Dr. Self is the Senior Vice President for Clinical Research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Emergency Medicine. He is an emergency physician and clinical researcher focused on investigating early interventions in sepsis and related infections as well as innovative clinical trial design. He investigates the effectiveness of clinical interventions to improve patient outcomes in large, pragmatic studies, largely focusing on acute severe infections. He is the Vice President of Clinical Research Networks and Strategy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. In that role, he serves as a leader in coordinating large, complex, multicenter clinical research programs. This work, which focuses on optimizing team science, includes protocol development, regulatory oversight, site recruitment, development of standard operating procedures, creation and deployment of electronic data collection tools, data management, and data analysis. He serves as the clinical coordinating center principal investigator for multiple research programs, including the NHLBI-funded ACTIV-4 Host Tissue program evaluating investigational therapies for patients with severe COVID-19, the CDC-funded IVY Network evaluating the epidemiology of respiratory viruses among severely ill patients, the Merck-funded PNEUMO study evaluating pneumococcal disease, and the EMPACT Network focused on precision clinical trials in sepsis.

A central aspect of his clinical research is optimizing the early diagnosis and management of pneumonia and sepsis. He develops and execute research studies to understand the current epidemiology of pathogens such as influenza virus, SARS-CoV-2, and Streptococcus pneumoniae and the impact that vaccination programs may have on the prevention of illness caused by those pathogens. During the past decade, He has been a leader of research teams evaluating the incidence and etiology of community-acquired pneumonia. Their findings suggest respiratory viruses contribute a greater burden to community-acquired pneumonia incidence than previously appreciated. His current work includes the use of biomarkers to help classify sepsis, influenza illness, and COVID-19 into phenotypes.