Alumni Award Recipients

Dr. Feldman is a nationally recognized leader in cardio-oncology, serving as Director of the Cardio-Oncology Program at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Feldman completed her internal medicine residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School, cardiology fellowship at Boston Medical Center/Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, and cardio-oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. After completing training, she founded and led the Cardio-Oncology and Cardiac Amyloidosis Programs at University Hospital/ Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.

Dr. Feldman’s work focuses on improving the cardiovascular care of patients with cancer before, during and after treatment. She is passionate about education in cardio-oncology and has developed curricula for cardiology fellows, has been featured on the CardioNerds podcast (cardio-oncology series: training and future directions), and serves as co-director for the International Cardio-Oncology Society’s Education and Training Advisory Committee. Her clinical research focuses on cardiovascular risk assessment in patients being treated with potentially cardiotoxic cancer therapies such as trastuzumab, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, as well as assessing risk for arterial thromboembolism in patients with cancer.

Throughout her career, Dr. Feldman has been recognized for her outstanding achievements. While at Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine she received the Class of 1991 William F McNary Jr. Scholarship as well as the Medical Student Prize. She was a finalist for the American Heart Association’s Laennec Young Clinician Award and received the prestigious Elmer Hinton Award for outstanding physician-patient relations at Beth Isreal Deaconess Medical Center. She was also named a Future Leader of Nuclear Cardiology by the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology and nominated for the Golden Apple Teaching Award by the students at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.

Dr. Nichter, Professor of Plastic Surgery, is a globally recognized plastic surgeon and the founder of Mission Plasticos, a non-profit organization dedicated to building reconstructive surgical capacity in underserved regions. With extensive training in Hand and Microsurgery, Burn Surgery, and Maxillo-Craniofacial Surgery, Dr. Nichter has trained hundreds of surgeons. His work spans more than 30 years on more than 110 missions, including pioneering surgical initiatives in places such as Nepal, Kenya, Bhutan, and Ecuador.

In 1987, he started volunteering abroad, realizing the need for long-term capacity building rather than temporary relief. This led to the founding of Mission Plasticos, which focuses on empowering local surgeons and medical teams to continue life-changing work after missions. Through this initiative, Dr. Nichter has trained and mentored countless medical professionals, helping to expand surgical expertise globally.

His innovative approach also addresses critical gaps in healthcare, such as acute burn care, post-mastectomy reconstruction, and medical equipment repair. Notably, his team was instrumental in developing the first Burn Center of Excellence in Nepal and training programs for burn care and breast reconstruction in underserved regions worldwide. Through Mission Plasticos, Dr. Nichter created a Bioengineer training program to build capacity and sustainability through the maintenance and repair of medical equipment.

Dr. Nichter’s work has garnered international recognition, including an Academy Award for a documentary, “ A Story of Healing”, about his mission in Vietnam. His efforts also extend to domestic programs, with the creation of Reshaping Lives America, which provides no-cost reconstructive surgery to children and adults who are uninsured or underinsured in the U.S.

For his lifelong dedication to healthcare access and his innovative capacity-building work, Dr. Nichter was honored by the Dalai Lama in 2022 and received the American Society for Plastic Surgery Noordhoff Humanitarian Award in 2024.

Dr. Haskal is a professor of radiology and medical imaging at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He is a globally recognized interventional radiologist whose groundbreaking research and innovations have transformed daily medical practice.

His clinical research has spanned human gene therapy, portal hypertension, hemodialysis access, embolotherapy, venous thromboembolic disease, uterine fibroid and prostatic artery embolization, radiation safety and many other aspects of interventional radiology. He developed the expanded Polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) stent graft used in transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunts worldwide; his research was first to define ePTFE stent grafts as superior tools in maintaining dialysis access grafts and fistulae. He first reported the increased risks of cataract risks associated with occupational radiation exposure. He is the current national principal investigator of a multicenter U.S. trial to evaluate genicular artery embolization (GAE) with resorbable agents, a promising interventional radiologic treatment to treat painful knee osteoarthritis.

Dr. Haskal is an innovative and committed mentor and educator who has given more than 700 invited lectures worldwide and received medals, awards, and fellowships from multiple societies, including the Society for Interventional Radiology Gold Medal and Innovator Awards, delivered the prestigious Dotter Lectures at both SIR and AHA, and served as president of two societies. He has founded, led, or designed many national and international scientific congresses, and mentored hundreds of trainees; his ‘Editor’s Writing Club’ seminars have reached more than 1000 attendees worldwide.

Dr. Haskal has served as Editor of three journals, including two terms as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology (JVIR) where he tripled submissions, expanded content, and pioneered social media and virtual reality content. He has authored nearly 450 manuscripts, abstracts, chapters, books, letters, and editorials in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Human Gene Therapy, Circulation, Hepatology, Radiology, CVIR, AJR, and JVIR. His publications have been cited at least 19,000 times.