel up to thousands of miles. Yet current monitoring infrastructure leaves dangerous gaps in coverage, making real-time localized environmental data critical for protecting nearby communities and optimizing burn operations. Commercial sensors are expensive and are rarely situated near a burn. Furthermore, they often disregard wind strength and direction, measurements which are critical for understanding changes in particle concentration. The Stanford Smoke Sensor Mesh (SMesh) team is a student-led initiative to address this gap in available air quality with a suite of deployable environmental sensors. In this session, we will highlight the development of a low-cost, open-source wind vane and anemometer using parts adapted from the 3D-Printed Automatic Weather Station (3D-PAWS). Our sensors use a local radio mesh network to broadcast data in a cost- and power-efficient manner even in rural or remote settings lacking extensive communication infrastructure. A comparison of our custom sensor with a commercial alternative at a burn in Scotts Valley, CA, showed the two sensors achieving similar accuracy. By making affordable wind sensors, we aim to enable fire practitioners to more closely monitor and anticipate the behavior of prescribed burns. We strive to democratize access to this data by broadcasting on a radio mesh network and displaying the information through an intuitive graphical interface. This presentation will showcase ongoing testing of our prototype sensors in collaboration with CalFire and other prescribed burn associations throughout fall 2025, as well as our continued efforts to integrate these wind sensors with open-source firmware.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Characteristics of Prehospital Trauma Patients Receiving Advanced Airways: A National Descriptive Study

  Prehospital Emergency Care · 2026-01-23

  article

  OBJECTIVES: Injury mechanisms play a critical role in determining the need for advanced airway management during prehospital trauma care. While prior studies have examined airway interventions in the context of physiological compromise or specific clinical conditions, few have evaluated how airway device use varies across trauma mechanisms (e.g., falls, motor vehicle collisions). Understanding which injury types are most associated with airway placement, and which airway devices are most commonly used, can help emergency medical service (EMS) clinicians anticipate airway needs and inform trauma system preparedness. METHODS: We analyzed 2023 data from the National Emergency Medical Services Information System (NEMSIS) to evaluate 9-1-1 trauma activations with documented advanced airway device placement (endotracheal intubation [ETI], supraglottic airway [SGA], and cricothyrotomy [Cric]). Injury causes were categorized based on clinically relevant categories derived from the 20 most common ICD-10 trauma codes. Airway use was described by patient age, sex, urbanicity, incident location, EMS system response, scene, and transport times. Age-stratified airway use rates (per/1,000 trauma activations) were calculated for pediatric (≤15), adult (16-64), and geriatric (≥65) patients. RESULTS: Among 5,716,650 trauma activations in 2023, 18,628 (3.6 per/1,000) involved advanced airway placement: ETI-only (13,452; 72.2%), SGA-only (3,544; 19.0%), Cric-only (110; 0.6%), and multiple airways (1,522; 8.2%). Patients were primarily male (75.0%) with a median age of 48 years (IQR: 30-66), found in urban areas (81.2%), on street/highway (40.0%) locations, with over half experiencing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (55.8%). Falls (29.0%) and motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) (21.0%) accounted for the largest frequency of airway placements, while firearm-related injuries (51.9/1,000) and motorcycle accidents (16.1/1,000) had the highest airway use rates across all age groups. Cricothyrotomy was most commonly performed in firearm-related trauma (39.1%). Among patients with scene and transport times <60 min, median scene and transport times differed across airway types. CONCLUSIONS: Advanced airway placement occurred in approximately 4 of every 1,000 EMS trauma activations. While falls and MVCs were the most frequent injury types, firearm-related injuries and motorcycle accidents had the highest incidence of airway use. These findings highlight high-risk scenarios for airway intervention and may inform EMS training, triage, and airway preparedness strategies.

  PublisherDOI

• Abstract Sat1201: Sequence of Epinephrine Administration and Advanced Airway Management for Adult Patients with Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest

  Circulation · 2025-11-03

  articleSenior author

  Introduction: Epinephrine administration and advanced airway management (AAM) (i.e., supraglottic airway insertion or endotracheal intubation) are commonly performed prehospital interventions for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). The optimal sequence of these two interventions remains unclear. Research Question: Is the sequence of epinephrine administration and AAM associated with patient outcomes after OHCA? Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of adults (aged≥18 years) with nontraumatic OHCA who received prehospital epinephrine and/or AAM during cardiac arrest in the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium Registry, a prospective OHCA registry at 10 sites in the US and Canada from 2011 to 2015. The main exposure was the sequence of intravenous or intraosseous epinephrine administration and AAM (epinephrine-first vs. AAM-first). The outcome was survival to hospital discharge. We used propensity scores and inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) to address imbalances in patient demographics, arrest characteristics, and bystander interventions for each sub-cohort of initial shockable and nonshockable rhythms. Results: Of 41,659 eligible patients (median [IQR] age, 67 [55-80] years), 26,535 (63.7%) were male. 8,431 patients (20.2%) had an initial shockable rhythm, and 33,228 (79.8%) had an initial nonshockable rhythm. Among patients with a shockable rhythm, 5,846 received epinephrine first, 2,272 received AAM first, and 313 received epinephrine and AAM concurrently. In patients with a nonshockable rhythm, 21,519 received epinephrine first, 10,365 received AAM first, and 1,344 received epinephrine and AAM concurrently. Using IPTW, all covariates between the epinephrine-first and AAM-first groups were well balanced (standardized mean differences &lt;0.1). Compared with the AAM-first group, in the weighted population, the epinephrine-first group was not associated with survival to hospital discharge in the shockable rhythm (OR 1.00, 95% CI 0.92-1.08), but had a lower likelihood of survival to hospital discharge in the nonshockable rhythm (OR 0.80, 95% CI 0.74-0.87). Conclusion: In the shockable rhythm, the epinephrine-first approach was not associated with survival to hospital discharge. In the nonshockable rhythm, the epinephrine-first approach was associated with a lower likelihood of survival to hospital discharge, suggesting that the AAM-first approach might be the optimal strategy in the initial nonshockable rhythm.

  PublisherDOI

• Semi-automated last touch detection for out-of-bounds possession decisions in football

  Sports Engineering · 2025-08-27

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Football referees must make quick and accurate decisions in unforgiving environments. In parallel, advances in optical tracking have created new avenues for technology-assisted officiating. Using skeletal and ball tracking data, we present a novel diphase framework for Semi-automated Last Touch detection, designed to help referees adjudicate out-of-bounds possession decisions where player and ball occlusion may pose challenges. The proposed methodology uses a touch probability model to find the decision frame of the last touch before the ball goes out-of-bounds, and rules-based or supervised learning algorithms predict the player responsible for the touch. Leveraging principles of kinematics, human anthropometry, and machine learning, the models predict the correct possession decision with up to 82.5% accuracy on a test dataset of duels from the 2022 FIFA World Cup, including over 90% for aerial duels. Our results represent potential improvements in human performance reported in previous literature and provide a baseline benchmark for future studies.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Effect Of An Ankle Brace On Peroneal Brevis Force During Lateral Landings

  Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise · 2025-09-16

  article1st authorCorresponding

  BACKGROUND: Ankle sprain is common among athletes engaging in jumping and landing movements such as playing volleyball. Wearing ankle braces during practice and game situations could protect the athletes. A novel TayCo (TC) brace was designed for use, external to the shoe, permitting sagittal plane motion while limiting frontal and transverse plane motion. It was unclear the degree to which the TC brace could effectively limit frontal plane motion during activities elevating ankle inversion such as lateral landings from a height. PURPOSE: To investigate the response of an ankle evertor (peroneal brevis) (PB) during lateral landings with a TC brace. It was hypothesized that the TC brace could reinforce the ankle’s frontal plane stability by reducing the need for more PB force. METHODS: On two separate occasions, six college students performed lateral droplandings from three heights (20 cm, 40 cm, and 60 cm) onto forceplates with/without a TC brace. Motion capture data (kinematic and ground reaction force) were used to drive subject-specific musculo-skeletal models during computer simulations in LifeMod (2010). Peak force of the right PB muscle was obtained and normalized to body weight (BW). Repeated measure ANOVAs were performed (Alpha = 0.05). RESULTS: The brace condition elicited 32%, 28%, and 39% less PB forces than the no-brace condition in 20 cm height (8.4 ± 2.5BW vs. 12.4 ± 3.7BW), 40 cm height (14.1 ± 3.4BW vs. 19.7 ± 4.8BW), and 60 cm height (12.5 ± 3.4BW vs. 20.4 ± 4.8BW), respectively. When the height was increased to 60 cm, the effect of the brace became more prominent (p = 0.026). Furthermore, when grouping all the heights into one analysis, the brace condition strongly showed less PB muscle force than the no-brace condition (p = 0.009). CONCLUSION: Although the findings were preliminary, it was evident that, overall, the TC brace effectively constrained the ankle, helping to prevent potentially harmful excessive inversion. This protective effect was demonstrated by a reduced load on the PB. Athletes who frequently face a high risk of ankle sprain during jumping and landing activities may benefit from wearing the TC braces during practices and competitions. Furthermore, military personnel who regularly perform high-impact landings, such as parachute landings, could also benefit from using TC braces.

  PublisherDOI

• Markers of Kidney Tubule Dysfunction Are Associated with Future Risk of AKI Following Cardiac Surgery

  Journal of the American Society of Nephrology · 2025-10-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Advanced Airway Practice Patterns and Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Outcomes

  JAMA Network Open · 2025-09-17 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Importance: Although advanced airway (AA) practice patterns have varied over time, their association with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) outcomes is unknown. Objective: To determine the association between AA temporal practice patterns of emergency medical service (EMS) agencies and OHCA outcomes. Design, Setting, and Participants: This cross-sectional study used data from multicenter EMS agencies participating in the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival database. The study included adults (aged ≥18 years) with OHCA treated by EMS agencies that had 25 or more OHCA episodes annually from January 1, 2016, through December 31, 2022. Exposure: AA interventions included supraglottic airway (SGA) device use or endotracheal intubation (ETI). Patients were categorized into groups using the following EMS agency-level patterns defined by predominant AA use before and after 2019: (1) ongoing ETI, (2) ongoing SGA use (ongoing SGA), (3) transitioning from ETI to SGA use (ETI to SGA), or (4) transitioning from SGA use to ETI (SGA to ETI). Main Outcomes and Measures: Mixed-effects logistic regression models accounting for EMS agency clustering and adjusting for Utstein variables were used to evaluate the association between EMS agency AA practice patterns and OHCA outcomes including return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) and survival. Subanalyses were also conducted for agencies in the lowest survival quartile. Odds ratios (ORs) are reported with 95% CIs. Results: This study included 350 216 patients with OHCA treated by 254 eligible EMS agencies. The 214 EMS agencies (n = 305 341 patients) with a predominant AA pattern were grouped as follows for temporal pattern analysis: ongoing ETI (n = 72 [33.6%]), ongoing SGA (n = 66 [30.8%]), ETI to SGA (n = 67 [31.3%]), or SGA to ETI (n = 9 [4.2%]). Patients were predominantly male (62.2%), with a median age of 64 (IQR, 52-76) years, and most (81.7%) presented with nonshockable rhythms. ROSC occurred in 30.8% of patients, and 10.4% of patients survived to hospital discharge. Predominant SGA use among EMS agencies increased from 65 agencies in 2016 to 113 in 2022. ROSC decreased in all 4 groups from before to after 2019 as follows: from 36.5% to 30.7% (OR, 0.80 [95% CI, 0.77-0.82]) for ongoing ETI, from 32.4% to 26.4% (OR, 0.75 [95% CI, 0.73-0.78]) for ongoing SGA, from 32.1% to 28.5% (OR, 0.88 [95% CI, 0.85-0.91]) for ETI to SGA, and from 36.7% to 33.3% (OR, 0.92 [95% CI, 0.83-1.03]) for SGA to ETI. For the 15 lower-performing agencies (n = 20 860 patients) that transitioned from ETI to SGA after vs before 2019, an association with higher ROSC (from 25.7% to 29.1%; OR, 1.16 [95% CI, 1.09-1.24]) and survival (from 5.6% to 6.3%; OR, 1.17 [95% CI, 1.04-1.32]) was observed. Conclusions and Relevance: In this cohort study, SGA use among EMS agencies increased over time. Although ROSC declined for all AA temporal practice patterns, the transition from ETI to SGA use at EMS agencies with lower baseline survival was associated with improved outcomes. Future studies are warranted to confirm these findings and to evaluate whether the observed associations are consistent across diverse populations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Methodology for the Pediatric Dose Optimization for Seizures in Emergency Medical Services (PediDOSE) study

  Trials · 2025-12-13 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Seizures are one of the most common reasons for emergency medical services (EMS) activation for children, and current EMS practice results in underdosing and delayed delivery of anti-seizure medication. A prehospital evidence-based guideline recommends using intranasal or intramuscular midazolam as first-line treatment for pediatric seizures. Despite attempts to implement these guidelines, one-third of children having a paramedic-witnessed seizure have ongoing seizures on emergency department (ED) arrival; this may be due to inadequate or delayed midazolam dosing. Replacing the error-prone, sequential calculations with age-based midazolam dosing may be simpler, faster, and more effective without compromising safety. The objective of this manuscript is to describe the methodology of the Pediatric Dose Optimization for Seizures in EMS (PediDOSE) study, a clinical trial designed to compare the effectiveness and safety of an EMS protocol with four age-based categories for midazolam dosing relative to the current weight-based dosing. METHODS: We are conducting a large EMS-based stepped wedge trial in the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) by implementing midazolam dosing based on four age categories in seizure protocols in EMS systems in 20 cities. We believe that this implementation will stop more seizures before ED arrival without increasing respiratory failure rates. The primary aim of this study is to compare the effectiveness of age-based EMS midazolam dosing compared to the current weight-based dosing on seizure cessation upon ED arrival. The secondary aim is to determine the frequency of respiratory failure in children after the implementation of EMS midazolam dosing based on these age categories. CONCLUSION: If this study demonstrates that an EMS patient care protocol with age-based midazolam dosing is safe and more effective than current practice, the potential impact of this study is a paradigm shift in the treatment of pediatric seizures that can be easily implemented in EMS systems across the country. Beyond seizures, the concept of age-based dosing may also be applicable to other commonly encountered pediatric prehospital conditions for which medication may be indicated.

  PublisherDOI

• Abstract Sun103: Capnoraphy and Thoracic Impedance Ventilation Quality During Cardiac Resuscitation

  Circulation · 2025-11-03

  articleSenior author

  Background: End-Tidal Capnography (EtCO 2 ) is the primary ventilation bio-signal in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Transthoracic Impedance (TTI) is a novel prehospital ventilation bio-signal. However, the variation in the quality of ventilation bio-signals remains poorly defined. We sought to compare the availability and quality of EtCO 2 and TTI during OHCA. Methods: Retrospective study of adult (≥18 years) OHCA in Columbus, OH. We sampled the first 100 OHCAs from April 1 st 2019 through December 31 st 2020. Bio-signals were recorded using either Zoll or Lifepak defibrillator monitors. We included cases with ≥ 3 minutes of both bio-signals recorded. Using previously validated automated signal processing algorithms, we identified EtCO 2 and TTI ventilations. We manually classified EtCO 2 quality (low, medium, or high) based on the availability of the 4 phases (upstroke, plateau, downstroke and inspiratory pauses). We developed an automated TTI quality (low, medium, or high) algorithm based on a threshold balancing percentage of dependable impedance and ventilation rate error. We defined reliable ventilations as instances with: EtCO 2 = medium or high quality; or TTI = high quality. We determined the mean minutes with standard deviations in each quality level. Per case, we calculated the percentage of resuscitation time in each of the quality levels over resuscitation. Results: Of the 100 cases, 87 cases (44 Zoll, 43 Lifepak) were included. The average resuscitation duration was 20.10±10.09min. Ventilations per minute (vpm) detection errors were minimal (EtCO 2 : 0.4±0.5vpm; TTI: 1.0±1.1vpm). When using EtCO 2 alone, we reliably detected ventilations for 6.3±6.8min (30.2±28.0%). When using TTI alone, we reliably detected ventilations for 1.7±2.9min (8.4±15.0%). When using both bios-signals, we reliably detected ventilations for 3.9±5.2 min (18.4±24.7%). Both ventilation bio-signals were unreliable for 7.8±5.9min (40.5±28.3%) and not recorded for 0.5±1.4min (2.4±6.0%). Ventilation quality distributions per case are displayed in Figure 1. Conclusions: When using EtCO 2 , we reliably detect ventilation for greater periods of resuscitation than TTI. However, TTI detected ventilations can expand the period of ventilation evaluation. Utilization of both ventilation bio-signals can provide the broadest ventilation evaluation per resuscitation.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Pragmatic Trial of Airway Management in Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest

  NIH · $481k · 2014–2015

• NIH Grant R21HL084528

  NIH · $318k · 2009

• Risk Factors for Sepsis in the Community

  NIH · $2.6M · 2011–2017

• Pragmatic Trial of Airway Management in Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest

  NIH · $2.7M · 2014–2020

• NIH Grant K08HS013628

  NIH · $623k · 2010

Frequent coauthors

• Robert E. O’Connor

  University of Virginia

  190 shared

• Ryan Huebinger

  The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

  141 shared

• Hei Kit Chan

  134 shared

• Lynn J. White

  130 shared

• Kevin Schulz

  New York City Fire Department

  128 shared

• E. Brooke Lerner

  University at Buffalo, State University of New York

  128 shared

• Michael Allswede

  Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science

  128 shared

• Anthony J. Billittier

  Millennium Engineering and Integration (United States)

  128 shared

Labs

• Hua Wang LaboratoryPI

Education

• Ph.D., Food Science and Technology

  The Ohio State University

  2009

• M.S., Food Science and Technology

  The Ohio State University

  2004

• B.S., Food Science and Technology

  The Ohio State University

  2002

Awards & honors

• 2015 Director’s Innovator of the Year Award from OARDC
• 2009 Battelle Endowment Project Award for Technology and Hum…