Current FAC Members
Organizations on this page
- Anesthesiology
- Biomedical & Data Informatics
- Cancer Center
- Cell Biology
- Cellular & Molecular Physiology
- Comparative Medicine
- Child Study Center
- Dermatology
- Emergency Medicine
- Genetics
- History of Medicine
- Immunobiology
- Internal Medicine
- Laboratory Medicine
- Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
- Microbial Pathogenesis
- Neurology
- Neuroscience
- Neurosurgery
- Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
- Ophthalmology and Visual Science
- Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation
- Pathology
- Pediatrics
- Pharmacology
- Psychiatry
- Radiology & Biomedical Imaging
- Surgery
- Therapeutic Radiology/Radiation Oncology
- Urology
- Associate Research Scientist
- S.W.I.M
- M.O.R.E
- YSPH
Anesthesiology
Clinician
Mukadder Ozcan is an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology at Yale University Department of Anesthesiology. She graduated from Dicle University Medical School in Diyarbakir, Turkey. Upon completing his anesthesiology residency at the Istanbul University Cerrahpasa School of Medicine, Dr. Mukadder Ozcan joined a cardiac anesthesia group at the American Hospital in Istanbul, where she worked for 5 years. Upon moving to USA, Dr. Ozcan joined the residency program at The University of Oklahoma Department of Anesthesiology, where she also continued as a faculty member upon completion. She was appointed as Assistant Professor at The University of Oklahoma after obtaining Board Certification by the American Board of Anesthesiologists in 2017. Dr. Mukadder Ozcan joined Yale Department of Anesthesiology in 2020 as Assistant Professor, where she continues to practice as a member of the Division of Adult Multispecialty Anesthesia. Her clinical focus is anesthesia for surgical oncology, where she provides perioperative care for gynecological, urologic, and general surgical patients. In addition to her clinical work, Dr. Ozcan remains committed to residency education and mentorship. Dr. Ozcan is also striving to be an advocate for her colleagues, being elected to represent her Department at the Faculty Advisory Council as well as serving as a member at the Faculty Engagement Committee within the Department of Anesthesiology.
Biomedical & Data Informatics
- Prof. María Rodríguez Martínez is an Associate Professor in Biomedical Informatics & Data Science at the Yale School of Medicine. Before joining Yale, she was the Technical Leader of Systems Biology at IBM Research Europe (Switzerland), where she established the team of computational systems biology. Initially trained as a physicist, she transitioned to computational biology during her postdoctoral work at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel) and Columbia University (USA). At IBM Research, her research centered on developing computational approaches for cancer personalized medicine and she led two major EU-funded consortia focused on prostate and pediatric cancers. Currently, her work focuses on understanding T and B cell function in the context of complex diseases, such as cancer and autoimmune diseases. Her research integrates mechanistic and AI models, emphasizing interpretable deep learning methods to uncover the rules behind model predictions. In this field, her team has developed interpretable models to predict T cell receptor binding and investigated B cell development. Prof. Rodríguez Martínez serves as an editor for ImmunoInformatics, Frontiers in Systems Biology, BMC Bioinformatics, and IEEE Transactions on Molecular, Biological, and Multi-Scale Communications. She is also a frequent speaker and organizing committee member at leading Computational and Mathematical Biology conferences, such as ISMB, the Society for Mathematical Biology, and ECCB.
Cancer Center
Care Center Drs
Maryam Lustberg, MD, MPH, is Director of the Center for Breast Cancer at Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center, and Chief of Breast Medical Oncology at Yale Cancer Center. She is also an Associate Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology). She has been recognized for her patient-focused care with awards that include being rated by Forbes as one of the top breast medical oncologists in the nation and named to the Castle Connolly list of “Regional Top Doctors,” and “Exceptional Women in Medicine” for 2020. She is currently participating in the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Leadership Development Program. Learn more about Dr. Lustberg>> With an emphasis on improving the long-term outcomes for patients with breast cancer who have developed side effects associated with treatment, Dr. Lustberg will continue her research efforts at Yale. She is also focused on investigating novel blood-based biomarkers to identify recurrence and treatment toxicity earlier. She is an NCI-funded investigator and active in both ALLIANCE and SWOG Cancer Cooperative Groups. Dr. Lustberg collaborates widely with researchers from around the world, thriving in creating innovative multidisciplinary scientific teams. Her mentorship has been recognized by numerous awards including Best Teacher Award by Hematology Oncology Fellows and the Shining Star Award for Medical Student Mentorship. Nationally, Dr. Lustberg is a member of the ASCO Annual Meeting Education Committee, Patient and Survivor Care Education Committee, and Neuropathy Expert Guideline Panel. She is actively engaged in national patient advocacy organizations with a focus on improving shared decision making and increasing patient engagement in clinical trials. In addition, she serves as the President Elect and on the Board of Directors for the international organization Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC). She serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Cancer Survivorship. In the last decade, she has published over 140 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. Dr. Lustberg received her medical degree from the University of Maryland where she also completed her residency and went on to complete a fellowship in medical oncology and in breast medical oncology at The Ohio State University before joining the faculty in 2010. She earned a Master's in Public Health from The Ohio State University in 2013.York St. Drs
Dr. Neparidze obtained her medical degree from Aieti Medical School in Tbilisi, Georgia in 2000. She subsequently completed Postdoctoral Research Fellowships at Emory, Northwestern and Yale Universities, followed by Internal Medicine Residency and Hematology/Medical Oncology Fellowship at Yale University. She has served as an assistant professor at Yale University School of Medicine, Medical Oncology/Hematology since 2012. She specializes in multiple myeloma, monoclonal gammopathies, AL amyloidosis, Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia. Dr. Neparidze has developed multiple research projects in myeloma, including a number of investigator-initiated therapeutic clinical trials. She collaborates with other researchers nationally and internationally, serve as a PI and co-PI on multiple therapeutic clinical trials and leads several clinical outcomes studies in patients with myeloma. She serves as the leader of the Yale Myeloma Research team. Her ongoing research directions include use of advanced imaging and evaluating tumor heterogeneity to enhance precision medicine approaches for myeloma, novel combination immunotherapy strategies and MRD-driven therapies in myeloma, as well as studying biology and clinical outcomes of monoclonal gammopathies in association with metabolic, viral and other co-morbidities, investigating mechanisms of tumor progression and resistance in myeloma. Dr. Neparidze is actively involved in educational process, teaching Hematology/Oncology fellows, medical students, residents and colleagues at Yale and in community. Learn more about Dr. Neparidze>>
Cell Biology
Cellular & Molecular Physiology
Comparative Medicine
- Dr. Xiaoyong Yang is Professor of Comparative Medicine and of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Yale University School of Medicine. He received his B.S. from Nankai University, M.S. from Peking University, and Ph.D. from University of Alabama at Birmingham. He completed his postdoctoral training with Dr. Ronald Evans at The Salk Institute. Dr. Yang works at the intersection of diabetes, obesity, and cancer. He has made pioneering contributions to deciphering biological information encoded in protein modifications. Dr. Yang has published highly cited articles in scientific journals such as Cell, Cell Metabolism, Nature, Nature Medicine, and has been featured in public media outlets such as TIME, Daily Mail, NPR, and Scientific American. He has served on scientific review panels for the NIH, NASA, American Diabetes Association, American Cancer Society, The Medical Research Council, The Wellcome Trust, and other agencies worldwide. Dr. Yang is the founder of the Cancer Metabolism Initiative (CAMI) and a member of the Dean’s Faculty Advisory Council at Yale School of Medicine. He holds an adjunct professor position at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Yang has played leadership roles in professional organizations as president of CADA and vice president of SAPA. He has been elected to the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering.
Child Study Center
Research
Amanda M. Dettmer, PhD, is a Research Scientist at the Yale Child Study Center, where she leads the Human and Animal Integrated Research (HAIR) Lab. She is a comparative psychologist and behavioral neuroscientist with over 20 years of experience studying nonhuman primate models of child health and development. Dr. Dettmer's research program examines the impact of early life factors and individual differences on health across the lifespan. For this research, she takes a comparative approach: she relies on nonhuman primates as translational models for human child development, employing multidisciplinary approaches including ethology, neuroendocrinology, immunology, and epigenetics. This line of Dr. Dettmer's research is currently funded by the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC) at Yale School of Medicine, and has been recently funded by the Animal Models for the Social Dimensions of Health & Aging Research Network (NIH/NIA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and Yale Child Study Center Junior Faculty Development Fund. For more on this research, refer to Dr. Dettmer's complete Google Scholar profile. Dr. Dettmer also works with human populations. She recently served as a member of the Hartford City Council Universal Basic Income (UBI) Task Force, which is developing a pilot UBI program set to begin in early 2023. She is also Co-PI of a research study funded by the Prepared Adult Initiative examining chronic stress across the school year in children in grades 1-8 as a function of school/educational setting. A third line of research focuses on analyzing the educational, therapeutic, and financial impacts of intensive in-school mental health services provided to K-12 students, in partnership with Effective School Solutions. Dr. Dettmer is the Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed scientific journal Developmental Psychobiology and is the Past-President of Division 6 of the American Psychological Association (APA), the Society for Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology, for 2023-24. She serves as the APA Division 6 representative to the Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education. Dr. Dettmer was the 2017-18 APA Executive Branch Science Fellow, during which she worked at the National Center for Education Research at the Institute of Education Sciences, the independent research arm of the U.S. Department of Education. Dr. Dettmer also served as the Chair of the Governing Council of Carroll Creek Montessori Public Charter School in Frederick, MD from 2016-18. In this position, she oversaw the governance of the school and maintained strong relationships with and regular reporting to the local county board of education. Consequently, Dr. Dettmer maintains an active interest in education research, with a focus on the educational environment and educational experience as an understudied early life experience. Before her fellowship, Dr. Dettmer worked as a senior postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at NIH. There she led several research programs aimed at identifying the causes and consequences of long-term stress in nonhuman primate models of child development. Dr. Dettmer previously served on the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) Committee on Animals in Research and as Executive Secretary of the American Society of Primatologists from 2016-18. Dr. Dettmer earned her BS in zoology from the University of Washington in Seattle, and her MS (2007) and PhD (2009) in behavioral neuroscience from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.Clinical
Dr. Paez, originally from the Dominican Republic, completed his medical education at the Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE) with honors. Throughout medical school, he actively volunteered at a local psychiatric hospital, passionately working to reduce mental health stigma in the Dominican community. After graduating, he received specialized training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Motivational Interviewing, and Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). Following his dedication as a psychotherapist in Philadelphia for four years, Dr. Paez pursued a residency in adult psychiatry at the renowned Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (Elmhurst) in New York City, where he distinguished himself as the chief resident. Fueled by his unwavering enthusiasm for child and adolescent mental health, he chose to continue his journey at the Yale Child Study Center, accepting a fellowship position. During his fellowship, his peers selected Dr. Paez as one of the Chief Fellows. Immersed in the rich academic and clinical environment, he fully embraced the opportunity to learn and contribute to cutting-edge research and compassionate care for young individuals. Furthermore, his commitment and expertise were evident as he joined the Yale Child Study Center faculty, assuming the role of Assistant Professor of Child Psychiatry and Associate Medical Director of the Child Inpatient Psychiatric Service. His tireless efforts and invaluable contributions led to his appointment to the esteemed Faculty Advisory Committee to the Dean, where he actively aims to help shape the future of the institution. Most recently, Dr. Paez is thrilled to have been appointed to serve as an Associate Program Director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Program, where he hopes to support and train future child and adolescent psychiatrists.
Dermatology
- I am a physician-scientist who has trained in immunology, molecular biology, genetics and clinical dermatology. My overall career goal as a physician-scientist are to integrate fundamental immunology with clinical dermatology. In particular, I am interested in the role of costimulatory and inhibitory immune receptors in cancer immunity, autoimmunity pathogenesis and immunotherapy. My interest in this field was driven by my experience in the Medical Scientist Training Program at Washington University in St. Louis, where I worked in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Schreiber to decipher key molecular regulators of cancer immunoediting. As a consequence, the expertise gained in skin immunology and the emerging immunotherapies to treat melanoma inspired me to become a dermatologist. During my dermatology residency, I joined the laboratory of Dr. Lieping Chen at Yale School of Medicine, who pioneered targeting the PD-1 axis for cancer immunotherapy and has discovered multiple novel immune checkpoint molecules including programmed death receptor-1 homolog (PD-1H) (also known as VISTA). My current research interests include: 1) identification of novel immune checkpoints such as PD-1H/VISTA and others in cutaneous malignancies (e.g., melanoma and keratinocyte carcinomas) and 2) elucidating the inhibitory immune landscape of chronic inflammatory disorders such as psoriasis and cutaneous lupus erythematosus.
Emergency Medicine
- Cristiana Baloescu graduated from the Yale Emergency Medicine Residency Program in 2017. She completed medical school at Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine in 2013. During residency, she conducted research in disaster preparedness, applications of machine learning in point-of-care ultrasound interpretation, and served as the resident director of medical student education. After graduating from residency, she pursued further training in point-of-care ultrasound fellowship, as well as a Masters degree in public health at Yale. Her goal is to advance the field of point-of-care ultrasound, establish programs in developing countries. She is from Bucharest, Romania, and attended Wesleyan College in Macon, GA. An avid international travel, she met her husband, also a physician-scientist, during an academic exchange program in Germany.
Genetics
- Monkol received an undergraduate degree in Engineering (Computer Engineering) in 2000 at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and then worked for IBM for 3.5 years. He returned to UNSW and completed undergraduate degrees in Science (Physiology) and Engineering (Bioinformatics) and received the University Medal in 2007. He completed his PhD (Medicine) at the University of Sydney in 2012 with the thesis topic: Functional differences between alpha-actinin-2 and alpha-actinin-3. Monkol did his post-doctoral training in Daniel MacArthur’s lab based at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the Broad Institute. He was the lead author/analyst for the Exome Aggregation Consortium (ExAC) project that was published in Nature 2016. He went on to lead the NIH funded Broad Center for Mendelian Genomics (CMG) analysis team. As lead analyst, he oversaw the analysis strategy for all major CMG collaborations and organized monthly meetings to foster sharing of new methods and analysis amongst the rare disease community. He also coordinated the data processing and preliminary analysis of NIH Gabriella Miller Kids First (GMKF) cohorts sequenced or reprocessed at the Broad Institute.Monkol has a strong passion for rare muscle disease research as a patient with Limb Girdle Muscular dystrophy (LGMD2G). During his time in the Broad Institute, he lead the exome/genome analysis of MYOSEQ (European cohort of >1000 LGMD patients) and SeqNMD (an international consortium of undiagnosed rare muscle diseases) which has resulted in novel disease gene discovery.
History of Medicine
- Marco Ramos, MD PhD, is Assistant Professor in the History of Medicine and Department of Psychiatry at Yale University. His research and teaching focus on the history of the mental health, with an emphasis on health activism and the history of drugs in Latin America. He is currently writing a book on Cold War violence and health justice in Argentina and is also starting a new project on the history of psychedelics, especially ayahuasca, in the Amazon. His writing has appeared in clinical, academic, and popular journals, including The American Historical Review, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and the Boston Review. His teaching brings a critical historical perspective to anti-racism interventions in science, medicine, and public health.
Immunobiology
- Noah W. Palm is a Professor of Immunobiology at the Yale University School of Medicine. His laboratory focuses on illuminating the myriad interactions between the immune system and the gut microbiota in health and disease. Dr. Palm performed his doctoral work with Ruslan Medzhitov and his postdoctoral work with Richard Flavell, both at Yale University.
Internal Medicine
PhD's
I attended Cornell University and double majored in biochemistry and business management. After graduation I worked for a small start up company developing HIV therapeutics which solidified my love of research. I then attended Dartmouth Medical School where I worked on malaria and toxoplasma parasites and received my PhD in biochemistry. I was hooked on infectious and vector-borne diseases and came to Yale Medical School to complete a post-doctoral fellowship on Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections. I stayed on and became faculty in the Section of Rheumatology and have continued to investigate tick-borne diseases and the immune responses to them. I also pursued my love of teaching and teach both medical and undergraduate students.Pulmonary
Dr. Britto received his medical degree from the Luis Razetti School of Medicine at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas, Venezuela. He completed his Internal Medicine residency training at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia.Dr. Britto completed his fellowship training in Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine at Yale, followed by a Fellowship in Adult Cystic Fibrosis sponsored by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. During his fellowship, Dr. Britto became involved in research focused on the pathogenesis of airway diseases in the laboratory of his mentor, Lauren Cohn, M.D.Dr. Britto joined the faculty at Yale in 2013, where his clinical responsibilities include being a member of the Adult Cystic Fibrosis Program and attending in the Medical Intensive Care Unit. These activities complement his research program focused on understanding the role of the airway epithelium in the development of airway diseases such as asthma and cystic fibrosis.Patient Oriented Research
E. Jennifer Edelman, MD, MHS is a Professor of Medicine and Public Health. Certified as an internist, HIV specialist and in Addiction Medicine, she serves as an HIV provider and the physician consultant in the Addiction Medicine Treatment Program at the Yale-New Haven Hospital Nathan Smith HIV Clinic. Her research focuses on optimizing HIV prevention and treatment in the context of substance use, including opioid, alcohol and tobacco use. To this end and applying a range of methodologies, she leads and collaborates on NIH-funded projects to evaluate novel and implement evidence-based addiction treatment in medical settings, especially HIV treatment settings. In addition, her work has focused on understanding harms associated with opioid use among people with HIV. She collaborates with community-based and public health partners to promote HIV prevention, including use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). She mentors trainees, including post-doctoral fellows and public health students, and is Associate Director of the Research on Addiction Medicine Scholars (RAMS) Program and co-Director of Education at the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation. She regularly serves on NIH grant review committees and is Associate Editor of Addiction Science and Clinical Practice.Cardiology
Born in Seoul, Korea and raised in the Chicago area. Completed undergraduate study in Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania in 1989. Completed medical school at the combined Harvard Medical School - Massachusetts Institute of Technology program in Health Science & Technology 1993. Residency in Internal Medicine, fellowships in Cardiology and Interventional Cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital 1993-2000.Basic Research
My major area of research interest include the endocytic process and matrix regulation in podocytes. Our laboratory has identified the critical role of the clathrin coated endocytic processes in the development and maintenance of podocytes. In-vivo animal models with conventional or conditional ablation of genes implicated for endocytosis, such as synaptojanin, endophilin, and dynamin develop severe proteinuria and foot process effacement. By utilizing fluorescently tagged proteins, we have visualized these proteins along with genes implicated to cause human nephrotic syndrome (CD2AP, Myo1e, Nephrin) lie at the interface of endocytosis and actin cytoskeleton. One of the major goals of the laboratory is investigating and further understanding the critical factors that are being endocytosed in podocytes. We have also sought to examine the role of cell matrix interactions by providing mechanistic insight on focal adhesion proteins and integrins, which govern podocyte cell adhesion and movement during health and disease states, using mouse genetic models of disease.Infectious Diseases, Geriatrics
How do we teach? As a clinician educator, my areas of interest and expertise involve curriculum development in geriatrics in both in hospital and out of hospital sites and disseminate geriatric learning through different teaching methods. In the past 7 years, I have developed a unique geriatric curriculum for Traditional Internal Medicine residents that encompasses geriatric learning at both in hospital and out of hospital sites as part of a block rotation. Being the Associate Fellowship Director, I created for our fellows a multidisciplinary curriculum at the Veterans administration working with Audiology, speech, low vision, physiatry, anesthesiology and chiropractic. In May of 2015 I accepted the role of co leader to one of the Master courses ( Across the Lifespan). We are part of the core working group on creating the new medical school curriculum that is now in its second year. Overall, my focus is on curricular reforms at different levels of trainee experience ( medical student, medical residents, inter professional trainees and geriatric medicine fellows)and to effectively evaluate the learning achieved through these curricular implementations.A&I, Rheumatology, Endocrinology
Dr. Mekala is a board- certified endocrinologist and joined Yale as faculty in 2021. With a career spanning over a decade, she brings with her a wide breadth of experience in clinical endocrinology. Dr. Mekala obtained her medical degree in India. Following this, she spent a year at the University of Florida researching ammonia transporters. She completed her post-graduate training in Massachusetts and went on to training an additional year as a PCOS research fellow at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Before joining Yale, she was faculty at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, where she was the Associate Program Director for the endocrine fellowship program. She was also the Medical Director of the Inpatient Glycemic Management team at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. She is passionate about teaching and remains actively involved in various intra-mural and extra-mural efforts for curricular development. Dr. Mekala’s philosophy for clinical care is to use a compassionate, patient-centered approach, while relying on current evidence, to partner with her patients in therapeutic decision-making. Her outpatient clinical practice focuses on bone health and thyroid disease.Investigators
Dr. Petersen is Professor of Internal Medicine, Section of Endocrinology, Yale University School of Medicine, Honorary Professor of Medicine and Clinical Physiology at University of Copenhagen, Deputy Director of the Metabolic Imaging and Liver Metabolism Section at the Center for Basic Metabolic Research, Copenhagen University, Denmark. Dr. Petersen received her bachelor’s degree from N. Zahle’s Gymnasieskole (majors: math & physics) in Copenhagen (1978) and her MD from the University of Copenhagen (1985), completed clinical training at the university hospitals, Copenhagen followed by the prestigious fellowships: Kandidat- and Seniorstipendiums for research in metabolism at the University of Copenhagen (1986-1991). In 1990 Dr. Petersen received further fellowship and postdoctoral training at Yale University in magnetic resonance (MR) spectroscopy and metabolism. At Yale University School of Medicine she became Research Scientist at in 1991, Assistant Professor in 1998, Associate Professor in 2004 and Professor in 2012. She has received prestigious awards for her clinical research, including: Henry Christian Award for Excellence in Clinical Research (1997, 1998, 2004) Novartis Young Investigator Award for Excellence in Clinical Research in Diabetes (2002) Glaxo Smith Kline Scholar Award (2003) Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award from the American Diabetes Association (2009) Team Science Award, Association for Clinical and Translational Science (2016) Dr. Petersen has published over 140 articles using stable isotopes MR spectroscopy to explore the pathogenesis of NAFLD, type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance in aging, obesity, and low birth weight and the reversal of NAFLD and insulin resistance with caloric restriction or exercise.General Med, A&I, Rheumatology, Infectious Diseases, Geriatrics, Endocrinology
Lisa Puglisi, MD is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Yale University where she practices primary care and addiction medicine. She is the director of Transitions Clinic-New Haven, a multi-disciplinary clinic that is part of a national network of programs that focus on care of individuals who are returning to the community from incarceration. Her clinical practice includes treatment of addiction and hepatitis C in primary care and she also oversees a medical legal partnership. She has developed specific skills in training, hiring and supervising community health workers and directing interdisciplinary teams of physicians, midlevel providers, community health workers, research personnel and legal colleagues around the work of clinical care and research to improve the health of people with recent incarceration. She is originally from the New Haven area and deeply committed to the community. Lisa received her undergraduate degree from Tufts University, her medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine and completed her medical training at Yale New Haven Hospital.VA
Samit Shah is an Interventional Cardiologist who specializes in the invasive evaluation of coronary artery disease, coronary physiology, and complex coronary interventions. He was an undergraduate at the Pennsylvania State University and went to medical school at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, where he graduated with a medical doctorate as well as PhD in Neuroscience. He subsequently completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital, followed by clinical fellowships in Cardiovascular Medicine, Peripheral Vascular Interventions, and Interventional Cardiology. Dr. Shah has received numerous honors for patient care and education, including the Dr. Lynda Rosenfeld Cardiology Fellowship Teacher of the Year Award, Wendy U. and Thomas C. Naratil Pioneer Award, Veterans Administration I CARE Award, and Yale Internal Medicine Excellence in Outpatient Care Award. In 2023, he was recognized by the Society of Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) as a "30 in their 30's" award recipient for professional excellence in interventional cardiology. His scholarly work has focused on the outcomes of cardiovascular interventions and the invasive assessment of coronary physiology. He is the national co-principal investigator of the DISCOVER INOCA multi-center registry, and has active research projects at Yale regarding the diagnostic yield of invasive coronary physiology testing, ischemic heart disease in women, and the vascular effects of psychological stress.
Laboratory Medicine
- Dr. Joe El-Khoury is Director of the Clinical Chemistry Laboratory and the Clinical Chemistry Fellowship Program at Yale New Haven Health and Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. El-Khoury is board certified by the American Board of Clinical Chemistry and a fellow of the AACC Academy. His research interests include indicators for monitoring clinical laboratory performance, investigating biomarkers of acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease (in collaboration with the Clinical and Translational Research Accelerator) and development of new mass spectrometry-based methods for the measurement of markers in biological fluids.
Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
- Lilian Kabeche, Ph.D., joined the Yale faculty in 2019 as an Assistant Professor in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and a member of the Cancer Biology Institute. Dr. Kabeche attended the University of Miami, where she majored in Microbiology and Immunology (B.S. 2007). She did her Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Dartmouth College in Dr. Duane Compton’s lab, where she studied how healthy cells ensure that chromosomes are correctly segregated during cell division (mitosis). She went on to do her post-doctoral work in Dr. Lee Zou’s lab at Mass General Hospital, Harvard University, where she identified a novel role for the DNA damage repair kinase, ATR, in mitosis. Her lab's current work uses single-cell techniques to define how the DNA damage pathway pathway promotes genome stability throughout the cell cycle. Thus far, her lab has elucidated that members of the DNA damage response pathway function in mitosis to ensure that chromosomes are correctly segregated, interact with the immune system, and promote cell-autonomous and non-autonomous mechanisms to eliminate damaged cytosolic DNA and regulate genome integrity through epigenetic regulation of the centromere. These works shift the current paradigm that components of the DNA damage response pathway have a singular function- to recognize and repair DNA. Dr. Kabeche aims to leverage her lab's discoveries to devise better therapeutic strategies for cancer treatment using DNA damage response kinase inhibitors.
Microbial Pathogenesis
- Hesper trained as physicist in both her undergraduate studies (Caltech, B.S. Physics, 2005), and her graduate studies (UCSF, PhD, Biophysics, 2011). She did her graduate work with the late Mats Gustafsson at UCSF and Janelia Farm. In his group, she developed a nonlinear form of Structured-Illumination Microscopy. Afterwards, wanting to explore a biological phenomenon she did her postdoctoral work with Eric Rubin at the Harvard School of Public Health where she became fascinated by the ability of genetically identical organisms to display different phenotypes. This phenomenon is especially important for the treatment of tuberculosis, a disease caused by the bacterial pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. She is excited to start a research group at the intersection of these two areas: the application of advanced light microscopy techniques to investigate the strategies mycobacteria use to survive the stresses imposed by antibiotics and host.
Neurology
Clinical
Rachel Beekman began her medical training in her home state of New York at Stony Brook University School of Medicine but has since relocated to New Haven, where she completed her neurology residency and neurocritical care fellowship at Yale New Haven Hospital. Rachel is the first Yale alumni to continue as faculty in the department of neurocritical care. Rachel has a passion for treating survivors of cardiac arrest and is building a multi-disciplinary cardiac arrest program. In her spare time Rachel loves being mom to her two young boys and spending family time at all the beautiful Connecticut parks.- Dr Bhaskar Roy is a specialist in neuromuscular disorders. His clinical areas of expertise includes muscular dystrophies, inflammatory myopathies (polymyositis, dermatomyositis, inclusion body myositis), autoimmune neuromuscular disorders, including inflammatory neuropathies. He did his neurology residency from the University of Connecticut and completed his fellowship from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School. He is board certified in neurology (2016) and neuromuscular medicine (2018) by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN) and in electrodiagnostic medicine (2018), and in Neuromuscular Ultrasound (2020) by the American Board of Electrodiagnostic Medicine (ABEM).
Neuroscience
Neurosurgery
- Dr. Sacit Bulent Omay works as an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery and Otolaryngology . He co-directs Yale Pituitary and the Yale Neurotrauma programs. He also conducts skull base, pituitary, and brain tumor surgery with expertise in endoscopic and minimally invasive treatments. He completed his neurosurgery residency at Yale Medical School. His fellowships include a surgical neuro-oncology fellowship in Cleveland Clinic and a Minimally Invasive Endoscopic Skull Base and Pituitary Fellowship at Weil Cornell Medical Center. His clinical interests include skull base and pituitary pathology, brain tumors and traumatic brain injury. He is certified by The American Board of Neurological Surgery.
Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Obstetrics
Undergraduate and Medical School: Hacettepe University School of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey Internship : General Surgery at ChristianaCare, Newark, Delaware, 1990-1991 Residency : Obstetrics and Gynecology, Thomas Jefferson University, Jefferson Medical Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1992-1995 Fellowship: Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery (Urogynecology) at Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1997-1999 Board certification: Obstetrics and Gynecology, 1997 Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery (Urogynecology), 2014 Previous positions: Faculty, Department of OB/GYN/RS, Temple University School of Medicine, 1995-2000 Director, Urogynecology and Pelvic Surgery, Temple University School of Medicine, 2000-2004 Director, Urogynecology and Pelvic Surgery, and Professor of OB/GYN, Baystate Medical Center, formerly of Tufts University School of Medicine, then University of Massachusetts School of Medicine-Baystate, 2004-2017 Professional achievements: Has over 100 peer-reviewed publications, many international book chapters, and conference presentations, has been on editorial board of the Journal of Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery, chaired the Education Committee of Society of Gynecologic Surgeons, (SGS) Area of expertise: Vaginal, robotic and laparoscopic surgery for pelvic organ prolapse, urinary incontinence, pelvic fistula, uterine fibroids, vaginal absence and anomalies
Ophthalmology and Visual Science
- Dr. Volker specializes in comprehensive eye exams, spectacle corrections, and contact lenses. She fits specialty contact lenses for astigmatism, presbyopia (bifocal lenses), keratoconus, post-refractive surgery patients, post-corneal graft patients, and pediatric and adult aphakic patients. She earned her BA in Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley, where she also earned her Doctor of Optometry (O.D.). She completed her residency in ocular disease at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami FL. She is currently pursuing her fellowship with the American Academy of Optometry.
Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation
- Dr. Matthew D. Riedel joined Yale Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation as an Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery. Riedel, an Orthopaedic Trauma Surgeon and graduate of Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, says his passion for trying to unravel mechanical problems started at his father’s tool and die shop. He appreciated the puzzles his father faced in making the proper tools for the job, and the problem-solving associated with it. He wasn’t inherently focused on medicine from a young age, but was attracted to the field that allowed him to take an engineer’s approach to making patients whole. Orthopaedic traumatologists are required to be jacks-of-all-trades, Riedel says. “Everything that goes on here at Yale is centered around improving care and life for the patients. You have every different subspecialty available where physicians are able to work together as a team to solve complex problems using the latest research and technologies. That’s very appealing to me,” Riedel says. Riedel joins the department after completing a post-doctoral fellowship in orthopaedic traumatology at the R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. He completed his residency in orthopaedic surgery at Harvard Medical School’s Combined Orthopaedic Residency Program in June 2018, and was previously a Doris Duke Pre-Doctoral Clinical Research Fellow at Columbia University Medical Center. “I love that my week is a mix of different things. I’m operating or in clinic most days each week. I’m doing research. I’m teaching. I’m doing all of these different things so that every day is different than the last, but it also allows me to keep things fresh,” Riedel says. “Every day I have an opportunity to help people, whether that’s by teaching, surgery, or improving people’s lives.” He takes his approach to the laboratory too, where his research has been published in Injury and The Journal of American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Riedel says that working at Yale allows him to not only continue performing surgeries, but also to be at the forefront of the latest research. “I’ve always enjoyed putting things together and the challenge of facing complex problems,” Riedel says. “Every case is different as a trauma surgeon. Everything you do, you think about in different ways. It challenges you every day because you don’t know what the next day may bring. I think that’s really fun and interesting to me.”
Pathology
Research
Dr. Dhanpat Jain is a Professor of Pathology and Internal Medicine (section of Digestive Diseases). Dr. Jain graduated from Mysore Medical College, Mysore, India and received his M.B.B.S degree in 1986. He subsequently received his M.D. Pathology degree from Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, India in 1991. He moved to the U.S. in 1995 and completed his Anatomic Pathology residency and Fellowship in Gastrointestinal Pathology at Yale University School of Medicine, and subsequently continued as a faculty there.Dr. Jain is a nationally and internationally recognized gastrointestinal pathologist known for his diagnostic skills, research and teaching. He has more than 150 publications, many book chapters, books and reviews, all of which are largely in the field of gastrointestinal and liver pathology. He has delivered many lectures and participated in many courses at the national and international level. He is on the editorial board of several high impact journals in the field of gastrointestinal and liver disorders. His area of expertise is motility disorders of the gastrointestinal tract, for which he gets cases in consultation from across the globe. Dr. Jain is an accomplished teacher and has received many awards. He has continuously been nominated for “Best Doctors in America” for many years.
Pediatrics
Adolescent Medicine; Allergy & Immunology; General Pediatrics; Endocrinology; Nephrology
After receiving undergraduate and medical school degrees from the University of Michigan and undergoing a categorical pediatric residency at Weill-Cornell/NY Medical Center, Dr. Fenick was in private practice for 6 years. Her practical experience is augmented by national and local work in education and educational scholarship. Dr. Fenick has been the co-editor of the Yale Primary Care Pediatrics Curriculum since its inception, and is now the associate director for Pediatrics in the primary care component of the Biopsychosocial Approach to Health, a third-year medical student core clerkship and a longitudinal medical student coach. She is also honored to serve as Medical Director for YNHH's School Based Health Centers, and as Medical Director for the Medical-Legal Partnership Project at YNHCH. Her research and advocacy centers on pediatric primary care in the service of growing children to be healthy, happy, and productive adults. #ChildrenFirstCritical Care; Hospitalist; Neonatal- Perinatal Medicine; emergency Medicine
Dr. Angela Montgomery is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and the Director of the NICU GRAD follow-up program at Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital. Having completed a master's degree in special education prior to medical training, Dr. Montgomery has a specific clinical and research interest in the long-term neurodevelopmental and neurobehavioral outcomes of at-risk infant populations. Her research interests focus primarily on the impact of the NICU environment and various neonatal practices on at-risk infant outcomes and the early identification of autism in very low birth weight (VLBW) populations. Dr. Montgomery received her master's degree in special education from Hunter College/CUNY and her medical degree from New York Medical College. She completed her Pediatric Residency and Neonatology Fellowship at Yale University.Cardiology; GI, Hematology/ Oncology; Infectious Disease; Neurology; Respiratory
Dr. Pashankar completed his basic medical training in India and in the UK. He completed fellowship training in Pediatric Gastroenterology at BC Children's Hospital in Vancouver, Canada. He has MBA in healthcare from Yale School of Management and has expertise in process and quality improvement. His clinical and research interest is in inflammatory bowel disease in children. He is the director of Yale Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease Program. He runs a multidisciplinary Inflammatory Bowel disease clinic at Yale New Haven Children's Hospital in New Haven. He has published a number of clinical studies in quality improvement, pediatric gastroenterology and inflammatory bowel diseases. He has presented his work in many national and international conferences. In addition, he has an active administrative role in Yale medicine. As a medical director of Yale Clinical Optimization Service, he evaluated ambulatory operation of pediatric and adult medical and surgical specialties, resulting in improvement in patient workflow, revenue , patient and provider satisfaction. He is a medical director of Yale Medicine ambulatory services and oversees 40 Yale Medicine clinics in Fairfield county, New Haven and shoreline regions.
Pharmacology
Psychiatry
YNHH
Ebony Dix is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Director of the Geriatric Psychiatry Inpatient Unit, located at YNHH-Saint Raphael Campus (SRC). She leads a multidisciplinary team and provides clinical care for patients She is also an attending psychiatrist for the Yale Interventional Psychiatric Service, providing ECT consultations and treatments at SRC. In addition to leading a multidisciplinary team and providing clinical care for patients, her dedication to teaching and education is demonstrated by the transformation of the unit into a robust clinical teaching service for medical students, PA students, psychiatry residents, and geriatric psychiatry fellows.Substance Abuse
Ellen Edens is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. In 2002, Ellen received her MD from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and subsequently completed residency training in psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2007, she earned a Master degree in Psychiatric Epidemiology (MPE), studying gender differences in a longitudinal sample of individuals with DSM-III alcohol dependence who were first identified in the landmark psychiatric epidemiology study, the Epidemiologic Catchment Area study (ECA). In 2009, she completed advanced training in Addiction Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine followed by a VA-funded addiction psychiatry clinical/research fellowship. Ellen joined Yale faculty in 2011. Ellen Edens is also the Associate Director of the Addiction Psychiatry Residency at Yale, an ACGME-accredited program, where she oversees the program’s didactic curriculum and clinical supervision. Additionally, she is Co-Director of the VA Interprofessional Advanced Fellowship in Addiction Treatment and the VA Health Professions Education Evaluation and Research Fellowship in West Haven, CT. Clinically, Ellen serves as Lead Consultant for Substance-related and Addictive Disorders (SRAD) at the VA National Expert Consultation and Specialized Services - Mental Health Center and Co-Director of the Opioid Reassessment Clinic, a primary-care based clinic designed to assess and treatment patients with issues around opioid safety, efficacy and misuse. Her research interests include the development and dissemination of SRAD education, implementation methods to expand access to treatment for SRADs, and the interface between chronic pain and opioid use disorders. Along with eight other Yale faculty from 4 programs, Ellen helped create the massive open online course titled, 'Addiction Treatment: Clinical Skills for Healthcare Providers.' https://www.coursera.org/learn/addiction-treatment ;Clinical Research
Dr. Fesharaki is currently a neuropsychiatrist, as well as a basic neuroscience researcher focusing on Traumatic Brain Injury and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. He has a diverse training background, which include a mixture of clinical adult psychiatry, clinical behavioral neurology/neuropsychiatry and bench neuroscience skills. This combination of aforementioned skills has in turn given him a unique vantage point to have the opportunity to apply what he continues to learn in the laboratory to enrich his clinical treatment. His current research focus is to develop a robust animal model of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), as well as investigation of potential treatment modalities. He is also involved in a collaborative research study investigating synaptic density alterations in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD).Basic Research
Dr. Matt Girgenti is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. He is a neuroscientist and molecular biologist and a member of the Division of Molecular Psychiatry and the Wu Tsai Institute at Yale. He is also a VA-NCPTSD Research Scientist at the West Haven VA Medical Center. He received his doctoral degree at the University of Connecticut in molecular neuroscience. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship in Molecular Psychiatry at Yale followed by a VA Career Development fellowship in postmortem brain genomics. His early research focused on the epigenetic basis of schizophrenia using neural stem cells to demonstrate a role for the SCZ-risk gene ZNF804a as a gene transcription regulator. During his postdoc, his research focused on the cell-type-specific effects of rapid antidepressants, including ketamine and scopolamine using pharmacogenomic approaches. During his VA Career Development fellowship he worked on human postmortem studies focused on the functional genomics of neuropsychiatric disorders, specifically PTSD and major depression. He published the first genome-wide transcriptomic study of the human PTSD brain (Girgenti MJ, et al. 2021). His research now focuses on genomic studies of the postmortem human brain, combining molecular biology and bioinformatics to understand the neurobiology of major brain and behavioral disorders, including depression, PTSD, and alcohol use disorder.VA
Pochu Ho received her MD from New Jersey Medical School. She went onto complete a residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. After a few years in private practice in obstetrics and gynecology, she changed her career path by completing her adult psychiatry residency at Yale New Haven Hospital and a consultation-liaison fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She is now the director of the psychiatric consultation service at the West Haven VA Medical Center. Her interests are capacity evaluation and the intersection between addiction and oncology.- Dale Sebastian, MBBS, MD received his medical degree from St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences, Bangalore, India. He graduated from Yale University, USA with post-graduate training in Psychiatry and subspecialty fellowship training in administrative and community psychiatry. He has primarily focused his efforts in the community sector working primarily with patients with chronic mental illnesses in long term inpatient psychiatric settings. His areas of expertise include the management of patients with psychotic and mood disorders, trauma and personality disorders that are further complicated by issues of institutionalization, stigma, social isolation, legal issues, and socioeconomic disparities. His career work has focused on introducing trainees, patients and families to a strength based and person-centered approach to care. These include de-mystifying mental illnesses through evidence-based and novel approaches to psychiatric care. In his current role as Assistant Clinical Professor and Associate Program Director of the Public Psychiatry fellowship, he is actively involved in curriculum development, teaching and supervision within the medical school and the Public Psychiatry program. He was conferred the American Psychiatric Association’s 2021 Nancy C.A. Roeske award for his contributions to medical education.
Radiology & Biomedical Imaging
Bioimaging Sciences
Chi Liu received his Ph.D. in 2008 from Johns Hopkins University with emphasis on quantitative SPECT/CT imaging. Following his graduate work, he was a postdoctoral fellow at University of Washington, specializing in oncological PET/CT studies with emphasis on compensation algorithms for respiratory motion. In 2010, he joined Yale University as a faculty member. He is board certified in Nuclear Medicine physics and instrumentation by the American Board of Science in Nuclear Medicine. His current research focuses on quantitative cardiac and oncological PET/CT and SPECT/CT imaging, including deep learning algorithms, reconstruction algorithms, data correction, dynamic imaging, and translational imaging. The translational and clinical applications of these projects include early detection of chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity, multimodality imaging of heart failure, and eliminating respiratory motion variability for assessing response to therapy. Many of the imaging technologies developed in his lab has been or is being implemented in clinical PET and SPECT scanners. In 2012, he was awarded with the Bruce Hasegawa Young Investigator Medical Imaging Science Award from the IEEE Nuclear Medical and Imaging Sciences Council for “contributions to the imaging physics of SPECT/CT and PET/CT, with emphasis in quantitative imaging and motion correction”. He was the President of Physics, Instrumentation, and Data Sciences Council (PIDSC) of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) between 2022-2023, is currently the Immediate Past President of PIDSC.Clinical Dr's
Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Diagnostic Radiology.Fellowship trained in Infectious Disease, Neuroradiology and Cross Sectional ( Body ) Radiology
Surgery
Research
Dr. Arhuidese is a vascular and endovascular surgeon who is certified by the American Board of Surgery. He is highly specialized in the use of medical, endovascular and open surgical therapies for the treatment of vascular diseases. He holds concurrent appointments in the Department of Surgery in the Yale School of Medicine, Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology in Yale School of Public Health, and in the Section of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science in the Yale School of Medicine. His clinical interests include aortic aneurysms and dissections, peripheral arterial disease, carotid disease, creation and maintenance of durable access for hemodialysis, renal and mesenteric ischemia, thoracic outlet syndrome as well as the spectrum of venous diseases. He promotes communication strategies that facilitate shared decision making by patients, their families and the health team. Dr. Arhuidese pays meticulous attention to detail to ensure that patients have a safe and positive experience in the pre-, intra- and post- operative/procedural periods. He applies current research evidence in determining: if and when patients require surgery/procedures; and the surgery/procedure that best fits each patient based on their unique characteristics. He promotes disease prevention strategies that help patients avoid surgical procedures if possible. Dr. Arhuidese obtained his medical degree from the University of Benin in Nigeria. He served as Speaker of Congress and subsequently President of the Medical Students Association. He completed a Master’s in Public Health with a focus in Epidemiology & Biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. He also underwent a Research Fellowship in Vascular & Endovascular Surgery at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He was recipient of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Capstone Research Award. He completed Vascular & Endovascular Surgery Residency at the University of South Florida where he was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society and awarded the Larey C. Carey Best Resident Research Award twice! His research is focused on understanding how pre- and peri-operative patient, provider and system based factors affect short and long term outcomes after vascular interventions. His research has been presented at numerous local, regional and national meetings; and published in national and international journals. He collaborates with experts across disciplines in medicine, public health, engineering, computer science and others to identify and promote novel solutions to vascular problems at individual and population levels.Education
Dr. Elizabeth Berger is an Assistant Professor of Breast Surgical Oncology, and cares for patients as part of The Center for Breast Cancer at Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale Cancer Center in New Haven. Dr. Berger received her Medical Degree from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. She completed a fellowship in Breast Surgical Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where she was selected as the Breast Cancer Alliance Fellow. She received her Master of Science in Health Services and Outcomes Research from Northwestern University and did a General Surgery Residency at Loyola University Medical Center. Dr. Berger was an American College of Surgeons (ACS) Clinical Scholar-in-Residence from 2014 to 2016. Her focus at the ACS was in breast cancer research and outcomes. Her research focuses on improving health outcomes for breast cancer patients, including perioperative surgical quality, cancer care quality measure development, and assessment of national accreditation in breast cancer surgery. Dr. Berger has published in several high impact journals such as JAMA, Annals of Surgery, and the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, as well as contributed chapters to several surgical textbooks. She has also served on national quality committees, including being a part of the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers (NAPBC).Clinical
Dr. Jennifer Ogilvie is Associate Professor of Surgery and Chief, Section of Endocrine Surgery at Yale School of Medicine. She completed training in General Surgery and fellowship training in Endocrine Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco. Prior to Yale, she held faculty positions at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and New York University Langone Health, where she was also Director of Endocrine Surgery at Bellevue Hospital. Her clinical interests focus on the optimal surgical treatment of thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal tumors. Her research interests are in surgical education and the function of surgical teams, shared clinical decision making, and clinical outcomes in Endocrine Surgery.
Therapeutic Radiology/Radiation Oncology
- Dr. Christopher J. Tien is an Associate Professor and Lead Brachytherapy Physicist in the department of Therapeutic Radiology. In addition to his appointments at Yale, Dr. Tien is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Brown University. Dr. Tien practiced at a community hospital in suburban Chicago for 3 years after completing his residency at Brown University/ Rhode Island Hospital. He completed his PhD by the time he was 25 years old from the University of Florida on a full fellowship following his accelerated 5-year combined Master's & Bachelor's Degrees in Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences obtained summa cum laude at the University of Michigan. Clinically, he is a board-certified therapeutic medical physicist appointed as a Medical Physicist at Yale-New Haven Hospital. His current translational research is largely inspired by his clinical duties in brachytherapy (gynecological, prostate, ocular, and skin) applications and radiobiological modeling. In 2024, Dr. Tien was elected as a Fellow of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), making him one of the youngest elected Fellows in the AAPM's 66 year history. With AAPM, he is currently the chair of the national AAPM Task Group on high-dose-rate brachytherapy (TG59). He has served terms on the national AAPM Board of Directors and as the president of the Connecticut chapter of AAPM. He is a member of the national AAPM Medical Physics Education Subcommittee and ABS National Education Subcommittee. Dr. Tien is a full member of the American Brachytherapy Society (ABS), the American Society for Radiation Oncology, and the Yale Cancer Center.
Urology
- Dr. Angela Arlen completed her pediatric urology fellowship at Emory University/Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta in 2014, and joined the Department of Urology as an Assistant Professor in 2017. Dr. Arlen specializes in all aspects of pediatric urology, with a special interest in minimally invasive surgery, as well as reconstructive urology including hypospadias repair and management of children with myelomeningocele. She participates in the multidisciplinary spina bifida clinic, providing specialty care to children with neurogenic bladder. Dr. Arlen’s research interests include hypospadias and vesicoureteral reflux clinical outcomes.
Associate Research Scientist
- Almut Zieher, Ph.D. is an Associate Research Scientist at the Education Collaboratory at Yale within the Yale Child Study Center. She started researching at Yale in 2019 first as a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Consultation Center at Yale and then at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Dr. Zieher received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, her M.A. in Special Education, and her B.A. in Elementary Education from the University of New Mexico. Dr. Zieher’s experiences as a general and special education teacher lead her to study how teachers learn and engage in social and emotional behaviors to increase teacher well-being and pedagogical effectiveness. She uses social, emotional, and mindfulness theories and approaches to inform training and measure development. Previously she deployed a mindfulness training using the skills from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy with pre-service teachers. Currently, her work focuses on teacher measures, including developing the Social and Emotional Learning Observational Checklist (SELOC, IES R305A210262) to support elementary school teacher’s social and emotional teaching, a teacher self-report measure of emotion-focused SEL implementation, and the Objective Awareness and Mindfulness Measure (OAMM), an objective teacher self-report measure funded by a Mind and Life PEACE grant. She is creating these measures to better understand and improve social and emotional school programming, including programming for teachers, by better understanding how and which program components are beneficial to whom.
YSPH
- Professor Jody Sindelar is a professor of public health, health economist, and public policy expert in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Yale School of Public Health (YSPH), as well as with Yale’s Department of Economics. In addition, she is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), research fellow at the IZA Institute of Labor Economics, and faculty fellow at Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS). She is also a founding member and past president of the American Society of Health Economists (ASHEcon).Professor Sindelar’s expertise is on the economics of substance abuse, including addictive substances of tobacco/vaping, alcohol, and illicit drugs. She has published on the impacts of substance abuse on productivity, educational attainment, gender differences, and other policy issues; and in various journals of economics, policy, addiction, health and medicine. Also, she has served on numerous editorial, review, and advisory boards and committees, and has presented her research at seminars and conferences both nationally and abroad. Professor Sindelar has given keynote addresses to conferences in the United States, Australia, Germany, Italy, and Sweden. She has also been a visiting professor at several universities and institutes, including Boston University in Boston, MA; the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, CA and Washington, DC; Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) in Mexico City, Mexico; and Shanghai Jiao Tong University Medical School in Shanghai, China. In addition, she has had sabbaticals at the Institut d'études Politiques de Paris (Paris Institute of Political Studies) in Paris, France; Stanford University in Stanford, CA; and the University of Pennsylvania.Professor Sindelar has been a principal investigator or collaborator on numerous research projects funded by various organizations, including the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ); Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS); Connecticut Department of Social Services (DSS); Food and Drug Administration (FDA); National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA); National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH); National Institute on Aging (NIA); National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA); Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF); Department of Veterans Affairs (VA); Yale Center for Clinical Investigation (YCCI); and the Federal Drug Administration.