CHIRAL Leadership

Sarwat Chaudhry, MD is a board-certified internist who completed her clinical training at the University of Chicago before coming to Yale for postdoctoral fellowship training in the Clinical Scholars Program. She holds a faculty position as Professor of Medicine in the Section of General Medicine. She also serves as Associate Dean of Student Research and Co-Director of the National Clinician Scholars Program. Dr. Chaudhry leads an active portfolio of NIH-funded research, focusing primarily on diversifying the physician and physician-scientist workforce. She is also leading work focused on improving the quality and safety of hospital-based care.

Dr. Venkatesh is a Professor of Emergency Medicine and Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Yale University. He is also Scientist at the Yale Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation. He has been funded by the NIH, AHRQ, and the Emergency Medicine Foundation to study health system outcomes and efficiency, and he is supported by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as co-Principal Investigator of the Emergency Quality Network (E-QUAL) and for the development of the Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings. He has received over $6 million in grant funding and published over 80 peer-reviewed papers and is senior editor of The Evidence book series. He is national leader within ACEP and SAEM and he serves on expert panels for the National Quality Forum (NQF), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and CMS. His work is also funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the Addiction Policy Forum to advance the quality and delivery of emergency and acute care for opioid use disorder. Dr. Venkatesh earned his undergraduate degree at Northwestern University. He went on to earn an MBA from Ohio State University before completing medical school at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Most recently he completed Emergency Medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General Hospitals and the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program here at Yale University. He is originally from Dayton, OH and resides in New Haven.

As Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and Radiology & Biomedical Imaging, Dr. Matouk brings to the CHIRAL team a wealth of knowledge regarding neurosurgical interventions for patients with atraumatic intracranial hemorrhage. His expertise has been invaluable to our team’s approach to improving the safety and quality of care transitions for patients transferred to YNHH with atraumatic intracranial hemorrhage.

As the Medical Director of the Yale-New Haven Adult Emergency Department, Dr. Parwani brings a deep knowledge and understanding of the operational nuances of navigating patient care transfers via the YNHH Emergency Department. This knowledge has been, and will continue to be a great asset to the CHIRAL team.

Dr. Pham, Medical Director of Y-Access, YNHH’s patient transfer service, brings to the CHIRAL team an invaluable understanding of the process by which patients are transferred from outside hospitals to YNHH. This understanding has been instrumental in the formation of our team’s approach, and will inform our intervention roll-out and evaluation.

With clinical experience in both Emergency Medicine and Surgical Critical Care, Dr. Sather brings a unique blend of clinical expertise to the CHIRAL team. In addition, Dr. Sather’s role as the Director of Quality Improvement within the Emergency Department at Yale New Haven Hospital, a position he has held since 2014, informs our team’s approach to improving the safety and quality of care transitions for patients transferred to YNHH with atraumatic intracranial hemorrhage.

Dr. Kevin Sheth is a founding Director of the Yale Center for Brain & Mind Health and the Vice Chair for Clinical and Translational Research for the departments of Neurology. and Neurosurgery. He leads prevention efforts in neurologically vulnerable populations and works towards advancing therapies for acute brain injury such as stroke and brain hemorrhage. In pioneering the development of new strategies to treat brain swelling, his work has changed the fundamental approach to brain injury in the ICU and spurred the creation of new technologies in drug delivery and neuroimaging. Highly collaborative, interdisciplinary efforts from the lab have culminated in the first phase III trial to prevent brain swelling in stroke, the first phase III NIH funded prevention trial in brain hemorrhage, and the deployment of the first portable bedside MRI for brain injury in the world. His team at Yale has served as a national model for academic critical care neurology units. In recent years his group has also turned their attention to public health prevention efforts, focusing on cardiometabolic risk factors that can prevent decline in brain health resulting from stroke, dementia, and depression. He is currently a principal investigator for two NIH neuroscience networks, StrokeNet, and SIREN. He is a multi-PI for four additional RO1/UO1 awards from the NIH. Dr. Sheth has served as PI or co-PI for 8 multicenter clinical trials in stroke. He is a winner of the prestigious Robert Siekert Award from the American Heart Association (AHA), the Derek Denny Brown Award from the American Neurological Association and an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI). Most recently, he was the recipient of the Stroke Research Mentorship Award from the American Heart Association. Dr. Sheth is the author of over 300 publications. His work has been showcased in The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, NPR, and CNN. Finally, Dr. Sheth has formed exciting partnerships with entrepreneurs, pharmaceutical companies, and medical device start-ups to bring forward highly innovative solutions. These efforts have resulted in extensive knowledge of FDA pathways, development of phase I-III drug programs, and implementation of new technology into the clinical workspace. The principal theme of his efforts are towards collaboration and an improved understanding of neurological disease.

Dr. Ulrich, Professor and the Vice Chair of Operations for the Yale Department of Emergency Medicine, brings to the CHIRAL team a wealth of expertise. In practice for nearly 30 years, Dr. Ulrich is highly respected for his understanding of, and improvements to, the delivery of high-quality care within emergency departments. His knowledge, especially regarding patient process and flow through the ED, is a valuable advantage for the CHIRAL team.