Current FAC Members
Organizations on this page
- Anesthesiology
- Associate Research Scientist
- Biomedical & Data Informatics
- Cancer Center
- Cell Biology
- Cellular & Molecular Physiology
- Child Study Center
- Comparative Medicine
- Dermatology
- Emergency Medicine
- Genetics
- Immunobiology
- Internal Medicine
- Laboratory Medicine
- Microbial Pathogenesis
- Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
- M.O.R.E
- Neurology
- Neuroscience
- Neurosurgery
- Obstetrics and Gynecology
- Ophthalmology and Visual Science
- Orthopaedics
- Pathology
- Pediatrics
- Pharmacology
- Psychiatry
- Radiology & Biomedical Imaging
- Surgery
- S.W.I.M
- Therapeutic Radiology
- Urology
Anesthesiology
Clinician
Dr. James Kurfess is Assistant Professor of Clinical Anesthesiology at Yale University School of Medicine, Director of Neuroanesthesia at Bridgeport Hospital, and Director of Quality and Safety for Anesthesiology at Bridgeport Hospital. Dr. Kurfess received his medical degree from New York Medical College in 2016 and subsequently completed a residency in Anesthesiology at the Yale University School of Medicine, serving as Chief Resident in 2020. During his time in that role, he focused on Quality Improvement, peer review, and was awarded the COVID-19 response medal from YNHH.  Following residency, Dr. Kurfess completed a Neuroanesthesia fellowship at Yale New Haven Hospital in 2021, publishing on the topic of Neuromonitoring and has presented numerous lectures, including at UT Southwestern on Processed EEG monitoring. Currently he is working on a comprehensive Peri-operative Glycemic Management protocol for the YNHH system. He has clinical interest in neuromonitoring, intracranial and spine surgery, anesthesia for neuro endovascular procedures, head and neck surgery, obstetrical anesthesia, protocol initiatives and Quality Improvement.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 her 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.
Associate Research Scientist
- Dr. Edward Doherty studies the immune system and the dysregulation of the immune response that leads to autoimmunity. He focuses on the role of MIF receptor expressing T cells he identified in health and disease.
- My research interest is to understand dysfunction of neuron communication in autism spectrum disorder and to develop precision medicine to restore brain function.
Biomedical & Data Informatics
- Kuo is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science (BIDS) and of Surgery at Yale School of Medicine, and a Fellow of American Medical Informatics Association (FAMIA). He earned his PhD from National Taiwan University (NTU) in the Institute of Networking and Multimedia. Kuo was previously assistant professor of medicine at University of California San Diego (UCSD) Health's Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI). Prior to becoming a faculty member, he was a Postdoctoral Scholar at UCSD DBMI and received the UCSD Chancellor’s Outstanding Postdoctoral Scholar Award. He was a major contributor towards the UCSD DBMI team winning the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) healthcare blockchain challenge, and also the NTU team winning the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD) Cup competition four times. Kuo was awarded NIH R01 Research Project Grants, K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award with an Administrative Supplement, R13 Support for Conferences and Scientific Meetings Grant, as well as UCSD Academic Senate Health Science Research Grants, for blockchain-based and predictive studies in biomedical, healthcare and genomic fields. His research focuses on distributed private modeling, blockchain, artificial intelligence, and natural language processing.
Cancer Center
Medical Oncology (Non-care Center)
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 a 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.Hem Malignancies /Classical Hematology (Non-care Center)
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
- Dr. Zhang obtained a bachelor's degree in applied physics and a master's degree in theoretical physics in China before he came to the US in 1997. He began to use pipettes as a graduate student in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University and barely passed his qualifying exams. Fortunately, he seemed to do research well under the supervision of Prof. Donald M. Crothers and got a Ph. D. in 2003. His thesis work is related to the sequence-dependent DNA bending and flexibility. Dr. Zhang then became a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Carlos Bustamante's lab at UC Berkeley. Using optical tweezers, he found that representative chromatin remodeling factors contain DNA translocases and first measured their translocation speed, processivity, and stall force. Prof. Zhang has broad interests and skills in measuring the intra- and inter-molecular forces and the forces generated by molecular machines. He tries to use these measurements to better understand the working mechanisms and biological functions of macromolecules. With his collaborators, Prof. Zhang combines high-resolution optical tweezers with single-molecule fluorescence microscopy to simultaneously manipulate and visualize single molecules in real time. As a result, dynamic structures of proteins inaccessible by other experimental methods can be obtained. Prof. Zhang's primary interests are mechanical force in biology and folding dynamics of proteins involved in fundamental biological processes and human diseases, with a focus on SNARE proteins and their regulators essential for intracellular vesicle fusion.
Cellular & Molecular Physiology
Child Study Center
Clinical
Dr. Suman Baddam completed his medical schooling at Armed Forces Medical College, and his training in general psychiatry at University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Subsequently, he completed his child psychiatry training at Yale Child Study Center, and sleep medicine training in the Division of Pulmonary Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at Yale School of Medicine. He is board certified in general psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry, and sleep medicine.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 has been funded by the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC) at Yale School of Medicine, 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 to develop a pilot UBI program. 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. 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.Education
Jessica Hoffmann, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the Yale Child Study Center and the Director of Research for the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Jessica received her B.A. in psychology and sociology from Brandeis University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in clinical psychology from Case Western Reserve University. Jessica specializes in conducting research within school settings to implement social and emotional learning (SEL) approaches aimed at enhancing children’s creative problem-solving and emotion regulation, through building more positive school climates. Her current research focuses on the efficacy of two such SEL approaches (RULER and inspirED), and the impact of emotion skills instruction on educator and student well-being.
Comparative Medicine
- Ken Loh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Medicine in the Institute for Biomolecular Design and Discovery at Yale University’s West Campus. A native of Singapore, he received his B.S. in Chemistry from Harvey Mudd College in 2009 and earned his Ph.D in Chemistry with Alice Ting at MIT in 2016, developing chemical-enzymatic methodologies for tagging proteins in cells. Ken next received postdoctoral training with Jeffrey Friedman at Rockefeller University, studying the role of leptin in its regulation of sympathetic nerves in the fat organ, and joined the faculty at Yale in August of 2022. His lab is interested in studying brain-body interactions at a molecular length scale, using tools in chemical biology.
Dermatology
- I am a physician-scientist with specialized training in immunology, molecular biology, genetics, and clinical dermatology. My career is dedicated to integrating fundamental immunology with clinical dermatology, with a particular focus on the role of costimulatory and inhibitory immune receptors in cancer immunity, autoimmune pathogenesis, and immunotherapy. My interest in this field was shaped during my training in the Medical Scientist Training Program at Washington University in St. Louis, where I conducted research in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Schreiber, investigating key molecular regulators of cancer immunoediting. This experience, combined with my growing expertise in skin immunology and the evolution of immunotherapies for melanoma, ultimately led me to pursue a career in dermatology. During my dermatology residency at Yale School of Medicine, I had the opportunity to further expand my research in immune checkpoint pathways under the mentorship of Dr. Lieping Chen, a pioneer in PD-1 axis-targeted cancer immunotherapy. This work deepened my focus on novel immune regulatory mechanisms, including programmed death receptor-1 homolog (PD-1H), also known as VISTA. My current research focuses on: Identifying novel immune checkpoints, such as PD-1H/VISTA, in cutaneous malignancies (e.g., melanoma and keratinocyte carcinomas).Elucidating the inhibitory immune landscape of chronic inflammatory skin disorders, including psoriasis, eczema, lichen planus and cutaneous lupus erythematosus. Through my research and clinical work, I strive to bridge the gap between immune system regulation and dermatologic disease, ultimately contributing to the development of new immunotherapeutic strategies for cancer and inflammatory skin conditions.
Emergency Medicine
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.
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
Digestive Diseases (GI & Renal)
Dr. Assis received his M.D. from Jefferson Medical College followed by internship and residency at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, where he was also Chief Resident. He completed training in gastroenterology and hepatology fellowship under the T32 research track at Yale followed by transplant hepatology fellowship also at Yale. His clinical and research interests are focused in autoimmune and cholestatic liver diseases. Specifically, he treats patients with autoimmune hepatitis, primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), and primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) at his liver clinic. He performs translational and basic research on autoimmune hepatitis, PSC, and PBC using human biospecimens in addition to work with animal models. He is investigating the link between the pro-inflammatory cytokine macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) and autoimmune hepatitis, and the effect of psychological stress on autoimmune hepatitis. He is also studying human bile-derived organoids, and their interaction with T-cells, to elucidate the pathophysiology of PSC and identify novel therapeutic approaches. He is active in the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD) as co-chair of the writing group on Guidance for PSC and Cholangiocarcinoma, and former member of of the writing group on Guidelines for autoimmune hepatitis. In addition to this work, Dr. Assis is an active member of the Adult Cystic Fibrosis Program at Yale. In this role, he evaluates and treats patients with Cystic Fibrosis who have GI or liver complications of their disease. He consults on patients from outside Yale's Cystic Fibrosis program who have these complications. He also performs clinical research on Cystic Fibrosis liver involvement and is active in the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as a member of the writing group for new Cystic Fibrosis Liver Disease Guidelines. Dr. Assis has served since 2021 as the Fellowship Program Director in the Section of Digestive Diseases.A&I, Rheumatology
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, Critical Care & Sleep Medicine
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.General Med (Research & Other Non-clinical)
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 (Clinical & other non-Research)
Antonio Giaimo, MD, is a general cardiologist who evaluates and treats a wide range of cardiac conditions. He has special training in caring for patients with high cholesterol and hypertension, including resistant hypertension (persistently elevated blood pressure despite three or more medications), secondary forms of hypertension, and labile blood pressure disorders such as orthostatic hypotension. “My interest in hypertension and lipid disorders comes from a similar place,” Dr. Giaimo says. Both are primary conditions in the development of most heart disease in the United States, he says. The two conditions can be outright inherited and or have an inherited component contributing to the disease, he adds. “And both can be effectively prevented and/or treated so that symptomatic heart disease never develops.” The best part of this work is meeting patients in a medical office setting where he can get to know them and discuss ways they can enjoy their life free of symptomatic heart disease long before it becomes serious enough to require hospitalization. “I started my training as a primary care physician because I felt strongly that the most important medicine happens outside the hospital,” he says. “I soon realized that the vast majority of my patients had poorly controlled risk factors for developing such problems as hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol. I became a cardiologist so I could focus on giving those conditions the attention they deserve.” In addition to caring for patients, Dr. Giaimo is an assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine at Yale School of Medicine with research interests in the improvement of access to care and the appropriate treatment of patients with severely elevated blood pressures who seek care in the emergency department.Infectious Diseases
Dr. Benjamin Goldman-Israelow is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine in the section of Infectious Diseases. He obtained his AB in Biology from Washington University in St. Louis and his MD and PhD degrees from The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He joined Yale internal medicine in the ABIM Short Track Pathway, completing residency and Infectious Diseases fellowship training. During fellowship, Dr. Goldman-Israelow joined the laboratory of Dr. Akiko Iwasaki for his postdoctoral studies. There, he has studied SARS-CoV-2 infection, pathogenesis, and immunity in both patients and pre-clinical models. His work has led to the development of one of the first mouse models to study SARS-CoV-2, the identification of immunologic factors contributing to COVID-19 pathogenesis and protection, and the development of a novel mucosal vaccine strategy that protects against pathology and transmission.Dr. Goldman-Israelow is a practicing infectious diseases physician and also conducts biomedical research. His lab is focused on understanding the development of mucosal immune memory to emerging and endemic respiratory pathogens. Working through the lenses of natural infection and vaccination, the Israelow lab aims to better understand the correlates of protection and transmission of pandemic-associated pathogens, and leverage this research to develop the next generation of mucosal vaccines and therapeutics.Nephrology
I am Professor of Medicine in the Section of Nephrology at Yale School of Medicine. I am a clinician, population health researcher, and clinical trialist. For years I served as a consultant to the Montefiore Care Management Organization and was the clinical lead for the Kidney Care Choices Model. I was also Medical Director of the Inpatient, In-Center and Home dialysis facilities affiliated with Montefiore. Currently I work as Clinical Program Director for CORE at Yale New Haven Hospital.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.Cardiology (Research & Other Non-clinical)
Yi-Hwa Liu is an elected senior member of Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and a full member of Sigma Xi of The Scientific Research Society of North America. He is the leading editor of two text books: “Cardiovascular Imaging” (ISBN 978-1-84076-109-2, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, London, UK) and “Hybrid Imaging in Cardioavascular Medicine“ (ISBN 978-1-4665-9537-8, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, London, UK, and is also the co-inventor of Wackers-Liu CQÔ (WLCQ) Quantitative Analytic Method for Myocardial Perfusion Tomographic Imaging (FDA-approved Commercial Software Package). Dr. Liu earned his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY in 1991 and joined the faculty at Yale School of Medicine as Assistant Professor (1998 – 2004) and Associate Professor of Medicine (2004 – 2014). His primary research is focused on non-coherent image restoration, nuclear cardiac image reconstruction and quantification. He is one of the pioneers in the fields of fluorescence microscopic image restoration and nuclear cardiac image reconstruction and quantification.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.Endocrinology
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 (Clinical & other non-research)
Dr. Schwartz is an Associate Professor of Medicine (General Medicine) at Yale School of Medicine and of Epidemiology (Chronic Diseases) at Yale School of Public Health. He trained in the Yale Combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics residency program and is a practicing general internist. Dr. Schwartz is a Firm Chief on one of the general medicine inpatient teaching services at Yale New Haven Hospital Globally, his focus centers around non-communicable diseases (NCDs). He is an active member of the global NCD advocacy movement. He serves on the Advisory Council of the Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network and is a member of the East African NCD Alliance post-2015 Implementation Initiative. His research focuses on improving integrated health service delivery for NCDs in Uganda. He is a co-founder, and the US-based co-Director, of the Uganda Initiative for the Integrated Management of Non-Communicable Diseases (UINCD). This multi-sectoral collaboration brings together leaders from the Ugandan Ministry of Health, academia (Yale School of Medicine and Makerere University College of Health Sciences), civil society organizations, and the health system to address the often fragmented nature of NCD service delivery and training. Dr. Schwartz is Medical Director of the Eastern Caribbean Health Outcomes Research Network (ECHORN), a large cohort study of non-communicable diseases (PI: Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith), based at the Yale Equity Research and Innovation Center (ERIC). Dr. Schwartz has been directing "Topics in Global Medicine" (formerly the Tropical Medicine Course) since 2010. This interdisciplinary elective course for health professions students at Yale presents a wide range of globally relevant health issues in an interactive format.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 a Yale Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Director of the Clinical Chemistry Laboratory and the Clinical Chemistry Fellowship Program at Yale New Haven Health. Dr. El-Khoury is board certified by the American Board of Clinical Chemistry and a fellow of the Association for Diagnostics and Laboratory Medicine Academy. His research interests include indicators for monitoring clinical laboratory performance, investigating biomarkers of acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease and development of new mass spectrometry-based methods for the measurement of markers in biological fluids.
Microbial Pathogenesis
- Hesper is interested in how bacteria grow, eat, and survive stress. Before becoming a microbiologist, she received her undergraduate degree in physics from Caltech, and then went on to do her dissertation with the late Mats Gustafsson at UCSF and Janelia Farm. In his group, she developed a novel form of Structured-Illumination Microscopy, a now commercially available super-resolution technique. 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 bacteria to display different phenotypes. This phenomenon is especially important for the treatment of tuberculosis, a disease caused by the bacterial pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Her lab now uses a combination of bacterial genetics and fluorescence microscopy to investigate the strategies that mycobacteria use to grow, metabolize, and survive the stresses imposed by antibiotics and the host. Dr. Rego is the recipient of several awards, including the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award at the Scientific Interface, Pew Scholar Award, Searle Scholar Award, and Hypothesis Fund Award.
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.
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.Research
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. Mihir Gupta is a fellowship-trained spine surgeon and assistant professor of neurosurgery. After graduating from Stanford University, he completed neurosurgical residency at the University of California San Diego, postdoctoral studies at Harvard Medical School, and orthopedic spine surgery fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. With a background in both neurosurgery and orthopedics, he performs a variety of traditional as well as minimally invasive procedures for a variety of complex spinal disorders. Dr. Gupta prioritizes understanding each patient's unique and detailed story. He works closely with physical therapists, pain specialists and physiatrists to offer personalized surgical and non-surgical treatments.
Obstetrics and Gynecology
Gynecology
Iman Berrahou (she/her/hers) is from Austin, Texas and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with degrees in Plan II Honors (BA) and Microbiology (BS). She graduated from Harvard Medical School in 2018 and completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of California, San Francisco in 2022. She is currently an Assistant Professor in Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at Yale University School of Medicine. She will become Residency Program Director for Yale’s OB/GYN Residency Program in July 2025. Dr. Berrahou provides full spectrum obstetric and gynecologic care. She performs advanced gynecologic surgeries through minimally invasive approaches, including robotic surgery and VNOTES (vaginal laparoscopic) surgery. She is an expert in the clinical care of LGBTQ+ patients, including in the provision of gender affirming care. Dr. Berrahou’s research is focused on addressing healthcare disparities experienced by understudied and underserved patient populations, particularly at the intersection of LGBTQ+ health and OB/GYN.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
- 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
Won Jae Huh completed his medical education at the Seoul National University in South Korea. Then he pursued Ph.D. training in Developmental Biology at Washington University in St. Louis. His Ph.D. thesis work with Dr. Jason Mills focused on the transcriptional regulation of gastric chief cell differentiation. Won Jae completed his residency training in Anatomic Pathology at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, followed by fellowship in Gastrointestinal and Liver Pathology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He did his postdoctoral research training on EGFR and Notch signaling crosstalk in gastric premalignant conditions with Dr. Robert Coffey at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Won Jae is a recipient of the NIDDK Clinical Scientist Career Development Award. He was an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center prior to joining the Department of Pathology at Yale School of Medicine in 2021.
Pediatrics
Adolescent Medicine; Allergy & Immunology; General Pediatrics; Endocrinology; Nephrology; Rheumatology
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; Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine
Dr. Kyc is a graduate of Tufts University, and she earned her medical degree from Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine. She completed her Pediatric Residency at Penn State Children's Hospital and her Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Fellowship at Yale New Haven Children's Hospital. She was an attending neonatologist in New York prior to returning to Yale to join the Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine faculty.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 had 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 was a medical director of Yale Medicine ambulatory services and supervised 45 Yale Medicine clinics in Fairfield county, New Haven and shoreline regions.
Pharmacology
Psychiatry
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.CMHC
Dale Sebastian, MBBS, MD earned his medical degree from St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences in Bangalore, India, and completed postgraduate training in Psychiatry at Yale University, where he also pursued fellowship training in Administrative and Community Psychiatry. His clinical and academic career has centered on the community mental health sector, with a focus on caring for individuals with chronic and severe mental illnesses in long-term inpatient settings. His areas of expertise include the treatment of psychotic and mood disorders, trauma, and personality disorders—often complicated by institutionalization, stigma, social isolation, legal challenges, and socioeconomic disparities. Dr. Sebastian’s work emphasizes a strength-based, person-centered approach that seeks to de-mystify mental illness through evidence-based practice and innovative models of care. He is deeply committed to education, introducing trainees, patients, and families to approaches that foster recovery and resilience. Currently an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Associate Program Director of the Public Psychiatry Fellowship at Yale, he is actively engaged in curriculum development, teaching, and supervision across the medical school, residency, and fellowship programs. His contributions to psychiatry and medical education have been recognized regionally and nationally. He received the American Psychiatric Association’s 2021 Nancy C.A. Roeske Award for Excellence in Medical Student Education, the 2022 APA Resident-Fellow Member Mentor Award, and the 2025 Connecticut Psychiatric Society’s Service to Patients Award for exemplary commitment to patient care.
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.Clinical Doctors
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
- 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 American Brachytherapy Society (ABS) ABS National Education Subcommittee. Dr. Tien is a full member of the AAPM, ABS, and the Yale Cancer Center.
Urology
- Fed Ghali, MD, is a urologic oncologist who specializes in treating cancers of the bladder, ureter, kidney, and testis. He completed medical school at the Geisel School of Medicine, at Dartmouth. He then went on to the University of California, San Diego for an internship in General Surgery, followed by a Urology residency. Following residency training, he completed the Society of Urologic Oncology fellowship at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, and then joined the faculty at the Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Ghali became interested in the specialty of urology early in his first year of medical school. “I watched a urologic surgeon build a bladder out of intestine and I was blown away,” he says. “I knew I found the right field where I could do challenging surgery, make a meaningful impact on people’s lives, and still do research that I love.” When it comes to working with patients, Dr. Ghali says he keeps in mind the unique experience each patient is having with their illness. “This is important, even as we treat and learn from many patients with similar diseases,” he says. “Having the benefits of being a high-volume cancer center while recognizing the individual struggle of each patient is key to high quality and compassionate care. Each patient is more than a statistic.” Dr. Ghali says he also recognizes that the patient in front of him in his office “is often consumed by this new and devastating thing we are trying to treat. I strive to be compassionate and conscious of what they are feeling. I share all the pertinent information I have with patients and avoid sugarcoating or withholding data. Patients are more comfortable when they feel they have power, are in control, and not alone.” An active researcher, Dr. Ghali’s interests include clinical trial design and biomarker development, which is identifying molecules that signal what is going on with a disease in a patient’s body. “New biomarkers are urgently needed in bladder cancer, not just to signal the presence of cancer, but to help us monitor response to therapy, and ultimately guide patients into more individualized treatment options” he says. “At Yale, we are working hard to bring cutting edge clinical trials and scientific discoveries to patients with urologic cancers.”