Alumni
MD-PhD Program Alumni Updates Spring 2008
Art Pomerantz, MD ’80, PhD ’79 1 is working hard as a surgical oncologist at Aventura, Hollywood and West Palm Beach, Florida. He is a former co-captain of the Rockefeller Tube Room with Owen Griffith and Carl Rettenmeier. ahpomerantz@pol.net
Jonathan Victor, MD ‘80, PhD ’79 is the Fred Plum Professor in the Department of Neurology and Neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College. jdvicto@med.cornell.edu
W. Harry Horner, ’82, PhD ’81 is working as a Physician of Internal Medicine in Waynesboro, VA. harryhorner@ntelos.net
Thomas Toomey, MD ’82, PhD ’81 is presently an Anesthesiologist with the Anesthesia Medical Group in Nashville, TN. tpt@amg-group.com
Wilson Miller Jr., MD ’84, PhD ’83 is Professor at McGill University-Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, Quebec Canada where he has a fairly big lab and also runs Phase I clinical trials in Oncology. wmiller@ldi.jgh.mcgill.ca
David Fisher, MD ’85, PhD ’84 84 was named Chief of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Department of Dermatology, Director of the MGH Cutaneous Biology Research Center and Director of the Melonoma Center at MGH on December 2007. To read more about this exciting announcement please visit the link: http://www.massgeneralhospital.net/pubaffairs/Issues2007/122007fisher.htm.MGHCancerCenter@partners.org
Peter Hotez, MD '87, PhD '86 is currently serving as the President of the Sabin Vaccine Institute and is the Walter G. Ross Professor and Chair in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine at The George Washington University in Washington, DC. mtmpjh@gwumc.edu
Andrew Blum, MD ’89, PhD ’88 is very busy now serving as Director of the Adult Epilepsy and EEG Laboratory, Co-Director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Program and Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurosciences at the Rhode Island Hospital and The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. ablum@lifespan.org
Michael McDevitt, MD ’89, PhD’88 is now an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology in Baltimore, MD. mmcdevi1@jhmi.edu
Nathan Bahary, MD ’89, PhD ’92 moved to Pittsburgh, PA 3 ½ years ago and is working as Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. baharyn@upmc.edu
Roy Herbst, MD ’91, PhD’90 holds the position of Chief, at the Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology section of the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas. rherbst@mdanderson.org
James Mandell, MD ’92, PhD ’91 is a clinician-investigator neuropathologist at the University of Virginia. His lab focuses on the recognition of axonal degeneration by brain gliall cells, and mechanisms underlying phagocytic clearance of injured axons. jwm2m@unix.mail.virginia.edu
Anne Hermanowski-Vosatka, MD ’93, PhD ’91 is now Director of the Cardiovascular Disease, Clinical Research Department at Merck & Co., Inc. in Rahway, NJ. anne_vosatka@merck.com
Jeffrey Krane, MD ’93, PhD ’92 is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA. krane@partners.org
Mike Kaplitt, MD ’95, PhD’93 is an innovative lead researcher and Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College and Director of Movement Disorders Surgery at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell. He’s been involved with the first ever clinical trials for gene therapy against Parkinson’s disease. As Dr. Kaplitt describes this research, “With this small trial, we’ve shown that gene modification of the patient’s brain cells can be done safely, with some effectiveness. That could open the door to using gene therapy against a host of brain disorders.” To read more about Dr. Kaplitt’s exciting Phase I clinical trial visit The Scope publication website at www.med.cornell.edu/publications. mik2002@med.cornell.edu
Alan Mayer, MD ’95, PhD ’94 is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics/Gastroenterology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. alanmayer@mac.com
Hearn Cho, MD ’96, PhD ’95 is now Assistant Professor of Medicine and Pathology at New York University Cancer Institute’s Smilow Research Center. hjcho@mac.com
Kenan Onel, MD ’96, PhD ’95 is currently an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at The University of Chicago. konel@peds.bsd.uchicago.edu
Sandy Chang, MD ‘ 97, PhD ’96 runs a very productive, large lab and also does clinical medicine in the Department of Cancer Genetics at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX where she holds the title of Associate Professor. schang@mdanderson.org
G. Edward Vates, MD ’97, PhD ’96 runs a lab in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Rochester Medical School. He holds the position of Assistant Professor. Edward_Vates@urmc.rochester.edu
Darren Orbach, MD ’97, PhD ’98 has finished his postgraduate training at NYU and has accepted a position as a neurointerventionalist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital Boston and Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. His split is approximately 60:40 clinical:research. The research is going in two directions: (i) the development of novel functional MR techniques for directly imaging neuronal electromagnetic activity in focal epilepsy and in sleep and (ii) using transcranial focused ultrasound for the non-invasive ablation of brain lesions (currently inoperable tumors). dorbach@partners.org
Wendy Chung, MD ’98, PhD ’96 is Director of Clinical Genetics at Columbia University and has a research lab that studies the genetics of obesity, diabetes, breast cancer, and arrhythmias. She also serves as the Herbert Irving Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in Medicine also at Columbia.wkc15@columbia.edu
Melissa Nirenberg, MD ’98, PhD ‘96 is presently working as Assistant Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College. mjnirenb@med.cornell.edu
Eric Hailman, MD ’98, PhD ’97 is currently a Research Fellow in the Department of Cardiovascular Diseases at the Merck Research Laboratories in Rahway, NJ. eric_hailman@merck.com
Ron Bose, MD '99, PhD '98 is presently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Oncology and Department of Cell Biology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO. This is his first faculty position. Since graduation he has done a residency at Washington University and is now completing a Medical Oncology Fellowship at Johns Hopkins. rbose@im.wustl.edu
Peter Weinstock, MD ’98, PhD ‘97 serves as Associate Director of Children's On-site Pediatric Simulation Center. His research interests focus on optimizing medical education via high fidelity patient simulation with a focus on quality improvement and patient safety. Dr. Weinstock actively practices Simulation Education as faculty of the Center for Medical Simulation in Cambridge where he teaches courses locally and abroad. His current research interests focus on the development, integration and assessment of simulation-enhanced curricula throughout the Children’s Hospital. His recent publication: Weinstock, P, Stanley L, Kleinman ME, Hickey P, Greneir B, Burns JP. Towards a New Paradigm in Hospital-based Pediatric Education: The Development of an On-Site Simulator Program. Pediatric Critical Care Medicine. 2005 Nov; 6(6):635-641. peter.weinstock@childrens.harvard.edu
Tobias Hohl, MD ’01, PhD ’00 was recently promoted to Assistant Member on the Infectious Diseases Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center where he is investigating immune responses to fungal pathogens. He recently received a fundable score on his NIAID KO-8 application. hohlt@mskcc.org
Alison Young, MD ’01, PhD ’00 is currently a Physician in the Department of Dermatology at Virginia Mason Seattle Main Clinic. Dr. Young comments on her experience at Virginia Mason and her colleagues, “I am very fortunate to be part of this superb group of dermatologists.” ayoung@vzavenue.net
Andrew Tai, MD ’02, PhD ’00 completed his residency in internal medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is now a second-year GI Fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital. He spends most of the time studying hepatitis C virus in Ray Chung’s lab. atai@partners.org
Martha Lewis, MD ’02, PhD ’01 finished her residency in Internal Medicine at UCLA and is completing her fellowship in Infectious Diseases also at UCLA. She received an NIH K08 grant in March 2006. She has just recently joined the UCLA Infectious Disease faculty as an Assistant Professor. malewis@mednet.ucla.edu
David Kaufman, MD ’03, PhD ’02 is a Clinical Fellow in the Department of Medicine-Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA. drkaufman@partners.org
David Shih, MD ’03, PhD ’02 is currently a GI Fellow in Gastroenterology at the University of California, Los Angeles. davidshih@mednet.ucla.edu
Rebecca Wolf-Gilbert, MD ’03, PhD ’02 is currently a fourth year Neurology Resident at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. Next year, she will begin a Movement Disorders Fellowship, also at Columbia. rwolf@neuro.columbia.edu
Tien-An Yang, MD ’03, PhD ’02 is presently a Clinical Fellow in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of California, San Francisco. yang.tienan@gmail.com
Joseph Amprey, MD ’04, PhD ’03 is currently working as a Principal at a venture capital firm called MedImmune Ventures. He lives outside of Washington DC in Maryland but misses New York City. jamprey@yahoo.com
Paul Cohen, MD ’04, PhD ’03 is presently a Fellow in the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA. pcohen3@partners.org
Gholson Lyon, MD ’04, PhD ’03 is keeping busy with grant-writing and getting ready for a full-time research fellowship starting July 2009. He is currently working as a Clinical Instructor at the NYU Child Study Center in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry-www.aboutourkids.org. Gholson.Lyon@nyumc.org
Edward Yang, MD ’04, PhD ’03 is a third year Resident in the Department of Radiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. After his residency, he will complete one year of adult neuororadiology followed by one year of pediatric neuroradiology at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. edward.yang@uphs.upenn.edu or edward.yang@stanfordalumni.org
Leslie Castelo-Soccio, MD ’05, PhD ’04 completed a medicine preliminary year at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA). She is currently a dermatology resident on a research track at U Penn. castelol@uphs.upenn.edu
Raymond Soccio, MD ’05, PhD ’04 is on an ABIM research track at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA). He finished his residency in internal medicine and will begin an endocrinology fellowship. soccior@uphs.upenn.edu
Jennifer Nunez, MD ’06, PhD ’05 is at Northwestern University, Chicago, IL doing her surgery residency. j-nunez@md.northwestern.edu
Scott Avecilla, MD '07, PhD '06 is currently pursuing a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Howard Hughes Medical Institute/Weill Cornell Medical College. He has accepted a residency position at the University of Washington's Anatomic and Clinical Pathology program which commences July 1, 2008. stavecilla@gmail.com
