December 2023 Faculty Appointments and Promotions to Professor
Congratulations to the following Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine faculty on their recent appointment or promotion to professor, clinical professor or research professor.
Professor
Tara L. Moore, PhD, Anatomy & Neurobiology, studies cognitive ageing and cortical brain injury using non-human primate models. Her studies have contributed significantly to the understanding of the neurobiological basis of higher cognitive function and the effects of age, hypertension and injury on the brain and the assessment of therapeutics to reverse these effects. Dr. Moore also has made significant contributions to the teaching and training missions of the school by creating and developing two successful master’s programs – the Biomedical Forensic Sciences Program in 2006, for which she served as associate director for three years, and the MS in Forensic Anthropology in 2008, for which she has served as director since its inception. Both internationally recognized programs have produced hundreds of practicing forensic scientists and anthropologists now working throughout the country and around the world. A mentor to PhD and master’s students, she is a highly sought-after senior scientific advisor. In addition, she serves on many university committees critical to supporting research, including the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, Animal Research Advisory Committee, Academic Policy Committee, LCME Faculty Standards Subcommittee and the Master’s Programs Steering Committee, among others.
Elisha Wachman, MD, Pediatrics, is a physician-scientist and vice chair of research in the department of pediatrics who focuses on Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome (NOWS) and substance use disorders (SUDs) in pregnancy. Her research has transformed the clinical care model for NOWS through the development of novel assessment and treatment approaches, including the revision of national breastfeeding guidelines for those with SUDs, development of optimal non-pharmacologic care bundles for infants with NOWS, development of the Eat, Sleep, Console (ESC) NOWS assessment tool, and pioneering the novel “as needed” methadone treatment approach for NOWS. Dr. Wachman helped to lead changes in NOWS care practices across multiple statewide perinatal quality improvement collaborates, resulting in profound improvements in inpatient outcomes for infants with NOWS not only at Boston Medical Center but across the country and internationally. She is currently the principal investigator on multiple NIH and foundation grants related to NOWS and SUDs in pregnancy.
Clinical Professor
Robert Lowe, MD, Medicine/Gastroenterology, is a clinician-educator who has received numerous prestigious teaching awards, including almost every education award given by the medical school, as well as the university’s Metcalf Prize for Excellence in Teaching. He is considered to be a ‘go-to’ expert for primary care providers and other physicians when faced with complex liver or gastrointestinal diagnoses, as well as a deft provider in hospital-based internal medicine. He serves as a core faculty member in the Internal Medicine Residency and the GI Fellowship programs at Boston Medical Center, and is a member of the Clinical Competency Committee for both training programs. He is also the director of the Medical Educator Pathway, designed for internal medicine residents considering a career in medical education. Recently named assistant dean of medical education for clinical integration, Dr. Lowe has been a member of the Curriculum Redesign Committee and serves as co-chair of the Gastroenterology/Nutrition course and the Advanced Integration course in the new MD program curriculum. He is a member of the school’s Academy of Medical Educators and teaches in the Doctoring courses, in addition to serving as advisor to numerous medical students each year.
Research Professor
Frank Weathers, PhD, Psychiatry, specializes in the assessment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its associated conditions as well as trauma exposure. Based at the National Center for PTSD-Behavioral Science Division at VA Boston Healthcare, he has led the development, and subsequent revisions, of the two most widely used instruments for assessing PTSD, namely the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist (PCL) and Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS). Both instruments have been used in thousands of PTSD studies and are the recommended measures that clinicians who treat PTSD patients use in their clinical practice to determine PTSD diagnostic status and track treatment progress and outcomes. His research centers on the development and psychometric evaluation of questionnaire and interview measures of trauma exposure and PTSD. Dr. Weathers’ research also has provided valuable information about the structure and function of posttraumatic psychopathology. This has resulted in a better understanding of how PTSD symptoms are clustered, which influenced the structure of the DSM-5 PTSD diagnostic criteria, and how the various symptom clusters are differentially related to important outcomes such as suicidality.