Rate My Professor Tamara Simon

Tamara D. Simon, MD, MSPH, FAAP, is Professor of Pediatrics (Clinical Scholar) in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. She practices as a pediatric hospitalist at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and holds key leadership roles, including CHLA Site Principal Investigator and Director of Workforce Development for the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute (SC CTSI) since June 2022, and Principal Investigator at The Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Dr. Simon joined USC and CHLA in April 2020 after prior academic appointments. Her education includes a BA in Molecular Biology from Colgate University in 1994, an MD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine in 2001, completion of pediatrics residency at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 2004, and an MSPH in Public Health from the same institution in 2006.

Dr. Simon’s research focuses on improving the quality of evidence in inpatient health care for children with medical complexity, including clinical studies on cerebrospinal fluid shunt infections and reinfections in children with hydrocephalus, translational investigations of the microbial environment in CSF shunt infections, and health services research to enhance inpatient care quality for medically complex children. An active member of the Hydrocephalus Clinical Research Network since 2007, she has secured funding from the National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, including K23 and R01 grants. Her contributions to the field include serving as Associate Editor of Hospital Pediatrics since 2014 and editorial board member since 2010, as well as grant reviewer for the National Institutes of Health. Notable awards encompass induction into the American Pediatric Society in 2019, Outstanding Research Award in Pediatric Hospital Medicine in 2018, election to the Society for Pediatric Research in 2009, and multiple young investigator honors. Key publications feature “Cerebrospinal Fluid Shunt Infections” in Infectious Diseases Clinics of North America (2024), “Prevalence of Children With Medical Complexity and Associations With Health Care Utilization and In-Hospital Mortality” in JAMA Pediatrics (2022), and “Pediatric Medical Complexity Algorithm: A New Method to Stratify Children by Medical Complexity” in Pediatrics (2014).