Hi everyone,
If we’ve learned anything from COVID, it’s this: build an all-star team. With talented teammates, we can overcome any challenge. And that’s what we have: from trainees to faculty to APDs, our team is smart, dedicated, and resilient.
As you probably know by now, one of our phenomenal APDs, Dr. Alfred Lee, is leaving his position to direct Yale’s Hematology-Oncology fellowship. As an APD, Alfred served as a trusted advisor and confidant to his trainees, and he shared his wisdom weekly at leadership meetings. Among his enduring legacies will be the novel, resident-driven, and extraordinarily effective Program Evaluation Committee (PEC), which he created with Dr. Amy Schwartz. Alfred will continue to serve as a resident research advisor and hematology attending. No doubt he will continue to draw many residents into careers in academic hematology.
With Alfred’s departure, we are thrilled to announce two spectacular additions to the leadership team: Drs. Matthew Grant and Mahalia Desruisseaux- Matt as an APD and Mahalia as a core faculty member and advisor to our physician scientists.
Dr. Grant has already contributed in major ways to the residency as PST advisor and inpatient curriculum leader. He received his BS in biology with a concentration in neurobiology from Cornell, where he graduated magna cum laude. He received his MD from SUNY Upstate, where he was elected to AOA and the Gold Humanism Honor Society. He completed his residency at Thomas Jefferson and his ID fellowship at Temple; he has been an Assistant Professor at Yale since 2012. He attends frequently on the ID service and has special interests in travel and transplant medicine. He serves on several medical education committees at Yale, and he is the recipient of multiple teaching awards. A few words from Matt:
I'm thrilled to be joining the IM leadership group in July as a formal APD after working with the PST's since '17 in an advisory role. I hail from Upstate NY and was there for both undergrad and med school until I moved to Philly for residency/fellowship/1 year attending before my wife and I joined the Yale faculty in '12. My wife is 1 of 3 full time medical historians at Yale!
I have been focused on transplant (with a specific interest in LVADs/cardiac transplant) and travel/tropical medicine with a growing passion for med education during my time here. My med ed interests include feedback, wellness/burnout and peer teaching. When I'm not in New Haven, I spend time with my one year old Raphael, jog, ski Jay Peak in VT, play tennis, grow corals in my home saltwater aquarium, listen to vinyl, and swim in the L.I. sound.
Dr. Desruisseaux received her BA in Biology from Queens College, where she won the Dr. Pearl Foster Award for Outstanding Minority Women in Biology. She received her MD from the UMDNJ Robert Wood Johnson Medical College. She competed her residency at North Shore University Hospital, where she received the George M. Jaffin Award for Research and Scholarly Activity. She completed her ID training at Albert Einstein, where she subsequently joined the faculty and rose to the rank of Associate Professor. Mahalia was recruited to Yale as a research scientist, where her work focuses on parasitic infections. She is the recipient of numerous research grants and serves on several review committees. She is a key member the Department’s Diversity Committee and she serves on the Professional Development Subcommittee of MORE (the Yale Minority Organization for Recruitment and Expansion). Mahalia is President-Elect of the Committee of Molecular, Cellular and Immunoparasitology for the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, and she serves on research and education committees for the Infectious Disease Society of America. A brief bio from Mahalia:
Dr. Desruisseaux is a physician-scientist in the section of Infectious Diseases whose research focuses on parasitic infections that cause CNS injury. She received an MD degree from UMDNJ - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (now Rutgers). She trained in Internal Medicine at North Shore University Hospital in New York and completed a fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Montefiore Medical Center/ Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Her laboratory is particularly interested in brain microvascular and neural cell responses to parasitic infections, and the debilitating neurological sequelae and mortality that develop as a result.
In her free time, Dr. Desruisseaux enjoys reading, spending time with her daughters, and running with her dog.
On the behalf of the residency, we thank Dr. Lee for his immense contributions to our program, and we are thrilled to welcome Matt and Mahalia into their key leadership positions on our all-star tea
Enjoy your Sunday everyone- I’m heading out for a long bike ride, preparing for another week in the ICU,
Mark