Focus on Faculty

We are pleased to announce the fall appointments and promotions of professors and associate professors, as well as senior research scientists and research scientists approved earlier this year. The process involves significant work on the part of each faculty member, as well as support from their colleagues and the faculty affairs teams, who provide guidance and manage many of the logistics through each stage of the promotion cycle.

Please join us in congratulating our colleagues on their momentous achievements.

Thomas G. Adams, PhD, Psychiatry

Ann Marie Beddoe, MD, MPH, Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences (Associate Clinical Professor, Voluntary)

Krysten Bold, PhD, Psychiatry

Jaime Cavallo, MD, MPHS, Urology

Michael Chen, MD, Internal Medicine

Robert Chow, MD, Anesthesiology

Jorge Con, MD, Surgery

Christopher Cutter, PhD, Child Study Center

Cecilia Frometa, PhD, Child Study Center

Lohith Gowda, MD, Internal Medicine

Jasmine Gujral, MD, MBBS, Pediatrics

Ho-Choong Chang, MD, Pediatrics

Stephanie Eosten Joyce, MD, Surgery

Rohan Khera, MD, MS, Internal Medicine

Jennifer Kim, MD, PhD, Neurology

Lisa Kodadek, MD, Surgery

Katherine Kohari, MD, Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences

Rajlakshmi Krishnamurthy, MD, Internal Medicine

Matthew Kusulas, MD, MSEd, Pediatrics

Thomas Lardaro, MD, MPH, Emergency Medicine

Aaron Lazorwitz, MD, PhD, Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences

Michael Lerner, MD, Surgery

Caitlin Loomis, MD, Neurology

Nora Miller, MD, MS, Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences

Francesca Montanari, MD, Internal Medicine

Marina Nakic, MD, PhD, Psychiatry

Kelly Olino, MD, Surgery

Edward Perry, Jr., MD, MHS, Internal Medicine

Adnan Prsic, MD, Surgery

Elizabeth Prsic,MD, Internal Medicine

Srikant Rangaraju, MBBS, MS, Neurology

Mario Rodenas, MD, Internal Medicine

Emmanuelle Schindler, MD, PhD, Neurology

Ryan Steele, DO, Internal Medicine

Lissa Sugeng, MD, MPH, Internal Medicine

Alina Tsyrulnik, MD, Emergency Medicine

David van Dijk, PhD, MSc, Internal Medicine

Tormod Westvik, MD, Surgery

Frederick Wilson, MD, PhD, Internal Medicine

Ya-Chi Ho, MD, PhD, Microbial Pathogenesis

Gur Yaari, PhD, Pathology

Senior Research Scientists

Lingfeng Qin, MMS, Surgery

Amy Stiegler, PhD, Pharmacology

Research Scientists

Anna Arnal Estape, PhD, Internal Medicine

Sunil Koundal, PhD, Anesthesiology

Tongqing Li, Pharmacology

Alejandro Marin Lopez, PhD, MSc, Internal Medicine

Xiaona Lu, MD, PhD, Genetics

Abhijith Radhakrishnan, Cell Biology

Takuya Toyonaga, MD, PhD, Radiology and Biomedical Imaging

Hobart Patrick Young, PhD, Laboratory Medicine

The MyYSM site puts school news, resources, and information in one place for faculty, staff, and students. We encourage you to bookmark this site and visit it regularly to learn about YSM’s strategic direction and ongoing achievements across the school, and to access resources to support your development and well-being. You can access the My YSM site directly at this link.

Here are some tips to make it easier to access the site:

• Save MyYSM as your internet browser homepage. Using these directions for your browser of choice, copy and paste the url https://medicine.yale.edu/myysm/ in your settings.

• Bookmark the site as a ‘favorite’ in your internet browser.

Do you need a professional headshot or want to update your current one? Does your YSM profile need an update? Resources are available to help promote your important clinical, education, and research work.

• Sign up for an upcoming headshot session with our multimedia services team.

• Maintain and update your faculty profile using the Beatrix online tool.

To get to know each other, better, our newsletter features one of our exemplary faculty members who we’ve asked to reflect on their “why"–or what inspires them. Today, Pamela L. Kunz, MD, professor of internal medicine (medical oncology); director, Center for Gastrointestinal Cancers at Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center; and chief, GI medical oncology, shares her passions, professional aspirations, and other inspirations.

What drew you to your area of expertise (clinical or research)?

Oncology offers a combination of interesting science with the ability to develop meaningful, long-term relationships with patients. The early 2000s saw the beginning of targeted therapies in oncology, and as I was finishing my internal medicine residency in 2004, I knew I wanted to be part of those advances. Later, I became interested in gastrointestinal (GI) oncology, and later neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) by chance; a senior hematology-oncology fellow had unfinished projects, including clinical trials in GI oncology, he hoped to handoff upon his graduation.

As for my NET focus, a mentor invited me to write a review paper with him at a time when there were very few approved therapies in the field and new randomized clinical trials were just being developed. “It’s easier to become an expert in a rare disease,” he advised and that always stuck with me. It’s been incredibly fulfilling to dedicate my career to NETs and to be part of the drug development process and FDA approvals for a rare disease.

Tell us about a mentor that has been an influence in your career? What’s one piece of advice from your mentor you would like to share with medical students or incoming faculty members?

Looking back on my career, there is no single mentor who played a leading role. Instead, I have benefitted from a collection of dedicated, thoughtful, and inspiring mentors, sponsors, coaches. I learned very early that no single person can serve every role. One may be an amazing clinical mentor, another a great research mentor, and yet another a coach. They all become part of your support system or village.

One piece of advice my coach gave me was to align my goals with my values because misalignment can lead to unhappiness and burnout. I try to regularly re-evaluate my goals, values, and what matters most, and I encourage my mentees to do the same.

Why did you choose Yale for your clinical/research career aspirations?

After nearly two decades at the same institution, I was looking for a new challenge and a mentor advised to “find new soil and replant myself.” The strength of Yale Cancer Center (YCC) and its track record of team science was an immediate draw and gave me the opportunity to join Yale in July 2020. At the time I was recruited, YCC had three Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORES) that truly defined team science by bringing together multiple intersecting projects across translational and clinical science.

As director of the Center for GI Cancers and chief of GI Oncology, I hope to build strong teams and programs around patient care, research, and education, as I aspire to support a SPORE in GI cancers one day. During my time at Yale, I have felt valued and supported in my time at Yale, with a balance of guidance and autonomy from leadership.

If given the chance to have dinner with three people, living or dead, who would you choose and why?

• My dad, Thomas Kunz: My dad sustained a traumatic brain injury following a motor vehicle accident in 2011 and then died of COVID in 2020. He was a biology professor at Boston University, and I am in academics largely because of him. He got sick just as my career was starting and I wish I could talk with him about my career journey, my kids, and the current challenges in higher education.

• Ruth Bader Ginsberg: RBG is one of my heroes. Her steadfast commitment to equity and human rights served as an inspiration to me when I was navigating gender discrimination and a challenging workplace at a previous institution. A dear friend gave me a little RBG action figure that still sits on my shelf.

• Michelle Obama: Michelle Obama represents so many qualities I hope to emulate. She is deeply committed to her family, true to herself, shows grace under pressure, is willing to swerve and take risks, demonstrates integrity even when criticized, and perseveres when she is “the first” in her many roles.

What’s your passion outside the classroom/hospital setting?

My family is my passion outside of the classroom: My husband, Jeff Kwan, a gastroenterologist in community practice; our three sons, ages 20, 17, and 14; a goldendoodle named Lucy; and my 91-year-old mother lives nearby. When not at work, I can usually be found watching my sons on a baseball field or a basketball court.