Association for Academic Surgery (AAS)

30th Fundamentals of Surgical Research Course

October 26, 2019 | San Francisco, CA

View the Course Handout

COURSE PRESENTATIONS

FACULTY BIOS

Christina Angeles, MD
Christina V. Angeles, MD is an Assistant Professor at Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and Assistant Professor of Surgery in the Division of Surgical Oncology at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.  She completed her general surgical training at New York-Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center during which she dedicated two years to a basic/translational science research fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC).  Following this, she completed a clinical fellowship in Complex General Surgical Oncology at MSKCC before joining the faculty at Dartmouth.  Her clinical practice encompasses caring for patients with sarcoma, melanoma, breast cancer, and gastric malignancies. Dr. Angeles’ current translational research efforts are focusing on the mechanism and effects of immunotherapy in melanoma patients, specifically investigating the role of resident memory T cells in providing durable cancer immunity.

Filip Bednar, MD, PhD
Dr. Bednar received his BA in Molecular Biology from Princeton University in 2000. He then obtained his MD and PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from the Lewis Katz School of Medicine, Temple University in 2007. He served as an Intern and Resident in General Surgery at the University of Michigan until 2014. He also completed a two-year postdoctoral research fellowship in pancreatic cancer biology with Dr. Marina Pasca di Magliano and Dr. Diane Simeone. He finished his surgical training with a Complex General Surgical Oncology Fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh under the tutelage of Dr. David Bartlett and Dr. Herb Zeh. He now serves as an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Michigan and the VA Ann Arbor Health System. He is an active surgeon-scientist with a basic and translational laboratory focusing on pancreatic cancer.

Ankit Bharat, MD
Ankit Bharat is the Harold L. and Margaret N. Method Professor of Surgery, Chief of Thoracic Surgery, and the Director of Lung Transplantation at Northwestern University in Chicago. He received medical training at Christian Medical College in India following which he joined Washington University in St Louis. There, he completed general surgery residency and cardiothoracic surgery fellowship as well as a post-doctoral research fellowship. At Northwestern, he treats patients with advanced thoracic diseases and provides therapies such as lung transplantation and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation to those with end-stage lung failure. In addition, he provides minimally invasive treatment to patients with thoracic malignancies including robotic and video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery. His basic science laboratory investigates immunopathogenesis of lung disease with a focus on transplant immunobiology. Using research tools such as single cell transcriptomics, top-down proteomics, intravital imaging, and multichannel flow-cytometry, in combination with bioinformatics and computational biology, his research group is interested in identifying clinically actionable mechanisms underlying lung injury and utilizing models relevant to human disease. His laboratory is also interested in intravital imaging of immune responses after transplantation to determine the mechanisms of neutrophil recruitment into the lungs. For example, using these tools, they have identified the presence of pulmonary intravascular non-classical monocytes and their pivotal role in initiating lung ischemia-reperfusion injury. He pursues problem-based surgical research by taking important clinical problems to the basic laboratory and their clinical lung transplant program allows his research team to validate their laboratory findings in humans.

Genevieve Boland, MD, PhD
Genevieve M. Boland, MD, PhD is Director of the Melanoma Surgery Program, Surgical Director of the Termeer Center for Experimental Therapeutics, and Director of the Surgical Oncology Research Laboratories at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and an Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Dr. Boland’s primary clinical focus is on melanoma and cutaneous oncology. Dr. Boland has been the recipient of multiple research awards including the American Surgical Association Foundation Fellowship, the Society of Surgical Oncology Clinical Investigator Award, the Association of Women Surgeons Research Fellowship, the Harvard Catalyst Medical Research Investigator Training Award, the Karin Grunebaum Research Fellowship, the Melanoma Research Foundation, and the Department of Defense. Her work has been published in Cell, Nature, Nature Medicine, Cancer Discovery, Clinical Cancer Research, Cancer, and Annals of Surgical Oncology. Her research is focused on the characterization of molecular and immunological changes that occur during immunotherapy and the identification of circulating biomarkers of cancer.

Richard Burkhart, MD
Rick Burkhart, M.D., is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at The Johns Hopkins Hospital with a focus on complex minimally-invasive surgery and research for cancers of the pancreas, liver and bile ducts. His current research focuses on precision medicine initiatives in cancer care.  He has a particular research interest in the study of personalized models of pancreas cancer, made from each patient’s tumor after surgical resection, to serve as predictive biomarkers of systemic response to therapy.

Karan Chhabra, MD, MSc
Karan Chhabra MD MSc is a resident in general surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, currently in the National Clinician Scholars Program at the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. He is originally from Allendale, NJ. His research interests are in the affordability of surgical care, both for large payers and for individuals facing out-of-pocket expenses.

Britney Corey, MD
Dr. Corey is a fellowship-trained minimally invasive gastrointestinal surgeon, specializing in complex abdominal wall reconstruction and anti-reflux and foregut surgery. She completed her minimally invasive GI fellowship and general surgery residency at UAB. She serves as the Surgery Clerkship Director at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Site Director Surgery Education and Assistant Chief of Surgery at the Birmingham VAMC. Her research interests center around improving undergraduate and graduate medical education. She is currently enrolled in the Master\’s of Academic Medicine program at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.

Priya Dedhia, MD, PhD
Dr. Priya Dedhia is an Endocrine Surgeon at the Ohio State University. She completed her MD and PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, general surgery residency at University of Michigan, and Endocrine Surgery fellowship at University of Wisconsin. She uses 3-dimensional organoid models to study endocrine diseases. In her spare time, she loves traveling, going to concerts, and sampling good scotch.

 

Justin Dimick, MD, MPH
Justin B. Dimick, MD, MPH is the Frederick A. Coller Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of Michigan. Dr. Dimick has a clinical practice devoted to advanced laparoscopy, including treatment of morbid obesity, gastroesophageal reflux (GERD), abdominal wall hernias, and other benign and neoplastic diseases of the stomach, spleen, and foregut. Dr. Dimick has a large research program, currently funded by 5 R01 grants from the NIH and AHRQ, focuses on quality measurement, policy evaluation, and large-scale quality improvement interventions. He has more than 350 peer-reviewed publications, including papers in NEJM, JAMA, Health Affairs and the leading surgical journals. Dr. Dimick has served in leadership positions in several organizations, including President of the Association for Academic Surgery (AAS), Chair of the NIH Health Services Organization and Delivery (HSOD) Study Section, and on the Board of Directors of the Surgical Outcomes Club (SOC). He has served in advisory roles on quality and health care policy issues for several organizations, including the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), BlueCross BlueShield Association (BCBSA), and the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS-NSQIP).

Christopher Dodgion, MD, MSPH, MBA
Chris Dodgion is a Trauma and Acute Care surgeon at the Medical College of Wisconsin. His research focus involves work to strengthen trauma systems, expand quality improvement initiatives in low resource settings and address the global surgical workforce shortage through education innovation.  He is currently involved in collaborative projects in Haiti, Ghana and Ethiopia. He holds a number of leadership roles in both trauma quality and global health at the Medical College of Wisconsin and he is the current Chair of the Global Affairs Committee for the AAS.

Vikas Dudeja, MD
Dr. Dudeja received his medical degree and initial surgical training at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi, India. After completing a research fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Ashok Saluja, a renowned pancreas scientist, he went on to complete his general surgery residency at the University of Minnesota and completed a fellowship in Complex Surgical Oncology and Hepato-pancreatico-biliary Surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. After his fellowship training, he joined a faculty position at the University of Minnesota as an Assistant Professor, Masonic Cancer Center Scholar and Varco Surgeon Scientist until he was recruited to the University of Miami. Dr Dudeja’s laboratory focuses on deciphering the biology of tumor microenvironment in pancreatic cancer and to devise strategies to modulate it for therapeutic gain. Elucidation of the mechanism and determinants of tumor recurrence is another key area studied in his laboratory. His laboratory is funded by the NIH, VA, state grants and Department of Defense.

Aslam Ejaz, MD, MPH
Aslam Ejaz, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of surgery at The Ohio State University in the Division of Surgical Oncology. He is a practicing complex general surgical oncologist with a focus on the treatment of patients with liver, biliary, pancreas and other gastrointestinal malignancies through innovative minimally-invasive robotic surgery techniques. Dr. Ejaz is a health services researcher with efforts focused on assessing and improving the delivery of high value cancer care. Furthermore, he is involved in the development of several clinical trials focused on the multidisciplinary and personalized approach to cancer care.

Jeffrey Farma, MD
Dr. Farma is the Chief-Division of General Surgery at Fox Chase Cancer Center; an Associate Professor of Surgical Oncology; Surgical Director of the Melanoma and Skin Cancer Program; and the Program Director of surgical oncology fellowship at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.  Hi clinical interests include colorectal surgery, GI malignancies, melanoma, and sarcoma.  He is currently involved in clinical trials, outcomes, educational and translational research.

Oluwadamilola Fayanju, MD, MA, MPHS
Dr. Fayanju is an Assistant Professor of Surgery and Population Health Sciences in the Duke University School of Medicine, Associate Director for Disparities & Value in Healthcare with Duke Forge, Surgical Lead for the Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC) clinic in the Duke Cancer Institute, and Director of the Durham VA Breast Clinic. She received her undergraduate degree in History and Science and an MA in Comparative Literature from Harvard. She received her MD and a master of population health sciences (MPHS) from Washington University in St. Louis, where she also completed her residency in General Surgery. She completed fellowship training in Breast Surgical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

She is an academic breast surgeon who conducts health services research focused on addressing disparities in breast cancer outcome and treatment, optimizing management of aggressive breast cancer variants such as IBC, and enhancing the quality and efficiency of breast cancer care delivery using the principles of value-based health care.

In 2019, Fayanju was named an Emerging Leader in Health and Medicine by the National Academy of Medicine and was the recipient of the American College of Surgeons/American Society of Breast Surgeons Health Policy and Management Scholarship. Her research, which has been supported by a Duke CTSA KL2 Career Development Award (CDA) and a K08 CDA from the National Cancer Institute, has previously been recognized with receipt of two Conquer Cancer Merit Awards from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and has been published in a variety of journals including Annals of Surgery, Annals of Surgical Oncology, Cancer, and JAMA Surgery.

Amir Ghaferi, MD, MS
Dr. Ghaferi is an Associate Professor of Surgery and Business at the University of Michigan. He is currently the Surgeon-in-Chief of the University Hospital Operating Rooms and Director of the Michigan Bariatric Surgery Collaborative, a consortium of 40 hospitals and 80 surgeons focused on improving the safety and quality of bariatric surgery. He also served as the Chief of General Surgery and Founding Director of the Bariatric Surgery Program at the Ann Arbor VA Healthcare System. He received his Bachelors degree from UCLA, his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and completed his surgical training at the University of Michigan. Dr. Ghaferi also completed advanced training in health services research and obtained a Masters degree in Health and Healthcare Research from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Ghaferi\\\’s research focuses on understanding the relationship of organizational systems and design to quality and efficiency, with the ultimate goal of designing interventions to improve care locally, regionally, and nationally. Dr. Ghaferi receives research funding from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). His research has been published in prominent journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Medical Care, and Annals of Surgery.

Dr. Ghaferi is an active member of several national societies (Association for Academic Surgery, Society of University Surgeons, AcademyHealth) and serves on, chairs, or co-chairs several national committees. He is currently the President of the Surgical Outcomes Club and Secretary of the Association for Academic Surgery.

Ankush Gosain, MD, PhD, FAAP
Dr. Gosain’s laboratory research focuses on the development of the Enteric Nervous System and Gastrointestinal Mucosal Immune System. The long-term goal of his research is to gain an understanding of the interactions between the Enteric Nervous System and Gastrointestinal Immune System in both development and disease to permit the generation of novel neuro-immunomodulatory therapies that may potentially target a broad range of congenital and acquired pediatric gastrointestinal tract diseases (Hirschsprung disease, Necrotizing Enterocolitis, Intestinal Atresia, Motility Disorders, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, etc.).

Caprice Greenberg, MD, MPH
Caprice Greenberg, MD, MPH is the Morgridge Distinguished Chair of Health Services Research and Professor of Surgery at the Unviersity of Wisconsin. Her research has been funded by PCORI, NCI, AHRQ and numerous foundations.  Dr. Greenberg is a founder and Past President of the Surgical Outcomes Club.  She previously served as Recorder and is a Past-President of the Association for Academic Surgery.

 

Irena Gribovskaja-Rupp, MD
Dr. Gribovskaja-Rupp (Dr. Rupp) is a colon and rectal academic surgeon at University of Iowa.  She completed general surgery residency at Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, WI.  She obtained colon and rectal surgery fellowship training at University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, MN. Her practice includes advanced laparoscopy, robotics, open techniques, endoscopy, and anorectal surgery.  She is board certified Fellow of American College of Surgeons and the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgery.  Her interests lie in the prevention of surgical infection and outcomes research, as well as translational research in the area of surgical infection and anal fistula.  She is the institutional leader for enhanced recovery protocols for colorectal surgery.  She had received the institutional Excellence in Quality Award in 2018, among only five other physicians.  Her research interests lie in the database and outcomes research, including NSQIP and NCDB database.  Past and current areas of research have involved opioid use after elective colorectal surgery, access to diagnosis, staging, and multidisciplinary care for rural patients with rectal cancer, ileus prevention, and sphincter preservation in patients with low rectal cancer.

Adil Haider, MD, MPH
On Jan 1, 2019 Dr. Haider assumed office as the Dean of the Medical College of the Aga Khan University (AKU) in Karachi, Pakistan. He also has a part time appointment as Director of Disparities and Emerging Trauma Systems in the Department of Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

As Dean he leads the faculty of the first Joint Commission accredited healthcare institution in the country. AKU is routinely ranked #1 in the region. It is responsible for more than 80% of Biomedical research and an economic impact of 1 Billion USD in Pakistan. He is the Deputy Editor of JAMA Surgery and holds numerous leadership positions in national and international surgical organizations and colleges. Dr. Haider is credited with uncovering racial disparities after traumatic injury in the United States and establishing the field of trauma disparities research.

He is regarded as one of the foremost experts on healthcare inequities in the world, with projects focused on describing and mitigating unequal outcomes based on gender, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age and socioeconomic status. His other research focuses on long-term clinical and functional outcomes after trauma and optimal treatment of trauma/critically ill patients in resource-poor settings. He has formally mentored more than 100 research trainees, published more than 300 peer reviewed papers and currently serves as Principal Investigator (PI) on extramural grants worth more than twelve million dollars. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2017 Ellis Island Medal of Honor. Dr. Haider believes that equality is the cornerstone of medicine, and his professional goal is to eradicate disparities in healthcare around the globe.

Tasha Hughes, MD, MPH
Tasha Hughes, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of Surgical Oncology in the Department of Surgery at the University of Michigan Hospital. She completed her undergraduate education at the University of California, Berkeley followed by an MPH at Brown University, with a focus on cancer epidemiology and biostatistics. After her master’s work, she completed her medical degree at Rush Medical College in Chicago, IL, a residency in general surgery at Rush University Medical Center and a clinical fellowship in Complex General Surgical Oncology at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. Dr. Hughes’ current research interests include cancer disparities, the effect of obesity on clinical decision making and physician bias in health care decision making. Her clinical practice is focused on general surgical oncology, with a specific interest in breast cancer as well as melanoma and other cutaneous malignancies.

Angela Ingraham, MD, MS
Dr. Ingraham is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Wisconsin and an Investigator in the Wisconsin Surgical Outcomes Research (WiSOR) Program. Prior to coming to UW, she completed a two-year research fellowship during her general surgery residency through the American College of Surgeons Clinical Scholars in Residence Program and a Master of Science in Clinical Investigation at Northwestern University. She continued her research during her two-year fellowship in Acute Care Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research focuses on studying interhospital transfers of emergency general surgery patients and is funded by an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Career Development Award.

Fabian Johnston, MD, MHS
Fabian Johnston MD MHS is an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery and Division of Surgical Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the Program Director for the Complex General Surgical Oncology Program and Director of the Peritoneal Surface Malignancy Program.  His research interest include both education and implementation and dissemination of best models of care in palliative care. Dr. Johnston earned his medical degree from the Pennsylvania State College of Medicine. He began is surgical training at Louisiana State University in New Orleans and completed general surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, followed by fellowship in surgical oncology at the Johns Hopkins University and a master\’\’s degree in Clinical Investigations from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Eugene Kim, MD
Dr. Eugene Kim is Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Surgery and Division of Hematology, Oncology, Blood and Marrow Transplantation at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles, California.  Dr. Kim has clinical expertise in pediatric surgical oncology, the management of chest wall deformities and anorectal malformations.  Dr. Kim is the principal investigator of a basic science laboratory focused on novel preclinical therapeutics for the aggressive childhood malignancy, neuroblastoma.  His research interests are focused on the mechanisms and pathways responsible for recurrent metastatic disease, the primary cause of death in children with high-risk neuroblastoma.

Brenessa Lindeman, MD, MEHP
Brenessa Lindeman, MD, MEHP, is an Assistant Professor of Surgery and Associate Designated Institutional Official for the Clinical Learning Environment at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. A native of eastern Kentucky, she completed her undergraduate training summa cum laude at the University of Louisville and was the Founder\’s Medalist at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.  She completed residency training in General Surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she served as an Administrative Chief Resident, and completed a fellowship in Endocrine Surgery at Brigham and Women\’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School.  Brenessa earned a Masters of Education in the Health Professions from Johns Hopkins University and completed Surgical Education Research Fellowships with the Association for Surgical Education and Massachusetts General Hospital.  She served as a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Core EPAs for Entering Residency Drafting Panel as well as the Resident Member of the AAMC Board of Directors from 2012-2016 and has worked with the American Board of Surgery to define EPAs for General Surgery.  Her research interests are in development and assessment of competency in surgical trainees, resident supervision and autonomy, and evaluation of the learning climate/physician wellness as an academic surgeon.

Kristin Long, MD, MPH
Dr. Long is an Assistant Professor in the Department of General Surgery, Section of Endocrine Surgery, at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison, Wisconsin. Her clinical practice involves treating patients with diseases of the thyroid, parathyroid or adrenal glands. In addition to clinical research within endocrine surgery she focuses on global surgical outreach, operating in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and working to improve surgical education in low-resource settings. Within the AAS, she serves as a member of the Global Affairs Committee

Carrie Lubitz, MD, MPH
Carrie C. Lubitz, MD, MPH, is an Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, Endocrine Surgeon in the Division of Surgical Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a Senior Scientist at the MGH Institute of Technology Assessment. In addition to her clinical practice, Dr. Lubitz has health-service and translational research interests including decision-analytic modeling to assess the comparative effectiveness and improve the quality of care of patients with endocrine-related disorders, with a focus on thyroid cancer. She has served as the Chair of the Clinical & Health Services Research Committee and is currently the Recorder.

Stephanie Lumpkin, MD
Dr. Stephanie T Lumpkin is a sixth year general surgery resident at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow. Her research is funded by both the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons General Surgery Resident Research Initiation Grant and the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality F32 Postdoctoral Fellowship. Her primary research is a mixed methods study examining postdischarge healthcare utilization after colorectal surgery. Additionally, Dr. Lumpkin enjoys hiking, healthy cooking, and traveling with her husband – Jon, and two children, Madeline (10 months) and Hadley (2 years).

Rebecca Maine, MD, MPH
Dr. Maine is an assistant professor who recently joined the University of Washington faculty at Harborview medical center, in the division of trauma. She was previously at the University of North Carolina. Dr. Maine completed her medical training at the University of California San Francisco. It was there, as a medical student, that she became interested in the field of global surgery. She spent one year in Ecuador studying the outcomes of children treated on cleft palate missions where the disparities in surgical outcomes she found motivated her academic career. She completed her general surgery residency at UCSF and her surgical critical care fellowship at the University of Washington. During residency, she was a Paul Farmer Global Surgery Fellow, completing her MPH and spending one year in Rwanda. Her research during her fellowship in Rwanda focused on surgical systems, safety and quality, and delays to treatment. Most recently she has studied delays to trauma and surgical care in Malawi, with a focus on the role of district hospitals in the surgical and trauma systems.

Grace Mak, MD
Dr. Grace Mak is Associate Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics, and currently practices pediatric surgery at The University of Chicago Comer Children‘s Hospital in Chicago, Illinois.  She is the Pediatric Surgery fellowship Program Director as well as the Team Education Coordinator for the pediatric surgery rotation for the general surgery residents. She has played an active role in the changing curriculum and education development for pediatric surgery fellows.  Her clinical interests include surgical oncology, HIPEC, anorectal malformations, and median arcuate ligament syndrome (MALS).  She completed her general surgery residency at The University of Cincinnati and pediatric surgery fellowship at The University of Chicago.

Troy Markel, MD
Dr. Troy Markel is an Associate Professor of Surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine and a pediatric surgeon at Riley Hospital for Children In Indianapolis, Indiana.  He has an active clinical practice as well as clinical and basic science research interests.  His laboratory focuses on novel therapies for intestinal ischemia and necrotizing enterocolitis, with primary focus on stem cell therapy for the treatment of these disorders.

 

Nader Massarweh, MD, MPH
Dr Massarweh is an Associate Professor of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine with a Surgical Oncology practice at the Michael E DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston, TX.  His training included a health services research fellowship at the Surgical Outcomes Research Center in the University of Washington Department of Surgery and an MPH in Epidemiology from the School of Public Health at the University of Washington.  His research interests include the quality of oncologic and surgical care, evaluating existing and proposed quality measures, and finding ways to improve the manner in which performance data are fed back to hospitals.  He has been PI of an AHRQ R03 and is currently PI of a VA HSR&D Merit Award.  He has been a member of the Association for Academic Surgery since 2008, has previously served on the Committee for Academic Advancement, the Leadership Committee, and is currently a member of the Clinical and Health Services Research Committee.

Alexandria McDow, MD
Alexandria D. McDow, MD is an Assistant Professor of Surgery in the Department of Surgery, Division of Surgical Oncology, Section of Endocrine Surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her clinical interests include thyroid, parathyroid, and adrenal endocrinopathies. Her research focuses on health care disparities and provider decision-making in patients with thyroid disease both in the United States and in low and middle-income countries. She currently serves on the AAS Global Affair Committee.

Ryan Merkow, MD, MS
Dr. Ryan Merkow is a board certified surgical oncologist and health services researcher at Northwestern University in Chicago. He completed his surgical residency at the University of Chicago and fellowship training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. His clinical practice focuses on upper gastrointestinal malignancies and regional cancer therapies. He received formal health services research training at the American College of Surgeons as a Clinical Scholar in Residence and completed a Master’s in Health Services and Outcomes Research in the Center for Healthcare Studies at Northwestern University. He is currently on faculty in the Surgical Outcomes and Quality Improvement Center (SOQIC) at Northwestern University with a focus on perioperative surgical quality, cancer care quality measure development, and patient reported outcomes.

Hari Nathan, MD, PhD
Dr. Hari Nathan is an Assistant Professor of Surgery in the Division of Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Surgery at the University of Michigan. Dr. Nathan completed both his undergraduate and medical education with honors at The Johns Hopkins University. He also completed advanced training in health services research and was awarded a PhD from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Nathan completed his clinical residency training in general surgery at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. He subsequently completed a clinical fellowship in complex general surgical oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he also served as the Chief Administrative Fellow in Surgery. He joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in 2014. His clinical focus includes the multi-disciplinary treatment of tumors of the liver, bile duct, pancreas, and stomach.

Dr. Nathan’s health services research portfolio focuses on variation in the cost and quality of surgical care. He has been awarded a K08 career development award from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to study the impact of accountable care organizations (ACOs) on the costs and quality of surgical care. Additionally, he is a co-investigator on a R01 focused on evaluating the impact of Medicare payment policy innovations on surgical care. More recently, his research has included assessments of surgical quality and costs within hospital networks. He is also interested in the quality of cancer surgery and prediction of prognosis after cancer resection. He was awarded the 2018 American College of Surgeons Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson II Promising Investigator Award.

Timothy Pawlik, MD, PhD, MPH
Dr. Pawlik received his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and his medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Pawlik completed surgical training at the University of Michigan Hospital and spent two years at the Massachusetts General Hospital as a surgical oncology research fellow. He then went on for advanced training in surgical oncology at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Dr. Pawlik’s main clinical interests include alimentary tract surgery, with a special interest in hepatic, pancreatic and biliary diseases. Dr. Pawlik also has an interest in medical ethics and completed a fellowship in medical ethics at the Harvard School of Public Health as well as a Masters in Theology from Harvard Divinity School in Boston. In addition, Dr. Pawlik was the recipient of a Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) KL2 Research Scholar Award and received a PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Clinical Investigations.

Dr. Pawlik took his first faculty appointment at Johns Hopkins in 2005, where he was Professor of Surgery and Oncology, as well as the John L. Cameron Chair of Alimentary Tract Diseases and the Chief of the Division of Surgical Oncology until 2016.  Dr. Pawlik currently is the Chair of Surgery at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center where he holds The Urban Meyer III and Shelley Meyer Chair for Cancer Research.  Dr. Pawlik also serves as the Treasurer / Secretary of The Ohio State University Practice Plan. Dr. Pawlik has given over 450 invited talks both nationally and internationally in 28 different countries. Dr. Pawlik has published over 1,000 articles and 90 book chapters, in addition to editing eight surgical textbooks.  His research has been cited over 35,000 times with an H-index of 98. Dr. Pawlik serves on multiple editorial boards and is Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Deputy Editor of JAMA Surgery, as well as an Associate Editor for Annals of Surgical Oncology. Dr. Pawlik has served on the executive council of several of the premier surgical associations in the United States. Dr. Pawlik is a member of multiple surgical societies including the Society of Surgical Oncology, Society of Surgery of the Alimentary Tract, American Surgical Association, Halsted Society, and Society of Clinical Surgery. Dr. Pawlik is a past-President of the Association for Academic Surgery, as well as the current President-elect of the Americas Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association.  Dr. Pawlik’s international contributions have been recognized through his honorary memberships in the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, Brazilian Society of Surgical Oncology, as well as the Society of General Surgeons of Perú. Dr. Pawlik’s research focuses on determinations of factors associated with prognosis and staging of gastrointestinal cancers, as well as the economics of cancer care. He also studies patient/physician communication and patient engagement, as well as patient perception of cancer-care goals.  Dr. Pawlik has consistently been recognized by Castle Connolly as one of America’s “Top Docs.”

Susan Pitt, MD, MPHS
Susan C. Pitt, MD, MPHS, is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Endocrine Surgery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Dr. Pitt is a health services researcher in the Wisconsin Surgical Outcomes Research (WiSOR) program. Her research is funded by the National Cancer Institute and focuses on reducing over-treatment in patients with low-risk thyroid cancer. Dr. Pitt received her Bachelors of Arts degree from Boston College and medical degree from the Medical College of Wisconsin. She finished her general surgery residency at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine where she was an Administrative Chief Resident.  She has a Masters degree in Population Health Science and completed an Endocrine Surgery fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Christina Roland, MD, MS
Dr. Christina Roland is the Chief of Sarcoma Surgery, Assistant Professor of Surgical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, with expertise in the multimodality treatment of soft tissue sarcoma. Her primary research focus is focused on novel clinical trial design to improve multimodality treatment of soft tissue sarcoma. She currently serves as the 2014 Class Representative on the AAS Executive Council.

 

David Schneider, MD, MS
Dr. David (Dave) Schneider is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery.  As a fellowship-trained Endocrine Surgeon, his clinical practice focuses on the surgical treatment of thyroid, parathyroid, and adrenal diseases. He conducts health services research within the Department of Surgery’s Wisconsin Institute for Surgical Outcomes Research (WiSOR) Program.  As a junior faculty member, he was a scholar in the KL2 program, where his research focused on clinical informatics. His funded research investigates the optimization and personalization of care for patients with endocrine diseases.  Specifically, his work utilizes machine learning and natural language processing for improved clinical decision support. Additionally, he serves as one of the UW Health Physician Informaticists, working to leverage the electronic health record (HER) in support of improving quality, improving clinical decision-making, and developing analytics tools to extract data for research and operational efficiency.

Schneider earned his medical degree and masters in clinical research methods at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. He completed his general surgery residency and research fellowship at Loyola University Medical Center, and his Endocrine Surgery fellowship at UW Health.  He holds dual board certification in Surgery and Clinical Informatics.  Dr. Schneider is active in several national and international surgical societies. He currently serves as the Chair of the Collaborative Endocrine Surgery Quality Improvement Program (CESQIP), a national dataset for quality improvement and research.  He is a long-standing Editorial Board Member for the Journal of Surgical Research.

Dorry Segev, MD, PhD
Dorry Segev, MD, PhD, is the Marjory K. and Thomas Pozefsky Professor of Surgery and Epidemiology and Associate Vice Chair of Surgery at Johns Hopkins University. He is the founder and director of the Epidemiology Research Group in Organ Transplantation (ERGOT), the largest and most prolific group of its kind in the world. Dr. Segev was the first to demonstrate the survival benefit of incompatible kidney transplantation across the United States, and is responsible for the first HIV-to-HIV transplants in the United States. His NIH-funded research includes kidney exchange, desensitization, long-term donor risk, access to transplantation, expanding transplantation including HIV+ donors, geographic disparities, post-transplant outcomes, and the intersection between transplantation and gerontology. With a graduate degree in biostatistics, Dr. Segev focuses on novel statistical and mathematical methods for simulation of medical data, analysis of large healthcare datasets, and outcomes research.  Dr. Segev has published over 400 peer-reviewed research articles, including 15 in JAMA, NEJM, and Lancet and over 150 in the American Journal of Transplantation. Reflecting this publication track record, he was recently awarded the American Society of Transplantation\’s Clinical Science Investigator Award. He is a current councilor of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and former chair of the American Transplant Congress. His work has directly influenced policy, including two Congressional bills (the Norwood Act for kidney exchange and the HOPE Act for HIV-to-HIV transplants), and is regularly featured in widely read media including TIME magazine, Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times.  Dr. Segev is most inspired by his role as a mentor, having mentored over 100 graduate students, residents, and faculty, and is the only general surgeon in the US funded by an NIH/NIDDK Mentoring Grant.

Rebecca Snyder, MD, MPH
Dr. Rebecca A. Snyder is an Assistant Professor of Surgery and Public Health at East Carolina University Brody School of Medicine. She is a surgical oncologist with a clinical focus on hepatobiliary and pancreas surgery.  Her primary research interest is in cancer care delivery research, specifically addressing racial and rural disparities in cancer treatment and outcomes.

 

Meredith Sorensen, MD, MS
Meredith J. Sorensen, MD is an endocrine surgeon and an assistant professor of surgery at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.  She is the surgery clerkship co-director at Geisel Medical School at Dartmouth.  She has a master\’s degree in science and medical journalism.  Her research interests involve public perceptions of the surgical experience, including involvement of surgical trainees.

 

Jose Trevino, MD
Jose Trevino is currently an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Florida-Gainesville, Department of Surgery.  His clinical practice includes surgery for benign and malignant Diseases of the liver, pancreas, bile duct.  He has a strong interest in basic science/translational research in pancreatic cancer with an emphasis on studies including the pancreatic tumor microenvironment and its contribution to tumor progression and chemoresistance.

Selwyn Vickers, MD
Dr. Vickers is Senior Vice President of Medicine and Dean of the University of Alabama School of Medicine, one of the ten largest public academic medical centers and the third largest public hospital in the USA. He is a world-renowned surgeon, pancreatic cancer researcher, and pioneer in health disparities research. His major research interests include: gene therapy as an application in the treatment of pancreatobiliary tumors, the role of growth factors and receptors in the oncogenesis of pancreatic cancer, the implications of FAS expressions and Tamoxifen in the growth and treatment of cholangiocarcinoma, assessment of clinical outcomes in the surgical treatment of pancreatobiliary tumors, and the role of death receptors in the treatment of pancreatic cancer. Dr. Vickers is a member of over 21 professional societies with leadership roles in many, including the National Academy of Medicine and the American Surgical Association. He has served as president of the Society of Black Academic Surgeons, the Southern Surgical Association, and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract.

Syed Nabeel Zafar, MBBS, MPH
Dr. Zafar is a current Surgical Oncology fellow at the MD Anderson Cancer Center.  He completed his medical degree from the Aga Khan University, a Masters in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health, a general surgery residency from Howard University and a MIS fellowship from the University of Maryland. Dr. Zafar has been a member of many professional societies and has been actively engaged in health services research and global surgery research for several years.  Dr. Zafar has published over 75 peer reviewed articles, with over 40 national and international presentations, and seven book chapters. His research has focused on improving surgical outcomes with particular attention to national and international disparities in surgical care. He is actively involved in several academic global surgery initiative and is passionate about improving the access to and quality of surgery, especially cancer surgery, in low resource settings..