Kristopher Paolino joined Upstate Medical University in 2016, where he currently serves as faculty mentor for the university's Resident Research Council and Director of Clinical Research at the Upstate Global Health Institute. His clinical research interests include vaccine development for tropical diseases, novel therapeutics such as bacteriophages for MRSA and invasive Staphylococcus aureusinfections, and Lyme disease and associated tick-borne infections.

Dr. Paolino attended SUNY Buffalo School of Medicine under the Armed Forces Health Professions Scholarship Program. He trained at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., before becoming board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Disease.He then spent over 5 years working as a clinical researcher at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. There, he served as Chief of the Clinical Trials Center (CTC), overseeing over 2 dozen clinical trials, one of which was the first to vaccinate a patient with the current leading Ebola vaccine deployed to West Africa. Other leading vaccine candidates that Dr. Paolino has investigated include treatments against malaria, dengue, anthrax, hantavirus, and MERS-CoV.