MICHAEL SPAEDER is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences and an Attending Physician in the Division of Critical Care Medicine at the Children's National Medical Center. He received his B.S. in mathematics from Trinity College and his M.S. in mathematical statistics and M.D. from the George Washington University. He undertook his graduate medical training in Pediatrics and Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at Brown University/Hasbro Children's Hospital and the Johns Hopkins Hospital, respectively. Prior to his medical training, he was employed as a statistical consultant with the Economics Consulting and Quantitative Analysis group at Ernst & Young, LLP in Washington, DC. His research interests include the predictive modeling of pediatric viral respiratory illness and outcomes analyses of children with severe viral respiratory illness.