Dr. Fitzgerald's research focuses on the impact of pediatric sepsis on renal dysfunction. She examines biomarkers that may be helpful in predicting renal dysfunction in septic acute kidney injury, and the impact of resuscitative therapies and pharmacometrics in sepsis on the development of sepsis-related renal dysfunction.

In collaboration with a multidisciplinary team in the CHOP PICU, she developed and implemented the CHOP PICU severe sepsis pathway in 2012, a set of recommendations for severe sepsis management in the PICU. In 2016, she took on the role of physician lead for Hospital-wide sepsis quality improvement/sepsis governance committee at CHOP.

In parallel with these quality improvement and regulatory efforts, Dr. Fitzgerald has been collaborating in sepsis-related clinical research at CHOP, with a focus on sepsis epidemiology. She and Scott Weiss, MD, MSCE, led an international pediatric severe sepsis epidemiologic study that studied pediatric severe sepsis in 128 pediatric intensive care units in 26 countries and described the prevalence, etiologies, therapies, and outcomes of pediatric severe sepsis. Together with Fran Balamuth, MD, PhD, and Dr. Weiss, she has studied the impact of timely sepsis therapies on outcome in children with sepsis locally at CHOP.

BA, University of Pennsylvania (Biology), 1997

MD, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, 2005

PhD, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (Cell and Molecular Biology), 2005

MSCE, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania (Clinical Epidemiology), 2017

Certificate, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania (Research Mentor Training), 2022

Pediatric Intensivist

Associate Chief of Research, Division of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine

Co-Director, Pediatric Sepsis Program

Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Society of Critical Care Medicine, 2007-

Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigators, 2010-

Children’s Hospital Association Improving Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes Research Working Group, 2018-

Presidential Citation, Society of Critical Care Medicine, 2020, 2021, 2022

Fellow of the American College of Critical Care Medicine, 2021

CDC Charles C. Shepard Award for Prevention and Control for manuscript, “Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children – Initial Therapy and Outcomes"

Pediatric septic acute kidney injury: personalizing antibiotic dosing through understanding acute kidney injury risk factors and biomarker profiles.
National Institutes of Health
01/2020 – 12/2024
This study will evaluate urine biomarkers to improve early detection of those at risk for pediatric sepsis-associated acute kidney injury, determine potentially modifiable risk factors related to medication therapies for sepsis that are associated with risk of acute kidney injury progression, use these biomarkers and risk factors to improve pharmacologic models predicting appropriate antibiotic dosing, and test these new pharmacologic models for antibiotic dose adjustments in a pilot trial.

NGAL Usage in Determining AKI Rick in Critically Ill Children (GUIDANCE)
BioPorto Diagnostics, Inc.
3/2022 – 3/2027
This prospective observational clinical study aims to validate the performance of urine NGAL to detect acute kidney injury in critically ill pediatric patients.

CHOP Pediatric Center of Excellence in Nephrology

National Institutes of Health (NIH) / National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and kidney Diseases (NIDDK)

CHOP Pediatric Sepsis Program